FATED | camren

2

Lauren meets Camila on a bright summer day when they are five year olds on a playground a few blocks from her house.

Lauren is sitting in the middle of the sandpit, sand all over her pretty purple dress and in her tiny pigtails but she doesn't care because she's in the middle of building a whole city of sandcastles. She's been at it for a while now and luckily, she's had the sandpit to herself so she hasn't been interrupted by anyone.

Her father is sitting a few feet away, face hidden away behind the newspaper he's deeply engrossed in. Which is probably why he doesn't see a couple of seven-year-old boys join his little girl in the sandpit.

Lauren looks at them and wriggles her nose a little dismayed because she's making sandcastles and she doesn't want them to be ruined by anyone. The little boys look at her creations and they don't look half as impressed as they should.

"What are you doing?" one of them asks, or sniffles, he has a runny nose and Lauren knows that she'll have a runny nose too if he comes to close. She leans a little away.

"I'm making sandcastles!" she proclaims proudly and gestures to her work.

The other boy huffs. "They're ugly!"

Lauren is hurt and she pouts, "No, they're not!"

"They are!

"Are not!"

"They are!"

"Are not!"

The next second, the boys a stomping on her sandcastles and Lauren's eyes are wide with horror as she watches her hard work crumble away. Her eyes are glassy with tears and her bottom lips quiver.

"Hey! Leave her alone!" Suddenly there's a blur of screaming pink as someone else crawls into the sandpit. It's a girl with pink everything, all the way down to her socks and she's so small; so smaller than the boys but it doesn't stop her from standing up against the boys, glaring at them, seemingly trying to make herself bigger than she actually is.

"We won't," one boy snickers, "What are you gonna do about it?"

The little pink girl reaches down and takes two fistful of sands which she flings right into the faces of the boys. The boys shriek as the sand gets in their eyes and they stumble back until they fall right out of the sandpit. The girl doesn't stop until they're running away to their mommies, crying and red eyed from the sand.

Once they're gone, the girl turns to look at Lauren. She suddenly looks shy, fiddling with her fingers and blinking at Lauren.

"I'm sorry," she says, "Boys are stupid."

Lauren just stares at her for the better part of the minute, amazed that such a small girl could send those big meanies running off, crying. She thinks this girl looks a bit like a princess, she also thinks she's found her new hero.

"Thanks," she says eventually.

The girl just smiles and Lauren looks down at her ruined sandcastles, her eyes growing big and sad again. The girl crouches down next to her.

"Can I help you make them again?" she asks sweetly and smiles toothily at her.

Lauren rubs her smalls fists into her eyes to drive away the itchiness and urge to cry because she wants to be as brave as this little girl. She takes a deep breath and finds a smile, nodding eagerly at the girl.

The girl brightens up and sits down in the sand with her, also not caring that she gets sand in her pretty, pink tutu.

"I'm Camila," she says with a soft laugh as she begins to shovel sand into a plastic bucket.

"Lauren."