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

~{14}~

For weeks, Lauren and I really couldn't put a label on what we were.

Friends with benefits probably explained it best, but it honestly wasn't even on that level so I don't know if that's accurate.

I was still hiding so much from her, and I couldn't get anymore serious with her if I didn't tell her.

It was only fair to her, at least.

My sickle cell hadn't been acting up as much, which is pretty great. I'd been taking my meds when needing to, and hiding my condition was going pretty smoothly.

I'd also gone to a few rehearsals with Lauren, and we were almost ready to start touring.

The opening date of the tour itself was drawing near, and Lauren often stayed out late at night to go work on her performance.

Some nights, she wouldn't get home until four in the morning.

But it didn't really phase me. I always kept to myself inside my room, and slept at my own leisure.

Sometimes she would be a little clumsy and knock something over as she came in, and it would wake me up.

"Fuck, my damn toe." She mumbled one time from down the stairs. I had burst out laughing.

Something that really excited me was the show that would be taking place in New York City during the tour.

I managed to get Dinah some weird ass special access ticket so that she could visit me before and after the show.

I was waiting on finally seeing her again, since our long FaceTime calls and text messages were only starting to make me miss her more.

And she was also aware of the whole thing with Lauren, which I definitely could use some more advice on. I told her I'd rather discuss it in person, and she seemed more than happy to oblige.

So that's basically what was happening at that point in time. Nothing too spectacular.

I was currently on my phone scrolling through Instagram. There were a lot of people tagging me in stuff with pictures of Lauren and I.

Ever since we arrived at LA, more and more people were spotting us hanging around together, which is honestly unavoidable as unfortunate as it is.

Not to mention, people finally found out who I was, and my Instagram had been getting blown up with follows, likes, comments, and dms ever since.

I didn't mind the sudden attention whether it was positive or negative, but people's opinions were very fascinating sometimes. That's why I read through some of the posts, just to see what they were all thinking.

Some people speculated we were just friends, others thought of us to be lovers. It was a mix of both.

Some people thought I was taking advantage of Lauren, just as I feared they would.

But nonetheless, I knew what was true about us. I didn't really get bothered over what other people tried to convince others to believe.

I wasn't using her, and I really did like her. That was the truth. If people didn't want to believe that, it's on them not me.

And apparently, as evident in the last few weeks, Lauren seemed to like me too.

Maybe I'd been going about it wrong all along.

Maybe I should just give her a chance.

Maybe it was time to have hope in being happy rather than waiting around hoping for a miracle that would never come. As long as my music became as popular as Normani promised it would, I might be okay.