Limerence (camren)

CHAPTER NINE

Lauren took steady breaths as Dinah's truck pulled up at Lauren's house.

With each breath she took she could already feel her mother's breath on her face. She could almost hear her mother's disapproval already. With each bump in the road she could feel the blows. Mental blows, physical blows. No matter how this would end, the blows would come.

Lauren was scared. Scared for what her mother would do once she found out Lauren played baseball. Scared of her reaction to this.

Her eyes searched for Camila's for reassurance, support, whatever she would find in those everlasting brown pools of hers.

She found that, and so much more. Camila nodded to her with a slight smile, making Lauren's stomach flutter undeniably and unstoppable.

Camila's eyes had already been searching her face, just like Lauren had caught them doing so often in the past years.

Was she really doing this? Undermining her mother's authority? Making friends? Living?

Of course she had done it before, but those times were unknown to her mother. Now her mother would be fully aware of what Lauren was doing and that did scare her.

Lauren's eyes snapped to her house. It seemed so beautiful and peaceful from the outside. The mowed lawn, the welcome mat, the flowers and the cut bushes, everything indicated that a happy family was living in this house.

How could something so beautiful be so terribly rotten on the inside?

Lauren often wondered if it was just them, or if some of the other houses in the suburb were just as rotten as they were beneath the surface?

Lauren lifted her gaze to the other side of the road, where Camila's house stood. There were random flowers everywhere. A swinging rope lay in the grass and a path led to a treehouse. The grass wasn't mowed like it was in Lauren's garden. In front of the window hung a drawing. Presumably from Camila's younger sister Sofia. Some of the painting on the walls of the house was slightly scaled off. But none of this mattered. It was not perfect and that was exactly what Lauren loved about the house.

Imperfections are what happiness really is, because nothing is ever completely perfect.

She felt a small hand on her thigh.

''You know, you don't have to do this.'' Camila said with a serious expression. ''If you don't want to...''

''I want to do this Camila. I have to do this.'' Lauren said, her voice smaller than she liked to admit.

''Ok then, together?'' Camila asked. And Lauren nodded.

''So I convinced Lauren to come and watch the game. Normani repeated.  ''Then I asked her to have some dinner at my place. Alright? Everybody got the story?''

Lauren frowned. ''But we're not going to your place right?''

Normani rolled her eyes. ''No of course we're not, but she doesn't need to know that, now does she?''

Dinah shut off the engine of the car and the girls silently got out.

"It'll be alright Lauren." Dinah reassured her as she fiddled with her cross necklace.

Lauren nodded eventhough she was clearly still not assured. Well none of them had ever met her mother, except for Camila. And by the way Camila was biting her lip, something that kept distracting Lauren, even she seemed a bit scared.

Normani took the lead and knocked on the door softly. Lauren's heart beat in her throat as she heard footsteps approaching the front door.

The clicks of her mother unlocking the door sounded and her mother appeared in the door opening. Her eyes narrowed at the group of girls in front of her.