FATED | camren

7

The thing is, after Lucy, Lauren becomes more conscious of things, she doesn't know if things change or if they just become more apparent.

It's things like when Camila is in her room, changing out of her clothes and Lauren finds her gaze lingering as she wonders when Camila grew up. It's these warm and fuzy feelings she gets in the pit of her soul when Camila sings her the new song she's written in Spanish, it's feeling Camila's soft curves when they're pressed together, cuddling in bed, it's the way Lauren's heart beats loudly with every smile and laugh Camila gives, it's the lingering touches and the soft smiles.

And Lauren has always disliked Camila's boyfriends, but lately, it's accompanied with this uncomfortable feeling in every inch of her.

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Lauren has always thought it was fascinating, admirable even, how much love Camila holds in her tiny body. Her love is a well as vast and deep as the ocean, never drying out, seemingly never-ending. She overflows with it. She loves with abandon. She wears her heart on her sleeve and loves like she's never been hurt before.

Lauren is scared that Camila will keep giving out pieces of herself to people who don't deserve it to point where her seemingly bottomless pit of love dries out.

It's those thoughts that grows along with the list of boys that disappoint Camila. Lauren is convinced that none of those little boys from school are capable of giving Camila the love she's seeking, the kind of breathless, romantic, soulmate-kinda love that she writes about in her journals.

But Camila never gives up. A hopeless romantic and dreamer down to the core of her bones.

So, Lauren is hardly surprised when one day, Camila throws open the door to her room, cheeks flushed, a look in her eye that Lauren knows to well.

His name is Shawn Mendes this time. Camila bumped into him in the hallway and ended up falling flat on her ass, but Shawn helped her up—it was just like the movies, Lauren, it was so romantic'—and Camila thought he was the cutest thing to walk on earth with his dimples and his teeth and eyebrows and everything.

As Lauren listens to Camila gush about this new boy, she finds herself dislike him before even meeting him.

And her dislike for him doesn't go away when she finally meets him and he appears to be a perfectly nice and charming boy. He wears the same shirt in different colors every day and the same tight, black jeans and he carries his guitar with him wherever he goes. He's tall, towering at least a head over Camila's petite frame.

The thing is, Lauren can tell that Camila has fallen for him and hard, if the constant googly eyes Camila gives him or the way their conversations somehow always manages to be about Shawn lately is any indication.

Camila and Shawn grow close and quickly. Camila has always loved singing but Shawn introduces her into playing guitar and song-writing, a fierce passion they share and only serves to bring them closer.

It's hard, sharing Camila again. It's hard, watching Camila fall deeper and deeper. It's hard, watching Camila perform a love-song with Shawn—that they wrote together—at the school's talent show. It's hard watching Camila's huge, obvious heart-eyes towards Shawn as she sings her little heart out. And Lauren wishes she could appreciate it, because damn, Camila has always had a voice that made Lauren feel all warm inside.

After the song, when everybody is milling around and drinking cheap sodas, she catches Shawn chatting with some boy she vaguely recognizes from her religion class. It's nothing Lauren is interested in, but when she's about to turn away and find Camila, she catches Shawn watching the boy leave as they finish their conversation. Or more specifically, watching the boy's bum as he walks away.