Tempting Fate

chapter 2

Lauren sat at the long table, one hand tapping
the white tablecloth nervously while her other
hand was holding a glass of champagne. She
found herself suddenly thirsty as she
continually gulped the libation, still unable to
quench her thirst. The reception was well
underway and lauren watched camila being led
around table to table by her new husband,
David. 'Husband….God that sounds so strange,'
thought lauren.  She sighed and downed the rest
of her drink. She felt a presence sit down next
to her and looked over to find Grace, out of
breath from dancing.
"Hey."
"Hey, Grace."
"So I haven't really been able to talk to you at
all. How have you been?"
Lauren was silent for a minute as she brought
her focus back to camila. "I've seen better
days."
Grace was following her line of sight and her
eyes fell upon her step-sister. "Oh…I see. I
thought…."
Lauren grabbed another glass of champagne off
the table before turned to Grace. "You thought
what?"
Grace didn't know what to say. She always had
an inkling about lauren's feelings towards camila
and back in high school, she had even tried to
encourage lauren to tell her how she felt. She
honestly believed that after seven years and
thousands of miles between them for months
at a time, lauren would be over camila.
Apparently, this wasn't the case. But lauren
looked so fragile at the moment, like she was
about to break. Like if someone tapped her on
the shoulder, she would just collapse under
the pressure. Lauren had learned to build up a
wall in order to deflect what she was feeling.
She had several defense mechanisms, but her
defenses were never any match for when she
was around camila. Grace could tell she was
trying her best to save face, but there was a
sadness about her today. So she decided to
choose her words wisely. "I thought…your
speech was really nice. And I know camila
appreciated it."
Lauren nodded. "Yeah…" She finished another
glass of champagne. "You know, they really
don't make these glasses big enough."
Eli came up behind Grace and grazed his hand
on her shoulder. He leaned down and
whispered, "So…you wanna dance?"
Grace started giggling to herself, partially
because of the face that Eli's voice sent
shivers down her spine. "Sure."
Eli looked over at lauren. "You know…there's
enough of me to go around."
Lauren thoroughly looked Eli up and down. "No
there's not…but it was a good effort. Come
back when you've got a little more weight to
throw around."
Eli stared at lauren, half smiling. "I've missed
this. This…banter….between us."
"You've missed me. Not the banter. Admit it,"
demanded lauren.
"Never. But if you change your mind, I'll be on
the dance floor, blowing everyone's minds with
my mad skills." Eli started demonstrating his
"skills" for her. "Jealous?"
Lauren gawked at Eli. "How do you not fall down
more?"
"Really…I've missed this. You need to come
around more often laur. Come on, Grace."
Eli began to lead Grace away as she turned
around. "I'll be back, lauren."
"Hasta la vista, Grace," joked lauren.
Lauren watched those two walk away and still
couldn't believe they had not hooked up by this
point. Granted, there was the whole step-
brother/step-sister thing that really didn't
seem right when you put it that way. But still,
obvious sparks between them were pretty
undeniable. Lauren pondered that for a minute
until she heard a recognizable voice coming
from behind her.
"Hey!" Camila took a seat next to lauren .
"Oh…hey. Where's the husband?" asked lauren.
Camila looked around. "Uh…I don't know,
actually. I think he's at the bar with his
friends."
"Shouldn't he be with you?"
Camila's eyes went vacant for a moment and
she shrugged. "I don't know. I guess."
Lauren could tell something wasn't right. She
pretty much sensed it from when she first saw
Camila before the wedding. She could see it in
her eyes. She knew camila wasn't happy. She
placed her hand on camila's hand.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," insisted camila. "Why do you ask?"
"You just don't seem happy. Isn't this
supposed to be a happy occasion?"
"I'm happy. I am. I'm just…I guess I'm just a
little disillusioned. This is supposed to be the
best day of my life, right? So why do I feel
like I'm just…"
"Going through the motions?" Lauren suggested.
Camila looked at her and nodded. "Yeah, kind
of."
Lauren had to catch her breath at that moment.
