KISS ME

CHAPTER 13 - MESSAGES

Camila closed her laptop and let the little bud of hope blossom in her heart. He had liked her Instagram post. He had read the quote. She could ring him, she could ring him right now and tell him how stupid she had been, and that it had been the wrong decision. She could do that. But she felt that a little bit of time and space wasn't necessarily a bad thing and if what they had was real, then they would come back to each other. It just hurt so much to be away from him, to not speak to him even.

The plans for the tour were in place, and they had begun the rehearsals. Sara and Calvit had been working with the dancers while she was filming the movie and now she just had to learn her part. The sets she had helped design were almost finished, she had tweaked them a little so those changes were being made now. They had worked on the arrangements for the music before she had flown to the UK and the band had worked hard and had the music down, so now it was all up to her.

The best medicine for a fractured heart was keeping busy. Work was always a great escape, and she used it now, exhausting herself every day dancing and singing and planning. She fell into bed exhausted every night. Her Mom was back in Miami so she had the house to herself, and it had never felt quite so big or empty. Exhaustion, therefore, was her friend. It didn't give her time to think about Shawn or be too tempted to call him. Then the promotional work leading up to the tour began and she thought she had prepared herself but the questions about Shawn and how he was in the movie and what was it like to do a love scene with him? They were deadly. Luckily she was a good actress and managed to cover her feelings with quips and laughter and effusive descriptions. Then she would bring the interview back to the tour and realise she had survived another one.

She had broken the tour into three parts, and she had a break in between each one, and mini breaks within each part. On two of the breaks she had festival performances booked and on another she had to fly to Mexico City for an awards show, but the mini-breaks were sacred, they were only two days at a time but they were days to recharge and she needed them. The first portion of the tour was Europe and whilst in the UK she ended up breaking her own rule and using the minibreak time to do some pick up work on the movie, revoicing some scenes, reworking some vocals on the soundtrack. All the venues were sold out, including the Meet & Greets, and she had radio and print interviews everywhere she went. She was asked lots of Shawn questions again and she laughed them off or told a joke and it was all fine. No matter how exhausting it was, that fell away when she took to the stage. The sets were lavish, the dance numbers spectacular, the ballads heartbreaking. Critics loved the show, the fans were going crazy online. She was on a high most of the time.

And not just because of the show. She and Shawn were communicating, in a way. He would share a song that had lyrics that meant something to them on Instagram, and she would like it. She would tweet a gif of the animated Disney Cinderella and the Prince embracing and he would like it. He would retweet good reviews of her show, and she would comment on an Instagram post by his writers raving about how the album was coming along. As the tour progressed and these interactions increased, when she got asked about Shawn in interviews, she gushed about him and how amazing he was and how much she loved working with him, and he did the same, telling everyone how real and caring she was, generous to work with, and beautiful. There was a groundswell of speculation that there had been something going on during the movie and a few little stories and a couple of blurry videos emerged to support the theories. Someone asked Shawn about it in an interview and he just laughed and shrugged, saying people are going to say whatever they want, he didn't confirm or deny. It became like a back and forth game, where they hid private messages in the things they posted and said. A photo of a garden gate with a quote about running across the grass at midnight made her smile and then cry. He still loved her, he hadn't forgotten her. They were like the modern day version of love letters.