Gold Dust Woman

Chapter 1

A/N; I accidentally deleted this instead of a fucking draft I meant to delete and I literally cried for ten minutes. I hope the few readers that were following this story are able to find it again. I can't believe I'm that stupid wow. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this story! Let me know what you think (:

***

Twenty felt good.

It felt new; she felt new. The disintegration of all her friendships, the contract binding her like shackles, the venomous group of so-called fans that tore her down to her bones, Lauren – the drama was wrapped up, boxed up, and buried right along with her teenage years.

She was twenty now. It was liberating; the last time she'd felt so free was face to face with Simon Cowell, when he uttered "you are through" and all her dreams suddenly seemed close enough to touch. She had no idea what she was signing up for. It was only five years ago, but it felt like at least half a dozen lifetimes.

She was so young then.

The X-Factor didn't feel real anymore. It felt like a movie with other people and other characters. She didn't feel like the same Camila Cabello who walked across what felt like miles of stage, feeling smaller than she ever had in her life with a panel of judges eyeing her expectantly. The first time she opened her mouth, she thought for sure she'd throw up. But instead, she said "I'm Camila," and she smiled, and she sang without faltering on a single note even though her hands were shaking the entire performance.

She tried to think back to it sometimes, but it felt like the memory belonged to someone else. It stopped feeling like hers around the time she stopped feeling like Lauren's.

Everything always led back to Lauren.

She'd let go of a lot – she didn't still have a stack of Lauren's t shirts and she'd thrown the pictures out long before she'd officially left the band. She wasn't even upset when she stumbled upon the leaked pictures with Lucy. She let it all go once she started writing it down. But she didn't think she'd ever be able to let go of the first memory she had of Lauren. It changed her life more than signing that doomed contract ever did.

Camila had always believed in love at first sight, but she thought she might've fallen for Lauren before she'd even seen her – she thought she might've fallen for the sound of her voice. She felt her blood run cold and the hair on the back of her neck stand up when Lauren sang. She'd never believed in God more faithfully than she had in that moment, and she couldn't quite figure out why. The air in the room changed and nobody else seemed to notice but it was the moment Lauren sucked Camila in and there was a part of her that still thought only the shell of her made it back out.

Of course, 15-year-old Camila didn't know what that feeling meant, and maybe 20-year-old Camila didn't either, but it didn't matter anymore.

When Lauren first sang, Camila thought she was older. Her voice was too powerful, her pitch was too controlled, her voice didn't crack and it dripped the kind of confidence Camila had only ever dreamed of. She certainly didn't expect a teenager, but then there she was in front of her and she was even more beautiful than her voice, if that was possible. Her hair was dark, and her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were the most amazing things Camila had ever seen. She couldn't comprehend how that voice came out of that mouth because it was all too perfect and all to unfair but then Lauren smiled at her and suddenly Camila felt like she was the only person in the world. She couldn't tear herself away from those fucking eyes and she felt herself compliment Lauren's shirt before she'd even looked at it.

She was more nervous talking to Lauren than she was up on stage.

But the X-Factor was over, and Lauren was gone, and Camila was twenty. She was twenty and finally felt like Camila Cabello again, not the caricature she'd been turned into.