mute ➺ camren

Chapter Eight

In an instant Camila was gone, flying down the stairs to the bathroom on the girl's floor. Lauren didn't move for a few seconds, but soon enough moved to the trap door and climbed down a few steps, crouching down half way up the flight of stairs. Ally was in the bathroom with Sofia, and now Camila too. The little girl was hysterical, kicking and screaming at Ally, who was petrified.
"Shhhh respira Sofi, está bien." Camila hushed her little sister, the native tongue kicking in as she did. Probably a maternal thing. But Lauren knew what she was saying, being bilingual herself.
"Escúchame nena, nadie va a hacerte daño, ¿de acuerdo?" The commotion continued and Camila was trying her best to calm the 5 year old down. No body is going to hurt you, Lauren translated what Camila had said, and was throroughly confused. Why would anyone hurt Sofia? Lauren pondered on the thought for a while, before refocusing on the drama.
"Está bien, está bien." Camila repeated a few times as Sofia calmed down. Ally was standing just outside of the bathroom at this point. She looked scared. More than scared. Like she'd never seen someone else so terrified of something before. It took a moment for her to realise that all the other girls were standing at their bedroom doors, peeking through to see what was happening. Victoria, Sofia's room mate seemed very distressed.
"Hey, come on guys it's late, go back to bed everything's fine here. Come on, off you go." Ally instructed the girls. They all wandered back into their rooms, closing the doors behind them, except for Victoria, who stood motionless at the door. Lauren's eyebrows furrowed, and she was very close to getting up to try to comfort the little girl, but quickly changed her mind, as she realised she would probably scare the child more than help her. Ally knelt in front of her and held her hands.
"Honey it's okay, she just got a little bit scared that's all." Ally reassured Victoria.
"Scared of what? What's scary in the bathroom?" The girl's squeaky voice wobbled with nerves.
"Oh no darling there's nothing scary in the bathroom, you know that. I think I just made her jump a little, there's nothing to be afraid of baby. Come on let's get you back into bed." Ally stood up and led the fragile girl back to her bed, tucking her in and stroking her hair.

Lauren diverted her attention back to the bathroom, where she could still hear Camila's Spanish. She'd closed the bathroom door at this point, and only mumbles were audible. When Ally left Victoria's room, she knocked gently on the bathroom door, and Camila swiftly opened it.
"I'm sorry she reacted like that." Camila said before Ally had even spoken.
"No it's okay don't be silly I just...wasn't expecting it. She just hasn't had a bath since you guys got here I wasn't trying to force or anything-"
"Honestly, it's not your fault. Can I come see you in the morning? I'll explain everything." Camila asked Ally. She nodded and Camila closed the door again, and Ally headed back downstairs, making a brief eye contact with Lauren before she went.

It was almost midnight by the time Camila got back to her room. Lauren was still awake, she rarely slept before midnight. She was sat on her bed with various piece of paper and pencils scattered on the cover, and a notebook on her lap. She had her earphones in, and gentle music playing through them. She lifted her eyes from her book to the door as she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Camila pushed the door open and climbed up through the gap. She said nothing, and just closed the door and turned off the light, leaving just the light from Lauren's lamp dimly lighting the room. Lauren watched the smaller girl drag her tired body to her bed and lay on her side, facing away from her. What had happened in the bathroom?

Lauren wasn't sure if the girl needed comforting, not that she knew the first thing about it, but she was concerned. A few minutes had passed, and she was sure that Camila was crying, having paused her music and stopped drawing. With furrowed eyebrows she flipped the page in her notebook and ripped out a page, picking up a pen and scribbling cursively a few words. She pushed her notebook and pencils away from her, the pencils and paper making shuffling noises as she did so, and she dropped her earphones on the empty pillow beside hers along with her iPod. She swung her legs around to the edge of the bed and stood up, walking around the bed and to the centre of the room, she cleared her throat and sat cross legged on the wooden floor, laying the piece of paper on the floor and fiddling with the pen in her hands. By this point, Camila had noticed the shuffling behind her and was paying attention. She looked over her shoulder and saw the raven haired girl sat on the floor. She wiped her eyes dry with the cuffs of a big shirt she had on.
"I don't really want to talk tonight." The brown eyed girl spoke in a croaky, broken voice. Lauren didn't respond, as per usual. She simply pushed the paper onto Camila's side of the room, stood back up and sat back down on her bed, picking up her notepad and continuing her drawing.

