Our Deepest Scars

Chapter 3

Once Camila had fully calmed down, Lauren rubbing her back carefully, she leaned back out of the taller girl's grip and wiped underneath her eyes. For some reason that she couldn't even explain to herself, she felt at peace when she was around Lauren. She supposed that was why she had been willing to let the other girl in when she had refused everyone else who asked, even Dinah. Camila didn't like feeling this way; it scared her that Lauren could apparently see her clearer than she could see herself.

"Camila?" Lauren said after a few minutes in silence, the smaller girl having been totally lost in thought. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Camila hesitated, unsure of what to say. On one hand, she wanted to open up and tell Lauren everything she had been going through and feeling for the past year. But on the other hand, she was terrified that the green eyed girl would abandon her and tell other people what Camila had confided. She'll know how messed up you are, and then you'll have no one, a harsh whisper in her mind told her. She gave her head a tiny shake, having made her decision.

"I can't."

"Can't what?" asked Lauren, confused.

"Talk about it. Please don't ask me to, Lauren. I won't be able to explain it and it's just too much and-"

"Woah, calm down, Camz. It's okay - you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." The taller girl looked slightly hurt; she really wanted to know what had been bothering Camila for the past months.

"I'm sorry," Camila replied, her eyes filling up again. "It's not that I don't want to tell you in particular. I can't tell anyone."

"Whatever, Camila," snapped Lauren, suddenly annoyed at the younger girl, "you clearly need help but I was stupid to think it would be me who would get through to you."

Lauren got to her feet and wrenched open the bathroom door, leaving a distraught Camila still on the floor behind her. Angrily, she slammed it and went to sit down on the couch in the corner of the dressing room. She was fuming, and felt like she was close to tears. Why couldn't Camila just trust her? Lauren had been so concerned and confused about the smaller brunette's behavior for a long time. It was like one day she was bubbly, cutesy and goofy and the next she was quiet, tearful and miserable. What changed? Lauren had no idea, but she was worried.

Now though, she was angry at Camila. Even if she didn't want to tell Lauren, she needed to talk to someone. But Camila appeared to be in denial that something was wrong.

On the floor of the bathroom, Camila's tears had made more tracks on her cheeks before she wiped them furiously away. How dare Lauren try and suggest that Camila needed "help"? As if she didn't already know that? It made the small girl infuriated because she knew that no one would understand even if she did tell them. No one else would know how it felt to be constantly unhappy for no real reason, or to have an ever present ball of anxiety in their stomach that refused to dissipate.

Eventually, Camila decided to leave the bathroom. She clambered to her feet and walked slowly over to the mirror above the sink. Sighing, she examined her image. Her long brown hair was slightly tousled from being sat against the wall. Her outfit was still as it had been before. Only her face had really changed. It was red and blotchy; her eyes were puffy and she had black stains on her cheeks from her mascara tears.

"We cry tears of mascara in the bathroom, honey, life is just a classroom," she sang softly to herself, the Taylor Swift lyric coming instantly to mind. She was Camila's inspiration; the person who she looked up to and whose lyrics could make Camila both happy and sad at the same time. After meeting her previously at an awards show (and being completely star struck), Camila had become friends with the other singer.