She suddenly became incredibly nervous and
tried her best not to trip over her words.
"Well…maybe he's not the right one for you."
Camila looked at lauren, with a hurt expression on
her face. "What do you mean?"
"I mean…maybe he's not the one you're
supposed to be with," said lauren.
"Wow. My maid of honor is actually telling me
this on my wedding day?"
"Camz, I didn't mean anything by it. Maybe I'm
wrong. I'm just trying to figure out why you're
so unhappy."
"David's a good guy. He's decent. A really
decent guy," protested camila
"I know," Lauren couldn't believe she was saying
this now. Why couldn't she have brought this
up earlier…like 4 months ago? When camila
first told her she was getting married. She was
beginning to curse all those glasses of
champagne she had, but continued anyway.
"But that's not a reason to marry someone.
Just because they're decent. Maybe that's part
of the reason, but hell, Woody Allen seems like
a nice guy, but you're not gonna go out and
marry him are you?"
"Um…he's a cheating pedophile."
Lauren stared at camila. Touche. "Right…okay.
Bad example."
"Look lauren, you may not like him-"
"I don't even KNOW him. He didn't even talk to
me at your graduation party. He hasn't said
one word to me today."
"Okay, I know. But he was there for me."
Camila looked lauren directly in eyes, partly
because she wanted to get her point across,
but mainly because she found it nearly
impossible to look away. She was never able to
resist the allure of lauren's eyes. She searched
Lauren's face. She wasn't sure what she was
looking for but when she finally snapped out
of her daze, she continued. "He was there…
when other people weren't."
Those words felt like a knife digging into lauren.
She remained fixated on camila. "What's that
supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. I just…it's been a long day. I don't
know half the things I'm saying right now."
Camila realized lauren's hand was still stroking
hers. It seemed to have a calming effect on
her. She began to smile. Just being in lauren's
presence always made camila feel better.
"Let's just talk about something else?"
"Okay. So how's your music thing going? Any
gigs lately?"
Camila sighed. No. Not recently. I've just been
so preoccupied with the wedding, I haven't had
time."
"Well, you should get back out there. The
sooner the better. The world should no longer
be deprived of your voice."
Camila smiled. "Well, my guitar is in storage at
the moment. Besides, David isn't too keen on
me performing."
"What? Why?"
"I don't know. He just isn't into it. He hasn't
shown any interest in coming to my shows or
anything."
"Camz, I…that's…I mean, it's such a big part
of you. Shouldn't he want to experience that?"
Camila mulled over that thought and decided to
shake it off. "Look, enough about me. What
about you? Where have you been?"
Lauren smiled back at her. "Missed me, did ya?"
"Maybe a little…" Camila nudged her friend.
"Well, it's kind of a long story…and very
uninteresting."
"I find that hard to believe. With you, nothing
is uninteresting."
"Well, before I came here, I was actually in
Costa Rica. But it was only for three weeks.
Before that, I was-"
"Hey, there you are. Come on, lets go." David
seemed to come out of nowhere and pulled
Camila up by her arm, causing the girls to pull
their hands apart.
"David, wait. I'm talking."
David impatiently rolled his eyes. "Well, I've
got people I want you to meet."
"Hold on. You remember lauren, don't you?"
Lauren reached out to shake his hand. "Hey,
David."
David threw a little nod in lauren's direction.
"Yeah, hi. Come on mila. Contrary to what you
may believe, this day is NOT all about you."
Camila shot him a hurtful look.
David could see he was in trouble. "I was
kidding. It was a joke….a very bad joke."
He put his arm around her shoulder and kissed
her on the cheek and whispered, "By the way,
you look great."
He led camila away as she turned around and
eyed lauren one last time. Lauren shrugged and
watched camila walk off with her husband. As
a waiter came walking by, she grabbed another
glass of champagne from the his tray and
consumed it in a matter of five seconds.
