Empty Gold

1. Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

A/N; I hope you guys like this - I'm actually really proud of it. Let me know what you guys think, please!  Also, check out my other fic Gold Dust Woman, if you get the chance. They aren't related (the gold in the title is purely coincidental), but I'm not ashamed to self -promote (; It's ongoing, but I'm publishing this in the meantime since I'm having severe writer's block for that book. Anyway, comments are greatly appreciated and I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

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Before Lauren met Camila, the word practice was simple.

Practice meant singing to her reflection in the mirror. It meant waking up early on Saturday mornings and taking swings in the batting cages, meant tossing a ball around with her friends. It meant dancing in her room until her hips moved the right way. It meant open textbooks on her bed and stacks of math homework.

But then she met Camila, and practice somehow came to mean bloodshot eyes and tear stained cheeks and her chest cracking open down the center until her heart spilled out like a wilted rose left in the sun to rot.

The first time it happened, she was sixteen. She was sitting on her bed, her pajamas bunched up around her knees while her wet hair dripped onto her phone screen, and Lana Del Rey's voice faded into her left ear when she felt one of her ear buds fall from its place. She looked up to find a pair of brown eyes looking at her expectantly, and she saw Camila's mouth moving, felt her breath on her cheek, but all she could hear was a silky 'it's you it's you, it's all for you' echo into her ears and she felt herself nodding along in agreement to whatever it was that Camila had said. She still hadn't torn her eyes away from the younger girl's – she couldn't, not with those wide pupils peering into her like her soul was flittering right behind her eye sockets. Then again, whenever Camila looked at her, it probably was.

Camila laced their hands together, lifting Lauren from her spot on the bed. The other ear bud fell from her ear as she stood, but 'heaven is a place on earth with you' still beat against her ear drum and resonated into her fingertips, still laced with the other girls, as she stood up and followed her to the center of the hotel room.

"Do we need music?" Camila asked, tucking her hair behind her ears nervously. It had fallen flat, all the hairspray and sweat from the day weighing it down. She hadn't showered yet, Lauren noticed. She'd been pacing the room since they got back, she even heard Camila's heavy footsteps while the scalding water beat against her skin during her own shower. Camila had just taken off her dress and thrown on one of Lauren's band shirts and a pair of fuzzy socks. Her eye makeup was smudged and her lips had faded to their natural pink and Lauren had to look away for a moment because her heart felt like glass behind her ribs and she swore it would've shattered if she looked any longer.

"Music?" Lauren questioned, still unsure of what it was she had agreed to.

"I don't know, Lo. You tell me. You're the one that's supposed to be helping me," Camlia pouted, and Lauren's cheeks flushed at the sight of the other girl's bottom lip falling out of her mouth. She turned back towards her bed for her phone just to keep Camila from seeing the way her cheeks burned.

"What song?"

"I don't know. What kind of songs do they play at school dances?"

"What?"

"Lauren," Camila groaned, but she had a smirk playing at the edges of her lips, "you have no idea what's going on right now, do you?"

"Guilty," Lauren sighed, shaking her head.

"Why do you always say yes when you don't know what I ask?" Camila laughed, and Lauren hated that it happened enough for Camila – Captain oblivious – to catch on, but she couldn't help it.