Paper Hearts (Camren)

Chapter 2

Camila woke up to the sound of harsh knocking on the door and sat up from bed with a jolt. She took a quick glance around the unfamiliar room she was in and realized that she was not in her usual bedroom. It came to her a second later that she was in the spare room that Lauren had nicely (not really) appointed her last night. She had almost forgotten that she was now living with the cold beauty of a detective – Lauren.

“Wake up, Miss Cabello, I made breakfast. If you’re not out here in 30 seconds then you’re not getting any.” Lauren’s impatient voice warned her from beyond the door.

“Coming!” Camila called out, voice still husky from sleep. She clumsily got out of bed and began to dress as hurriedly as she could so that she did not have to keep Lauren waiting.

When she was done, she entered the kitchen to the smell of noodles; she looked to see Lauren already eating her breakfast at the table – instant ramen. Opposite the table sat an untouched cup of steaming ramen, completed with a pair of chopsticks.

Camila smiled as she sat down and picked up her chopsticks, somewhat touched that Lauren had actually made her something to eat when she was half expecting the black haired woman to allow her to starve for a week – despite it only being something simple as instant ramen.

They ate their ramen in silence. Camila pondered whether she should start a conversation with the woman, seeing that she may as well take this chance to learn something about the person whom was meant to be her ‘supervisor’ for the week.

She took a hopeful glance at Lauren and was reminded of her cold exterior. Then again, from the way that Lauren had been acting, maybe that wasn’t the best idea since the detective clearly didn’t want anything non-related to the investigation to do with her. At that thought, Camila deflated a bit.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lauren asked, glancing up from all the shuffling that Camila had done. She couldn’t concentrate on eating her food when all this noise was disrupting her. “Is there something wrong with the food?”

“No, no, the food is fine.” Camila said; she had yet to get used to the bluntness in her words that the woman often used. She averted her eyes down to her cup of noodles and poked at it.

“Stop moving and eat your food then. We have to leave in half an hour.” Lauren responded, resuming to her ramen.

Camila mumbled an apology and ate a few bites of her own food. ‘She doesn’t seem that bad. Not as cold as yesterday but still cold. After all, she did go out of her way to save me from that mugger and at least she cared enough to ask me what was wrong, even if it was out of politeness.’

“Lauren?”

Lauren glanced up and gave a slight what-do-you-want nod.

“Thank you again, for the breakfast and for allowing me to stay here with you.”

Lauren chewed in silence.

Camila’s stomach twisted when she received no reply. Had she annoyed Lauren again? Maybe she really should’ve left the woman alone to eat her breakfast. ‘Stupid Camila. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.’

“You say that way too often.” Lauren said finally, cutting off Camila’s thoughts.

Camila smiled sheepishly but inside, she was glad that Lauren had actually responded with something that wasn’t mean.

“Hurry up. We have to get to the station soon.”

“Station?” Camila frowned slightly; she had always thought that Lauren was the type to work from home. “Is there something we need to do today?”