Beautiful When You Don't Try

Chapter 67

"Is she okay with this?" Clara asked nervously as she walked up behind Camila and motioned to the younger brunette moving around the apartment frantically, busying herself until Michael's arrival.

"She's fine." The diva tried to assure her but concern slipped out with her words. "She's just feeling a little protective right now."

"Shouldn't I be the one protecting you two from what he's going to say?"

Camila didn't respond. She knew Lauren was most nervous about what Clara was going to say and was wanting to protect Camila from the pain of possibly losing another mother. But Camila pushed that fear away. From what Clara had said at their previous dinner, she had no intention of just falling back into her old life. Lauren was probably just preparing for the worst, not the probable.

"Was he always as bad as he is now?" Camila asked quietly and Clara shook her head as she walked around to the other side of the counter.

"When everything goes like he believes it should be, he's wonderful." The older woman explained with a light smile on her lips that left Camila with the feeling that Clara was still very much in love with him. "When things are perfect, he is charming, suave, chivalrous, even a little humorous."

Camila cringed internally as the words Clara was using to describe such a vile man were words that the diva used to describe Lauren. The difference was, things didn't have to be the way Lauren wanted them to be in order for her to act that way. That's just how she was, not a reward for doing what she wanted you to.

"Michael is... you aren't really going to like me saying this, and don't repeat it to Lauren. But those two are actually a lot alike." Camila's brow raised, completely not expecting that. I mean, she was just thinking it, but to have it confirmed was something very different. "They both have different faces that they put on for different situations. Lauren has fallen out of that habit over the years, but I'm sure you remember her in high school. From what I hear, the Lauren you all knew and saw day to day was nothing like the one I had at home."

"So, you're saying that Michael is just acting like he hates Lauren?"

Clara smiled and nodded her head.

"I don't get it."

"Why did Lauren act like she hated you when you were younger?"

The diva really wasn't liking this comparison, more so now that it was starting to seem logical. "She acted like she hated because she thought she was supposed to. She was at the top and I was at the bottom. It's what she was supposed to do."

"Right. And Michael is a 'Christian' who is supposed to think homosexuality is immoral."

"But you can think that without saying your own daughter is going to rot in Hell or call her all sorts of horrible names. I mean, you did."

"She could have also shunned you without throwing a slushie in your face every day, but she didn't."

"I think we are comparing apples to oranges here."

Clara shook her head and took a seat on the stool. "We're not. What makes how she treated you and how he treated her different, is one word: family. Subconsciously, we feel family is a sacred bond undone by nothing, but if you take that out of the way, the situations are very similar. She called you names because she was supposed to disapprove of you. He called her names because he was supposed to disapprove of her. He doesn't hate her. He hates her lifestyle, but can't separate the two. He is very black and white when it comes to problems. There is no middle ground. He either wins or admits complete and utter defeat, ungracefully so. Sound familiar?"