Cant't help falling in love (CAMREN)

CHAPTER 5

August 1965

It was all so painless, falling in love with Lauren.

There was something so mindlessly ordinary about it, like Lauren was just another fixture, just another glass in her cupboard that she had begun using. She wasn't there, and then the next day she was, and Camila couldn't remember the hours before her. Before her hands or her mouth or her eyes, before these things slid over her body and touched her and adored her. Lauren would often stop and stare at her, her eyes wide and wondering, as if she was just seeing Camila for the first time all over again, like was suddenly rediscovering her, and her face would melt into something so glad. Lauren never stopped asking Camila where she had been before they met. What corner of the world she had been hiding in for so long, and Camila would always find it easier to kiss her than to say. The truth was Camila could never answer because she'd forgotten it; there was no real before Lauren. Whatever time it was held no meaning anymore and her brain had discarded it.

It was the heat of summer now; Camila slept on the mattress with the sheets tangled at her feet - the April party was a distant memory. A twinkling light in a window. Every day since was as blinding and brilliant as the sun and as the heat set in, so did Lauren. Her skin was sticky with kisses, and the little bruises under her collar starting to become a pain to cover up. Every time she adjusted her shirts in class she felt the whisper of Lauren's hands on her sides and had to shift, glancing around. She was baffled that no one had approached her about Lauren; there were times she considered herself so transparent she was certain everyone must have known about the bed she'd been in the night before, had known about the things she'd been saying, the confessions she'd made and the laughter she'd coaxed out of Lauren's mouth. Why else would anyone smile that much for no reason? Especially then.

Often she felt cruel for being in school, but Lauren's face was fiercely proud when she told her about her tests or papers, and she always managed to be flexible around exams and deadlines. She put Camila first.

Nobody had ever done that for her before.

"You're smart," she'd say. "You're so smart, Camila. It's better you're here. You're gonna learn how to save people's lives, you know? Same way Sean is gonna learn how to defend them."

For all Camila loved her, the reality was difficult to manage. They met during the day if they could help it to not attract suspicion, and if Camila could, she'd take the bus to Lauren's apartment and stay the night. Lauren lived on the top floor of her building, and no one gave a shit about what happened on the top floor, or so she said. Camila had a growing suspicion that she paid off her landlord to not ask questions. Camila didn't want to think about it the same way she didn't want to think of what would happen if they were caught. She just tried to believe Lauren when she said they'd do it their way and fuck the rest. Camila had never been braver. She dared her sisters to show up and say something about it, dared to see what they would say about Lauren.

She'd tear them a new one this time.

But all these things, at the moment, didn't matter. It was August, and, for the first summer of her life, she was in love.