It Gets Hard Sometimes (Camren)

Chapter 8

Camila's pov

The next day Jeff set up another meeting, making us all promise, Lauren twice, not to leave until we were officially done. We all agreed and he started the meeting.

He thought that we needed to spend some 'time together' since none of us have spoken in five years. Apparently we needed to sort out our issues so that we could go back to the way things used to be before I left and they had the big fight. So right now, Dinah, Ally, Normani, Lauren and I were all sitting in a room saying nothing. Nothing at all.

"Well," Jeff said, making us all jump since none of us knew he had walked in, "This may just be the awkwardest reunion of all time. You guys are supposed to talk!" No one answered. "Okay let me help. Why don't you talk about why you haven't spoken in years? About what happened... your fight..." Normani laughed softly.

"You want us to talk about our fight?" She said, "I'm sorry Jeff, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Certain people are too stubborn to talk about what happened." I don't know what happened and I wasn't going to ask because I know that I would just get attacked by someone, and leaving the band would come up.

"Oh shut up Normani," Dinah said, "You're just as stubborn as anyone. The fight was your fault too so don't act like you're just an innocent little soul in this situation," she slammed her hands on the table. She started at Normani worse than I'd ever seen her stare are anyone. I really wonder what has happened because those two used to be so close. But then again, I was too with Dinah.

"Oh yeah? Fine. Maybe that's true but you're the one that started it okay! You brought it up and made us all fall apart!"

"Fuck you Normani. I may have brought it up, but you just made it worse. You fucked everything up, not me."

"You know Dinah-"

"Shut up! Both of you!" Ally unexpectedly shouted. She was standing now, overpowering both Normani and Dinah. Her face was contorted with anger and didn't falter once. She looked really pissed for the first time. I don't remember her ever being this angry. She used to always be happy and bubbly. I really wanted to know what happened now, and before I knew it, the words came out of my mouth before my brain could tell them to stop.

"What did you guys fight about?"

All four girls' heads turned to me. They were all silent and then Lauren breathed in loudly.

"You," she said.

"I'm sorry?" I asked. She can't be serious?

"I'm sorry Camila did I stutter? We fought because of you. It was all going well, but it actually started when we started writing songs without you. It's hard to write a song for four people when you're so used to writing one for five. But we got through that. We realeased our album, everything was fine; but they weren't. Things just got worse and worse. There were more fights, we started hanging out with other people, we only saw each other when we performed. It wasn't the same.
And there was only one reason; there were only four of us. We all knew it, but no one wanted to say it out loud. Finally, Dinah did, and things just totally fell apart. Normani freaked out and said that since Dinah always took your side, and she was then even doing it when you weren't even in the group anymore."

"But Dinah hated me more than anyone after I left?" I said, but it was more of a question.

"That's what I said!" Ally spoke spoke up, "and then Normani blamed me for taking Dinah's side. When I denied taking any sides and said I was only stating facts, Dinah got angry because I was trying to be 'the peace maker' like always and said I should just speak my mind. When I did and said that we weren't the same as we used to be, Lauren got angry because things were different and said that we were never gonna go back to how we used to be. Then more things were said, more hate was brewed, we called each other several names and then just..." she trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence.

"And it was all because of you," Lauren said. I was silent for a moment, going over and processing everything they had just said. Finally, I spoke, slowly and very clearly, so that they could all hear me.

"You're blaming me... for Fifth Harmony breaking up?" I asked them. I looked to all their faces, all of them were dead serious. None of them were smiling or laughing like they should have been, because they had to be kidding me.

They couldn't seriously blame me for every single one of their problems that they had after I left. Don't they realize that it was hard for me too?

"Yes," said Dinah, softly but emotionless. "We were used to five then you just abandoned us. We were best friends... sisters... for nearly five years Camila. And you just left. We weren't able to function with only four people. We tried to make our friendship more than what it was and stay together but it didn't work. It didn't work because we forced something that wasn't there. After you left we thought we could just pick up from what it was before but we couldn't because there was one missing.
Yes, in the last year you weren't there a lot but everything was fine because we knew you were still... there, I guess. So when it was actually four of us and when we were together it was different because it was only ever going to be the four of us from then on. So yes, it was your fault and yes, we are all still angry with you," I couldn't take it anymore.

"You're angry at me?" I shouted, slamming my hands onto the table. "What the actual fuck Dinah? You can't actually be serious. You're blaming me for every single little thing that went wrong after I left which isn't my fault because you could have worked it out. You really could of but instead it's easier to blame me. Right?
And I'm sorry I left okay? I really am, but you know that don't you? You all know I'm sorry because I messaged you all hundreds of times and all I wanted was forgiveness, but you wouldn't give that to me. You only gave me hate even though you knew why I left. You knew! But you still treated me like shit.
And then you acted as if I was never in the band at all. Which God, that made me angry. So yes, you may be angry at me, but I have every right to be angry at you guys too. For a very long time after I left, I was sad. I was so sad. But then, that sadness turned into anger. Because you were all acting like children.
We were all best friends and now look what we are? Enemies? Co-workers? Jeez. You know what, be angry at me I'm used to that, but at least forgive each other."

The room was so silent I think you could hear a pin drop. They all stared at me for a while before they all exchanged looks between themselves. Ally looked shocked. Dinah looked sad. Normani still looked quite angry and Lauren... well I couldn't tell what Lauren looked like or was feeling. Her face was stone cold. She looked at me with something in her eyes that I couldn't quite tell what it was. Her face was emotionless but those emerald green eyes had something behind them, but I couldn't look her in the eyes long enough to see what it was.

"I didn't know you felt that way Camila," Ally said softly, trying to look into my eyes but me not letting her, "I'm sorry."

"Its okay, I mean, how would you have known?" Ally's mouth moved to open but nothing came out. After a minute, something did finally come out. "How about we just start again? I mean, as friends. Like the fights never happened?" She suggested.

"I don't know Ally..." Normani shook her head and looked at the smaller girl. Ally looked tired. She looked at Normani with hopeful eyes, then looked around at the rest of us.

"Please," she said and I think in that moment, no one could deny that they wanted to keep that hopeful look in her eyes.

So slowly, we all nodded our heads but all knew that we wouldn't keep these promises. There were a lot of holes that needed to be filled before forgiveness could begin to show and anything could go back to how it used to be.