My Favorite Camren One-Shots

Right Number

If everything wasn’t so messed up you’d think Camila would be having a good time.

There were girls constantly throwing themselves at her, giggling every time she took in a single fucking breath, and the music in this ostentatious and fucking shiny house wasn’t half bad compared to what she’s heard elsewhere.

But.

She misses Ariana.

She misses her and it’s not her fault that she’s gone—maybe it is, considering Camila wasn’t enough to keep her around, so surely that’s on her, right?—but that doesn’t make her any less gone.

She keeps getting hiccups stuck in her throat and her buddy Brad keeps patting her on the back like a terminally gassy baby. She’s never been out drinking before in her life just because she never saw the need for it, but Brad said it’d make it all go away.

It’ll relieve your stress lad, he’d said.

It’ll take your mind off her, he’d said.

She’s never fucking listening to Brad ever again.

Camila’s had three beers shoved into her hands by her curly-haired friend and her bladder can only take so much, so she stands, obnoxiously pronounces the word piss like anybody’s fucking listening, and she tries to reassuringly pat Brad on the back, but she swipes at air and almost topples the fuck over.

And what does he need to be reassured of anyway? She’s the one with half a damn heart.

She finds the bathroom, locks the door, finishes her business, and sits in the tub like she owns it. She squints at the screen of her phone when she clicks it on and tries to get to the dialing pad.

First rule of breakup-dom, Brad had said when she told him what happened. Ditch the digits.

Naturally, Camila paid attention to him. Because naturally, she’s an idiot.

So now Camila’s stuck in some stranger’s tub staring at the dial pad like she knows where to begin and she doesn’t but she misses her.

She tries to remember her number as best as she can, and when she finally clicks to call and she checks her watch to find a blurry 1:06 on the slick screen she prays to the Beer Gods that Ariana’s willing to hear her out for a while.

“Hello?”

The voice is sleepy and raspy and yeah she’s drunk enough to not be able to distinguish faces, so voices aren’t that much easier.

Camila’s voice isn’t as hindered as she thought it’d be, but you can still hear it waiver when she reaches the end of her sentences, like all the passion she started with ends at every period and starts up again right after.

It’s how Ariana made Camila feel when she talked.  Left her grasping at every sentence, every word.

Ariana made Camila want to read the dictionary, just so she could understand every feeling she had even before she knew they had a name.

“I’m sorry I called so late, Ariana, but my heart isn’t working so good. I feel kinda lopsided like when people look all weird when they have strokes, y’know? I’m walkin’ and I feel like half of me gave way because you’re the half not supporting me anymore, Ari. You gave my heart a stroke.”

She takes in a deep, shuddering breath. She wipes her eyes for a second and composes herself as best as she can while drunk and practically slobbering over her phone. Her words are not as slurred as she thought they’d be but it doesn’t stop her head from feeling slurred; from feeling like it just went through a blender.