The Story of Us (Camren)

Say Something

“Say something,” Camila said, her voice quiet, nervous. “Please Lauren.” She begged, taking her bottom lip between her teeth anxiously. “Please, just…say something.” She sighed.

Lauren didn’t.

She just stared at Camila still in shock, still unable to quite comprehend what she’d just heard, what the smaller girl had just admitted. She felt disconnected from everything, like she was watching the scene play out in her head or on a movie screen. It didn’t feel real to her, it felt like it was a joke, a well-conceived prank that Dinah had put the brunette up to, that the Polynesian was more than likely recording for the sole purpose of posting it on Twitter later that day.

Lauren half expected to see Camila’s face break out into her familiar grin and hear her unmistakable chuckle as her façade broke, completely blowing the entire act and ruining everything. She imagined Dinah bursting out of her hiding place and complaining that she should have known better than to send in Camila for this stunt, that everyone knew she was a lousy liar and would never have been able to complete it convincingly without giving the game away.

Watching the other girl now and knowing this, seeing the serious expression she wore, the obvious truth behind her eyes, how vulnerable she looked, Lauren knew that it wasn’t a joke. She knew that what Camila had told her was the truth. In fact, deep down Lauren thought that she’d always known how the smaller girl had felt for her, she just chose to ignore it, to push it aside because dealing with it and facing the reality of the situation was something that Lauren just wasn’t ready for. It was something that Lauren wasn’t sure she would ever be ready for, the implications for both of them too huge to even fathom.

“I-I don’t know what to say,” Lauren managed to express, still feeling bewildered, like a deer caught in the headlamps of a fast approaching car, too stunned to move, to react. She was completely paralysed, her mind spinning tumultuously within her head as she remembered every little insignificant moment that they’d shared over the last year and a half.

Looking back on those instances now, on her friendship with Camila with the added perspective that this new and she would argue, important, piece of information gave her, changed everything.

It was finally out there now, it was tangible, it wasn’t just a rumour anymore, it wasn’t just something that they could brush off.

It was real.

Everything the fans had thought, every little incident that they’d read too much in to, all the stories about there being more to their relationship than just friendship that her and Camila had refuted, had denied; they were true. At least, they were true for Camila.

Camila had told her that she loved her. She’d just blurted it out, right there in the middle of Lauren’s hotel room, completely out of the blue, like she’d been holding it in for so long, that it had bubbled up to the surface and spewed forth completely unbidden in the midst of a completely rational and non-related conversation. Camila had proceeded to ramble then, had vocalised eighteen months’ worth of subdued truths in one quick breath, like a condemned man at confession who was waiting the moment of his execution.

Camila loved Lauren.

Not in the same way that she loved the rest of the girls, but differently.

Camila thought Lauren was special. Camila thought about her all the time, wondered what it would be like to kiss her, imagined it, fell asleep dreaming about it.

Camila cherished every single touch they shared, every hug, every exchanged look, every fleeting second of eye contact. She breathed it in gladly because it made her feel alive.