The Stage Door (Camren/Norminah)

Girls Helping Girls Helping a Boy

"Walz, come on. You haven't said two words since you got here," Dinah complained as she fiddled with a dress in her closet before moving on to look for something else.

"It's going to be awkward tonight," Camila replied, pushing herself further onto Normani's bed. "I'm wrecking everything."

"You didn't wreck anything, Lauren feels horrible," Dinah told her ad she settled on what she was going to wear and carried it over to place it on her bed before turninf to address Camila, Dinah put a hand on her hip and ran the other through her long blond hair. "She feels like shit right now," she continued. "Maybe you should text her?" But Camila just shook her head causing Dinah to sigh, "Mila? What happened at your old school? You told me it was bad, but you've never told me why it was bad."

Camila took a breath and looked down at her hands, fiddling nervously with her fingers. Dinah had taken a seat on the edge of Normani's bed and reached out, taking one of Camila's shaking hands in hers and giving it a light squeeze of support.

"Well.." Camila's voice shook with fear as she explained to Dinah about the kids at her other school. She explained the black eyes and the loneliness and she told her about the humiliation in the cafeteria and how she had gone home that night and tried to end her own life. Dinah's heart was constricting with every word and she pulled Camila into her side, hugging her so tight it was as if she was trying to hold the girl together. "They used to say 'Karla's a waste no one is ever going to love her' and someone once made a list of all the reasons no one would ever love me or be my friend and distributed it around the school Mean Girls style. And I believed everything that it said, because if they weren't right I would have had someone, anyone, but I didn't. I was always alone."

"Who's Karla?" Dinah mumbled under her breath before letting Camila go and pulling her up off the bed and into a proper hug. "They were wrong Mila, so wrong. You deserve friendship and you deserve love. You have me and Normani and Ally and you have Lauren and you have Max too. You will always have friends now, you don't have to be alone anymore."

Camila sniffled and pulled back from Dinah's hug, wiping face with her sleeve. "Karla Camila Cabello, that's me. When I moved here I decided to start fresh and I've always liked my middle name better, so now I'm Camila." She told her. "Their words are always in my head Dinah. No matter what, they are always there and I am trying so hard not to wreck all of this."

"You're not wrecking a damn thing," Dinah said honestly. "You're not, I promise. You'll see, everything is going to be okay."

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"She's really hurting," Normani told her two friends as she walked out of Lauren and Camila's bathroom. "She thinks she is still alone and she thinks she's going to lose you Lauren, she thinks she is going to lose all of us. Whatever it is that happened at her old school really fucked her up, she doesn't think she is good enough for you and she thinks you're going to leave and then Dinah, Ally, and I will leave too."

"That's crazy," Ally said as she placed her hairbrush down on Lauren's dresser. "We aren't going anywhere."

"She's too good for me," Lauren said honestly. She was standing in front of her desk, her eyes scanning over the pictures on her wall. "I mean look at her, she's everything. If anyone should be afraid of losing someone, it's me. She could change her mind and-"

"No, stop," Ally cut in. "Ya'll are going to make me crazy. You two are endgame here Lauren. You compliment each other so well, God made you for her and her for you and everything is going to be great."

"I didn't even get her flowers," Lauren sighed turning to her friends. "She deserves flowers on her first real date and I didn't get any and I hurt her today. We haven't even started our date and I'm already fucking it all-"