FATED | camren

3

iii.

Times move faster and before Lauren can blink, they're freshmen in high school.

Times move and things slowly change. And Lauren's out wearing nothing but shades of grey, the only splash of color to her wardrobe the bright red lipstick she becomes so fond of. Her boots are leather and scuffed and she finds herself struggling to be on time, in school, with her assignments, in general and sometimes—most times—she gets into fights with stupid boys.

Camila is bright and a million shades of color to reflect her huge personality with her pastel colors and frills and bows and lace and sometimes she wears high heels even though she always ends with her face against the pavement. "the higher the heels, the closer to God," becomes her motivation to not stop trying until she isn't tripping over thin air. Camila is all color coordinated notes and pink pens and little heart over the i's.

Some things change, but some things stay the same.

Camila is still the one to attempt to wake her up in the morning and sometimes it works and they walk to school together. And they still walk home together and hang out at each other's houses. They have new friends but they're still each other's best friends and while things change that something not even time will change.

They're currently parked out at Caramel Café after school attempting to get their latest history assignment done. The café is a quaint little thing tucked away at the corner of the street, cozy with its flannel draped couches and warm lighting.

Camila and her have been coming to this café since they were old enough to carry their own money and it have since become their spot—unspoken as it was. The best part of the place is that it is far away from the regular place their peers preferred to hang out after school hours. Here in the Caramel Café the customers are all familiar faces, from the nice widowed elder man who always buys them strawberry scones to the hipster who spends countless of hours on his Macbook and the couple of new moms—Asheligh and Kaycee—who gossip in a corner.

Camila calls the place romantic.

Said girl is also currently trying to stiff her giggles, eyes on the phone with the ridiculous banana printed case in her hands.

"Hey!" Lauren protests and tries to swipe the phone out of Camila's hands but Camila is fast to avoid her grabby hands. "We said no phones for the next 30 minutes!"

Camila giggles again and looks up at her. "I'm sorry," she says, "I was going to answer a text from my mom, I swear," she adds when Lauren levels her with a skeptical look, "but my thumb slipped and I stumbled upon this really funny—"

"Your thumb seems to slip an awfully lot lately, Camz," Lauren says dryly, because seriously? It was perhaps the fifth time within the last ten minutes, "Perhaps you should have a serious word with it."

Camila snorts. "Look at this," she says and turn the screen towards Lauren. And really, she shouldn't be surprised when she sees a picture of two cats, one is white with dark fur underneath its nose that makes it look like it has a toothbrush mustache and along with the sweeping black fur above it eyes, it looks suspiciously like Hitler.

"So, Meowseph Stalin, we meet again," Lauren reads out loud what the Hitler cat says to the other cat, who has a moustache and a narrow-eyed look that indeed makes it bear resemblance to the ruthless Russian dictator, Joseph Stalin.

"Indeed Kitler...Indeed," Camila says the words printed next to Meowseph Stalin in a somber voice but then she cracks up immediately after. "Isn't it hilarious?"