It's A Long Ride Home, I'm Afraid. {Camren} ✔️

~{12}~

"Nobody will ever love you the way that I made you believe I did."

Lucy's voice kept ringing inside my head.

I wish she would just leave me alone, and stay out of my mind.

"You're desperate for love, Lauren. And you always look in the wrong places. That's what led you to me."

"And you fell into my trap. You weren't forced to love me, remember that. You did that on your own."

"But you deceived me!" I had told her. My voice was breaking. "You made me think you loved me, when all of it was a lie! How could anyone have expected me to see through that?"

A smirk. That same look on her face had haunted me for the longest time. If I had closed my eyes, it was all I could ever see.

She duped me. She wanted nothing more than my money and fame.

And then she left me.

I couldn't help that I still loved her long after that. I couldn't help that she was all I still thought about.

Maybe she never loved me, but I definitely loved her.

You can't just stop loving someone on a whim. It takes time. Too much time, frankly.

So I drank. I drank, and I drank, and I drank, because it was the only way I could forget. Forget how much it hurt.

And I didn't mind the stinging sensation the alcohol left behind in my throat, because it could never quite amount to the pain I'd already been feeling inside.

So, as long as it kept me distracted, I would drink. Sometimes, I'd drink as much as it took for me to pass out. Purposefully.

Ally tried helping me through the depression, but I would secretly go behind her back and dismiss the help from the doctors and specialists she took me to, and I'd continue my habits anyway.

It wasn't until Normani got tired of my absences and being unproductive that things started getting a bit better.

With her help as well, I learned to cope better, and despite her and Ally never finding out about my addiction I stopped drinking as much as I did.

But that didn't mean I wasn't still doing it.

For months on end, I continued consuming alcohol, only at less of an alarming rate.

I became slightly healthier, but was still living an unhealthy lifestyle

The feeling of being trapped in my own mind was still unbearable. Trapped in the past. Trapped with her snickering at me like all of my misfortunes were part of some master plan she concocted.

Until I met Camila, I felt like each day of my life was a part of some reoccurring nightmare.

But then she made me realize that there was still hope. I mean, she was practically the embodiment of hope.

For the longest time, I'd paid mind to Lucy's horrifying words. They cut deep.

I must've wrote so many lyrics about the situation, trying to vent all of my emotions onto a piece of paper because I didn't have the courage to vent them to anyone else.

Although, this all slowly seemed to change after I began to hang around Camila more and more.

And it was then that I allowed myself to feel hopeful again, because maybe there was a chance that someone could love me. For real this time.

Love me despite the state I was in, despite the torment my heart had gone through.

And I would prove Lucy wrong. I would prove to her that she no longer had control over my life.

But even then, there was still so much doubt in my mind.

Who could learn to love someone as unstable as me?

After all, I didn't even know how to love myself.

~