After a while, ten maybe fifteen minutes, Lauren had finished her drawing and began to write, she ripped out to pages of her notebook with the drawings on them and scribbled down some words, referring to her pictures for inspiration. She often wrote poetry on her art work, giving it a slight edge in her class, as she was the only one to take creative writing and art, and use them both together. The same went for her writing. She would write a poem, and roughly sketch something at the side of it or at the bottom of the page that related to what she had written. She always thought that it brought the writing to life, and it would be easier for those who read it to imagine it.

Lauren looked up as she saw Camila move, and kept an eye on her out of the corner of her eye, subtly, so the girl wouldn't know she was looking. Camila rolled over and stared at the paper on the floor, scanning the neat words with her muddy brown eyes. Her face was read, and her eyes looked sore, like she had been crying for hours. The smaller girl pushed her body to sit up a little more, and pushed again so she was upright. She exhaled and then cleared her throat, getting Lauren's full attention.
"I'm sorry I snapped at you like that." Camila spoke quietly. Lauren put her things to one side and sat up, turning her body to face Camila's. The two girls sat opposite each other in the room, each on their own beds, both sitting cross legged. Lauren shrugged and shook her head, don't worry about it.
"Sofi's just a kid, and she's always so bubbly." Camila kept talking. Lauren nodded, I know.
"People don't expect the younger kids to remember the bad stuff, that they're too naive to realise that things in life can be bad. I think they expect the older ones, like you and me, not that you have issues or anything I just..." Camila began to backtrack as she realised that she may have just offended Lauren. Lauren simply shook her head and smiled a little, reassuring the girl that she understood what she meant, it's okay, I get it.
"They don't ask, and when they do we don't tell. No one wants to talk about the bad stuff. No one wants to hear it, not really." Lauren nodded again, tell me about it.
"Sofi and I have been through a lot, she's never known anything different to foster houses, she doesn't remember our parents. Mama and Papa only got to be with her for such a short time. They'd barely held onto her for a day before they took us." Camila told her story to Lauren, who listened intently. Tears fell out of Camila's eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She didn't seem to notice. I get it. My siblings barely knew our parents.
"But Sofi remembers every house we've been in, she remembers every bad guy, and every cruel thing that has happened to her, and to me. She's 5 years old and has nightmares and flashbacks to those things." Camila explained. Lauren's eyebrows were slightly raised with concern. Why would anyone want to hurt a kid?
"What happened in the bathroom today, Sofi has to have showers, she won't take baths." Camila stated. Lauren cocked her head to the side a little, furrowing her eyebrows. Why not?
"When she was little, not even a year old, one of the boys in the first foster house put her in a tub of scolding hot water. They said it wasn't his fault, that I should have looked after her, 'Es su responsabilidad cuidar de ella'," Camila mocked the words of whoever was in charge. Was this in Mexico? Lauren thought.
"That was in Cuba, in our first house. But my parents..." Camila drifted off at the end of her sentence before finishing it.
"We got moved not long after the bath incident. There was another house in Cuba but they moved us to Mexico, and that's where we were until we came here. That's where Sofi grew up. Bad things happened there too but, nothing has been as bad as the bath thing for her." Camila finished her story. Lauren was still confused as to why they got moved to Mexico and then to here. What was so special about them that they had to leave the country?
"You're trying to fill in the blanks?" Camila clocked onto Lauren trying to figure out why all of this happened to them. Lauren sighed and nodded a little. Yeah, I don't get why you guys moved so much.
"Another time. We should sleep. Besides, I still don't know anything about you." Camila said as she pulled her duvet back and crawled into bed, turning onto her side and shuffling to comfort.

(Vote/Comment/Share <3)