A Simple Folded Paper

9

Camila was on her lunch break. The back seat of her car was her picnic table for a year and a half now since her parents presented her with it. She had lunch in her car simply because no one could bother her there, the parking lot was empty of students since everyone was inside of the school building. And there was another plus: the view. From her usual spot, she could see the beautiful girl sat by a tree who caught her attention 3 years ago, on the second day of school.

That day, her second day in that school, her second day in her freshman year, the world was already falling apart. It seemed that someone had discovered her Twitter account and saw that Camila was dating Jane, an older girl from Wisconsin. Whoever discovered it, spread the word and on her second day of school, she was already being pushed against lockers, being tripped on the hallways and being called a freak.

It was on that day, on the lunch break, on the first time she was tripped in the hallways, that she fell in love.

Camila was texting Jane while making her way to History class when she tripped on someone's foot. She knew someone made it on purpose as soon as she heard people laughing and calling her a freak and a dyke. Sighing, Camila looked up from the ground and was surprised when she saw an outstretched hand in front of her, ready to help her getting up.

Confused, Camila looked even further up and was met with the most beautiful girl she ever laid eyes on, the girl she would later know that was called Lauren. Camila gladly accepted the hand and let Lauren pull her up on her feet. As soon as Camila was lifted, Lauren handed her her phone that had been kicked to the other side of the hallway.

"Don't worry, they'll eventually stop", Lauren said barely above a whisper and left.

Camila stood in the middle of the hallway for a few more seconds, watching Laure make it's way to her next class until she was out of sight and Camila felt someone pushing her and telling her she needed to get the fuck out of the middle of the hallway.

So Camila pressed her things against her chest and went to her class.

The rest of the week was barely bearable. People were mean and so Camila was left alone. The only good thing about that school was the Art class that she had with Lauren twice a week. Stalker as she is, Camila found Lauren's twitter and couldn't contain the excitement when she discovered that Lauren was gay due to a RT she made saying "I'm part of the LGBT community and I'm proud of that". Maybe Camila had a chance.

On Friday, one of the days where she could watch Lauren draw and paint during an entire class, Camila noticed that she could only think about the girl 3 chairs on her left, so the first thing she did when she got out of class was to break up with Jane. It was not as sad as Camila thought, the fact that they were dating for just 2 months helped the case.

At the end of the year, the tripping and pushing stopped. The students who would do such evil things, now acted like Camila didn't even exist. And why? Because a new "freak" was found, a kid with some mental issues. So, Camila just passed her days alone, wishing for the Art class at Monday and Friday where she could see the girl on who she was crushing hard and write the cheesiest things about her in her journal.

1 year and a couple of months later, at the beginning of this school year, Camila made a friend online. They started talking on Twitter about some concert and became friends. Once Camila told the boy on the other line, Jacob, about her situation with Lauren, he promptly suggested to Camila make a move but she answered with "I'm too shy, you should already know that!". A couple of weeks later, Jacob convinced Camila in leaving cute notes on Lauren's locker just to see her reaction. If it was good, Camila could end up actually approaching her or something. If it wasn't, Camila could just stop and move on.