The Perfect Sin (Camren)

Ch 20- I'm Not Stupid

One more day and Camila comes back home. 

A part of me is worried since she hasn't been answering my texts but I'm really just hoping they've taken away their phones. 

"You okay?" Javi asks

They usually do that, right? Take away their phones? I mean it makes sense but I can't seem to remember if they did it when I attended a couple years back. 

After a few moments, it finally registers that someone had asked me a question. I turn around to see my cousin walk into his room. I've been throwing punches at the bag he has hanging here every once in a while. Since he first showed it to me it's become a form of therapy and god knows it's certainly been more helpful than any session I've had with Dr. Hernandez. 

"I heard you stop," he said gesturing to the punching bag I was standing in front of.  

My eyes glanced back at the bag in front of me and I try to remember but I'm not sure when I stopped hitting it. What I knew now is that I've been standing here staring at the wall for god knows how long thinking about Camila. 

"I'm fine," I told him 

He scoffed not even giving me the courtesy of pretending he believes me. 

"Yeah, that's why you needed to come in here and punch something," he said "Because you're fine" 

The sarcasm that dripped from his voice was blatant but I didn't feel like talking. If I wanted to talk I would have gone to Normani but I didn't, I'm here to punch. 

Because at the moment I can't talk about how my brother has the co-pastors daughter pregnant. I can't talk about how he's apparently been dealing with a drug addiction for over a year and no one fucking noticed! I can't talk about how the girl I'm in love with has been ignoring me, how my dad hates me and how my little sister doesn't trust me enough to talk to me. And I certainly can't talk about what drove me here, I can't talk about the conversation I had with my mom earlier today because that might just be too much. 

See, because I thought mom was changing or maybe that she had changed and she was finally waking up I thought that she was becoming the woman I needed her to be when I was a child. 

But I thought wrong. 

Because when I tried talking to mom about how much I missed Camila she became the person I knew her to be. The person who says things like 

"Lauren, I love you but what you're doing with that girl is atrocious" 

The person who says that even though she'll always love me she will never accept me being gay the person who says that the bible deems me an "abomination".

I can't talk about how I got my hopes up only to have them crushed

I can't talk about how much that hurts because if I do that, at the moment I feel like I just might have a mental breakdown so instead I repeat

"I'm fine" 

This time, with a more definitive tone and he seems to get the message and offers me a beer instead. 

I accept his offer and in no time I am sitting on the couch with a beer in my hand and an attentive cousin starring me down. 

He's not going to break me, I think. So instead I stare at the blank TV screen and ask him if he's planning to turn it on anytime soon. 

Nothing 

I am met with silence and I hear a dramatic sigh escape from his lips as he says 

"You can tell me now, or you can tell me after 3 more of those," he says gesturing to the beer in my hand "Either way it's gonna happen"