Play Practice (Camren)

Part 1

Fifteen. That's how old Camila is when she likes a girl for the first time. Ironically enough, it's her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. A freshman. She's just a freshman when she stays up all night thinking about her silky brown hair and thick eyelashes. Just fifteen when she distracts herself in class by thinking about the girl's full lips kissing her inner thighs.

That ends as quickly as it starts, Camila breaking up with her boyfriend and severing all ties to him and his ex. She hardly remembers her name. She assumes that the crush was a weird phase, an attempt to make her feel something. She was pretty sad that year, anyway.

At sixteen, she gets another boyfriend. They become friends, text every day, go to the movies the summer before sophomore year. He kisses her, and she's too weirded out and shocked to reject him. He assumes they're dating, so they do.

They stay together for over a year. It's okay in the beginning, but then it gets more serious than any of her past relationships have gotten. They make out for the first time while watching a movie in his backroom. Camila can't get over how slimy it is and how he tried to hide his erection when she straddled him.

They have sex for the first time about four months into the relationship. Camila hates it; she hates rolling the condom on for him, she hates being underneath him, and she hates how she didn't enjoy it all. She hates that she thought of a random girl in her math class to distract her. She hates that fantasizing about a stranger is more enjoyable than being with a boy she'd known for months.

So sophomore year is also a sad year.

The next summer, before junior year, Camila is seventeen. She's stopped initiating anything with her boyfriend. He notices, but instead of asking what's wrong, he just tries to initiate something twice as much as he did before. She pushes him away every time, blaming it on her period. In reality, she just really wanted a girlfriend.

One day, she receives a text from him. I don't know if we can be together anymore.

She sighs, and receives another text before she can type up a reply. I started talking to somebody else.

It doesn't hurt until she reads the second text. For some reason, getting left for someone else hurts just as much as getting dumped by someone you love, no matter who it is. Maybe that's Camila's pride talking, but it hurts nonetheless. More than she thought it would.

A few weeks later, she's at a Selena Gomez concert and realizes how much she fucking likes girls. Suddenly, she's over her ex.

A week before junior year starts, Camila comes out to Dinah, her best friend.

"I don't know what I am," she tells her the truth. "But I've been attracted to girls for a few years now."

"Oh," Dinah nods. "I guess that explains the lesbian porn on your tumblr."

Camila shoves her, laughing. There isn't any lesbian porn on her tumblr.

Dinah hugs her. "I don't care what you are. Literally all of my theatre friends are gay, or... something. I'm very LGBT oriented," she says proudly.

Camila cries because she's so relieved and Dinah is so amazing.

After telling Dinah, things are a little easier. It's junior year now, and Camila is happier just because she's one step closer to being herself.

-

"If Lauren texts me one more time about rehearsal, I swear to God," Dinah sets her phone on the lunch table, one finger pressed to her temple.

"So dramatic," Camila teases, snacking on potato chips. "You can't really blame her for being up your ass. You've only gone to, like, five rehearsals in the past two months."