a sum of small things | camren (au)

the third year | august - september

A/N: I'm back. Sorry for being gone for so long. Please consider this a late Christmas gift. I love you.

:::

The London Royal Opera House simmers with the force of the performance, minute after minute after minute. It's one of the things you love most about ballet; the stage lights pushing back against the darkness of the theater; the twists and turns and currents of the choreography - and her, dancing it, flooding your chest with fire, making you feel it everywhere.

:::

august

:::

The summer shifts to August and suddenly you're stuck in Barcelona being Keaton and Lucy's third wheel.

You hadn't realized it - too focused on dark brown eyes and teasing smiles and Camila Camila Camila to really pay attention to anything else - but apparently your two best friends have been spending a lot more time together than you were aware of. Which is why you're currently feeling wildly out of place and sort of uninvited as you watch Keaton try to push Lucy into the waves at Playa de la Barceloneta.

He's clearly trying to show off; picking her up over his shoulder and throwing her back into the water at every chance he gets. Lucy is screaming bloody murder, holding onto his biceps for dear life, and Keaton just laughs, his hands too low on her hips for it to be platonic - and you're just standing there, a safe distance away, and wondering when all of this happened.

(If you think about it, probably happened right around the time you busy kissing Camila in the Carrel del Bisbe... but you don't want to get lost in any details.)

"Lo," Lucy shrieks, not even pretending to look in your direction. "Help me!"

She jumps forward and wraps her legs around Keaton's hips in a very poor attempt to push him backwards into the waves, and you decide that you'd really rather not get any closer. Clearing your throat, you watch them for another uncomfortable moment, before you can't handle it anymore. "I'm just going to... uh - go back."

Neither of them even hear you.

After you've dried yourself off, you drop down onto the sand and take your phone out of the pocket of your shorts to check the time. It's barely even ten a.m., which means it's still the middle of the night in New York. You lean back onto your towel and slowly exhale as you stare at your screen.

No messages.

It's been nearly three weeks and she hasn't messaged you. You don't know what to think about it.

Your thumb hovers over the screen for a moment. For days, there's been a whirlwind of feelings spinning in your chest, but you can't even structure your thoughts, let alone text them to her in coherent sentences. Besides, if she really wanted to be talking to you, she would be, right? The thought bites hard at your ego.

"Oh, God."

Lucy drops down next to you, splashing drops of water on your skin and sighing more dramatically than necessary. "Just call her already if you miss her so much."

You clench your phone a little tighter in your hands, not meeting her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on." She grabs a towel and wraps it around her shoulders. "I thought we were past this. If you want to talk to her, just talk to her. It's not rocket science."

"But-"

"Yeah, I know," she says, cutting you off. "The time difference, ballet class, oceans between you, all the forces in the universe working against you..." She furrows her brow in mock contemplation. "If only you would have some sort of electronic device that would actually allow you to communicate with the people you would like to communicate with, no matter the distance or the time... Oh, wait-" Her eyes go wide. "You do! It's called your damn phone."