Crimson Painting (Camren)

III

A/N: I apologize for the brutality and length (13k words) of this chapter. Brace yourselves kiddos. Also i didn't read over it so i apologize for typos.

Lauren has always respected Camila, there's no doubt about that.

She's always loved the girl and even though during those high school years where the pressure to be better than others and the confusion of finding yourself all amidst figuring out the future made Camila lash out at Lauren, made Camila do things that Lauren never thought she would, Lauren wonders if she did hate her. Lauren wonders if the emotion that she mistook for aggravated love in the pit of her stomach was just aggression. She was too young to know then, and she's forgotten too much to know now.

All she knows is that if Camila did to her now what she had done all those years ago, Lauren would never talk to the girl again.

//

15 years of age- Lauren Jauregui

//

Things are different now. Substantially so. Lauren can't remember a time where she wasn't either being weighed down by Camila's body and lifted up by her lips or crumbling under the pressure of having to hold up girls at the bottom of the pyramid while Camila climbed her way to the top.

Camila's different too, it's like freshman year took every ounce of what was left of her softness and crumbled it. Crushed it. Till there was nothing but her hunger for power left.

And yet, she kept some of it for Lauren, she managed to pull that part out of her when it was just the two of them, sitting together in Lauren's bed and watching a lame movie, or making out while a lame movie played.

Lauren wishes she could be like that all the time. But that's not how life works. Or more specifically, that's not how Camila works.

/

"Mm, Lauren," Camila presses forward, torsos molding together, as Lauren slips her hand under her best friend's shirt and caresses the soft tan skin there. Smiling gently to herself, she wonders when she got this fortunate, when her luck turned for the best and she discovered the thrill in the covert acts of making out with Camila sneakily.

They'd never gone past the making out of course, and Lauren doesn't really enjoy this that much when she has to go into school and see Austin be in the same position that she was in only minutes ago, but still, she's grateful she gets anything at all. She would rather this than the longing stares she would give, she would rather this than having to suffer through loving Camila and knowing that Camila would never feel the same way.

Though the brunette girl hasn't said the sacred L-word since that day, since the day last year where she confessed her feelings and then promptly kissed her, Lauren hasn't said it at all. She doesn't trust Camila yet, she trusts her with their friendship and her safety, but not her heart. Not yet.

"How about we stay in tomorrow night instead of going to the football game," Lauren proposes, and scatters kisses down Camila's neck and across her collar bone.

Camila chuckles into the crook of Lauren's neck, sending the rested butterflies in Lauren's stomach into a frenzy.

"Sounds like a tempting offer, Lo," she pulls away, sitting on her best friend's hips and staring down at the girl like she held the world. A soft smile plays on those raw scarlet lips, and Lauren has to hold herself back from pouncing upwards and capturing the mouth in hers again. It's a battle won but only after long moments of self control.

"But you won't," Lauren finishes with a sigh. She knows she shouldn't have asked, of course Camila would say no. This is the first football game of the season, this is what sets the tone for the rest of the games to come, and Lauren knows that Camila would not miss it with even a shadow of a doubt.