She had hoped it wasn't real. Hoped it really
didn't happen. Hoped camila wasn't really
married to someone else. She hoped it was a
dream…a nightmare she has yet to wake up
from. Lauren was at a loss. She was completely,
hopelessly in love with camila. For seven years,
she had carried around this secret…this love
for her friend. And camila never knew. Lauren
had wanted to tell her a hundred times, even
back in high school, but she never got the
nerve. She had even written camila a letter in
her English class back in her junior year. The
letter contained every single emotion lauren was
feeling towards camila. She had put her entire
heart in that letter lauren had made several
attempts to give it to camila, but was never
able to gather the right amount of courage.
Courage was something lauren normally had in
spades…except when it came to camila.  That
girl always had a way of making lauren lose her
cool. So lauren kept the letter. She held onto it,
always waiting for the right moment to give it
to camila, but that moment never came. As it
stands, lauren still had the letter. She kept it
with her everywhere she went, just as a
reminder. Lauren had always been slightly
masochistic in that sense. She had a penchant
for torturing herself. Lauren was in love with
Camila and at times had believed that camila
was in love with her too. A touch of her hand, a
look between them, an embrace that would last
longer than necessary…lauren felt it, but never
dared to ask how camila felt. Their friendship
was way too important to ruin in case she didn't
feel the same.
Which is why lauren left. She stayed around
Evanston for another year until camila
graduated from high school and they spent all
of that summer hanging out. But once camila
started college, lauren had a feeling it wouldn't
take long before she would simply become an
unnecessary appendage in camila's busy life.
That never actually happened. Lauren was more
a part of camila's life than she had ever been
before. Camila didn't care to make any new
friends. She figured as long as she had lauren,
that was all she needed. Granted, every once in
a while, camila would go out with a group of
people, but it was never any match for when
she was with lauren. So, lauren decided maybe
she would stay. She never really thought about
attending college. She could barely handle
sitting through class in high school, she
couldn't imagine how she'd get through another
four years of classes. But she started
attending the junior college and worked as a
waitress to make some money. But what
changed lauren's mind about leaving was camila
started dating her first boyfriend 2 months
into her freshman year of college. He was a
nice enough guy, though for the life of her,
Lauren couldn't remember his name. But seeing
him with camila became too much for lauren.
They were always together and in lauren's eyes,
it almost seemed as though they were rubbing
their relationship in her face, which really
wasn't the case. She wanted camila to be happy
more than anything, but seeing her so happy
was making lauren miserable, so she left. She
just started traveling anywhere and
everywhere, working odd jobs all over the
place to make money. She'd been all over the
US and had made a few stops in several other
countries, leaving a trail of broken hearts
along the way. She'd meet someone, a guy or a
girl, and had hoped every time that they'd be
able to fill the void camila left in her heart.
But no one ever did. Her longest relationship
lasted all of two weeks, and that's only
because she was staying with this one girl she
met in Venice and didn't have enough money to
move on at the time. Plus, she didn't speak
Italian very well, so every time she tried to end
the relationship, she was greeted with a blank
stare. She had tried her best to get over camila, but nothing ever helped, no matter how
far away she was or who she met.
As lauren reflected upon all these memories that
came rushing back to her, she grabbed one
more glass of champagne and started drinking
it.
"Whoa…you may want to pace yourself."
Lauren looked over to see who that voice
belonged to and saw a guy she'd never seen
before. She looked him up and down and smiled
at him. "I'm Lauren."
"I'm Ryan." They shook hands as lauren looked
back over at camila. Her heart palpitated as
she found camila looking back at her. Even
from across the room, Lauren had managed to
hold her gaze until David led camila away
again. Lauren turned back to face Ryan and
smiled at him.
"So Ryan…you wanna get out of here?"
Ryan was a little taken aback, but tried not to
show it. He smiled at her. "Absolutely."
As lauren grabbed her sweater and was led out
the door by Ryan, she looked back at camila
one last time. Camila must have felt lauren's
eyes on her because she looked over just in
time to see laurrm leave with her latest
conquest. Camila's eyes followed lauren as she
disappeared out of sight with the door closing
behind her.