Even If You Cross My Mind » CAMREN

Chapter 02 - In the Dark

Our Orlando show came and went in a blur. After Camila burst into tears and stormed off stage mid-song and I chased after her, we were both strongly persuaded by management to carry on with the rest of the set with smiles on our faces. By 'persuaded', I really mean barraged with all kinds of legal jargon regarding our contracts and guilt-tripped for abandoning our fans and fellow bandmates. By 'with smiles on our faces', I mean Camila and I avoided each other on stage as much as humanly possible, and the other three girls overcompensated in energy, making sure there were no rifts. I felt like such an asshole for all of it, and even though the other girls were gentle with me, I knew I didn't deserve it. I was grateful to have good friends who were understanding and wouldn't hold this against me, as much as I was beating myself up over it. Tensions were so unbelievably high. You could read the fatigue on our faces and hear it in our voices.

We'd already been going through over a year of "Camren" bullshit and it was getting under my skin the entire time. I always heard stuff from the girls, my siblings, and even fans like "don't let it get to you, it's just talk" and "just shrug it off - it doesn't mean anything" but I didn't know how to let it go. I found myself firing off hostile rants on my Tumblr and back-sassing Camren shippers on Twitter, and immediately feeling guilty, remorseful, and just plain stupid for it afterwards. But for the life of me, I couldn't help myself. Maybe I wasn't as strong as Camila was. Maybe I have an aggressive streak when it comes to adversity. I don't know. Camila, our management team, and I had finally gotten to a place where we created enough distance between us and things appeared to be platonic again, much to our fans' frustration. We always had people in our team distributing warnings - whether subtle or blatant - about jeopardizing the group dynamic, making things unfair or uncomfortable for our bandmates, being hasty to visit 'the sexuality issue' and making statements with 'irreversible consequences at a vulnerable turning point for our careers'. Of course, all of this was information overload and left me and Camila feeling very guilty and, well... shitty.

We were basically being reminded that it was purely selfish and reckless to cause rifts when we're trying to sell albums, sell out tours, and make a second album with an even larger expectation for success. The criticism and dissuasion was just fucking unrelenting, and it got to the point where I was paranoid and plain exhausted. I was so over it. I was over the fan comments, I was over my parents being uncomfortable and awkward about it, I was tired of my bandmates dodging bullets for me. If there are two things I hate being, it's insecure and at anybody's mercy. I would've done just about anything to make it stop so we could all have successful, stable, drama-free careers. I'd spent so much time in my head over the matter that I never stopped to see what my heart wanted me to do. All I could hear was Camila's panicked, whimpering voice stinging in my brain:

"We're about to walk into a shitstorm, which is EXACTLY what you've been trying to dodge for the past 10 months - at the expense of hurting me."

The shitty part is that it was duck and dodge from the beginning. We had that paranoia instilled in us from The X Factor days when people started dissecting our every move and interaction. And it only got worse as we got older and more mature. Maybe Camila wasn't paranoid to begin with, but I certainly was, and I see how that rubbed off on her over time. Whether speculations are accurate or not, you start to panic under the microscope.

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There was a defining moment in my relationship with Camila towards the end of our X Factor journey, and we never, ever talked about it. People had already been making comments about our closeness and while it was scary to deal with, I also knew how she made my head swim every time she was around. I remember how she so effortlessly pulled me, like she was the moon. I was always more affectionate with my friends, so it wasn't that I was giving her special affection. It wasn't even that she was the same way as me. The truth doesn't lie in the common ground - not at all. It lives within the feelings and the attachment that develops when you absorb special moments and emotions the same exact way. It's the only way I can explain it.