FATED | camren

8

They're 11 year olds and are sitting under a tree, eating the sour apples they have gathered.

"Camz?" Lauren asks her, staring out on the playground where a gangle of kids are playing while their parents chit-chat on the benches.

Camila looks up, her cheek full of apple. "Hmmm?"

Lauren looks at her friend and asks a little shyly, "What do you think love is?"

Camila gives her a crooked-teeth smile, apple juice dripping down the corner of mouth.

"I think...I think love is magic," she says bright-eyed and sits up on her knees in excitement of her favorite topic, "It feels like living in your own little fairy tale where you'd do anything for the one you love. You want to be together forever and ever."

Lauren swallows and her gaze drifts back to the playground, to a pair of parents swinging their little boy between them, laughing happily. She feels a pang in her chest.

"I don't think my parents loved each other," she says quietly.

It's still fresh, the pain of their divorce a few months ago. The month leading up to it had perhaps been even more painful, the fights, the shouting, the tears, the broken things.

Camila's eyes soften and she puts a small hand on Lauren's arm. "Lauren..."

"If they loved each other, they wouldn't have left each other," she says and hot tears prickles her eyes. "They wouldn't make each other cry, they would still be together. How can they go from telling each other 'I love you' to screaming hurtful things at each other? Did they ever love each other? Was any of it real?"

She lets Camila pull her close in a warm embrace.

She says, unsure, "I think...I think sometimes you have to be away from each other to be happy again...maybe being away from each other so they wont hurt each other is another kind of love."

Camila has always been wise beyond her years, sensitive to others and her surroundings.

Lauren sniffles. "That's not the kinda of love I want."

She feels Camila's smile against her hair, "Me neither," she says, "And I'm sure we'll find the kind of epic love we see in the movies."

Lauren looks at her. "Do you believe that?"

Camila gives her, her biggest, brightest smile.

"I do."