Three Is A Crowd

Chapter 21: Make You Mad

The next day, Camila has been in and out of the dorm room, in between her classes, hoping to find Lauren, but there's still no sign of her so far, and Camila, being the kind of person that she is, has been going crazy with her overthinking and guilt.

Indeed, she has a right to be mad at Lauren, because, hello, that's their room; she has as much say as Lauren has when it comes to house rules, and she has made it clear that she doesn't approve of Lauren turning their room into some college whorehouse (obviously, she really needs to stop using words like that with disdain because it's what got her into this mess in the first place) especially when she's there. She has a right to be pissed at Lauren's lack of consideration.

But she knows it doesn't give her the right to call Lauren -- or anyone else, for that matter -- a slut. She has vowed not to be a judgmental hag like her mother, but, apparently, it takes years to get rid of the rigid indoctrination instilled in her -- by society and her parents. She's trying, but it's hard sometimes. It turns out that unlearning things that has been taught to her since she was born is a hundred times harder than learning something new.

Camila remembers when she was a kid, her mother, after attending mass, would scoff and complain about their neighbor with the tattoos and piercings and beard and tattered jeans and leather jackets and blue hair color. She repeatedly warned Camila not to go near that house because they were devil worshippers and that they sacrifice children's blood during full moon. One time, when Steve (the neighbor in question) knocked on their door, giving them a freshly baked apple pie which he said his partner baked which Camila happily accepted, her mother found her in the kitchen and whooped her ass with her thick slippers and made her spit the cult food she was just about to swallow.

As she grew up and started hanging out with Dinah and other new people, her mother's prejudices instilled upon her have slowly faded away -- with immense effort, of course -- but it doesn't mean that her mother's stern voice doesn't creep inside her mind every now and then.

She doesn't think that tattoos are "marks of the devil" anymore (she now fully appreciate them as art and a creative form of self-expression) although she'd still rather keep quiet whenever her mom complains about people getting bolder with more and more tattoos all over their skin -- some even on their faces and necks, which her mom truly couldn't believe why people do such abomination.

Don't even ask her what Sinu (her mother) thinks of homosexuality, because she'll be quick to tell you that gay sex is unnatural, the same way that you can't open a padlock with another padlock (you need to insert a key inside the lock) or a key with another key. One time, Camila has had enough with the key talk (that happened after she made out with Ari, and she realized that she truly is attracted to everybody and that it doesn't feel sinful or evil), and she cut off her mother mid-sentence, as she was preaching to her little sister Sofi and her friend about the dangers of same-sex love, and Camila told her that sometimes you don't need a key to open something, you only need your fingers to turn on the knob to the left and to the right and you can use two fingers or three or four, and round and round your fingers go until you put in the right combination and bham you're inside the vault. Or, sometimes, you simply use a keypad or biometrics and you only need a finger to get in. It doesn't matter what lock you use, there's a variety of locks and keys for all sorts of people. Camila snapped, and she thought her mother had an aneurysm by the way she silently stared at her for minutes as if she's recalling the phone number of the priest who performs exorcism, but then she simply stood up and claimed that she's feeling under the weather and straight to bed she went, leaving Camila to keep an eye on Sofi and Daniela who have long stopped listening to the adult conversation around them and were busy playing with their dolls.