Riptide (a camren fic)

chapter 11: white siberian

The girl runs a hand through her shiny tangle of brown hair, and it falls in an annoyingly perfect part as if her hand was some kind of sacred hair taming comb.

Camila frowns when the girl outstretches her arms and embraces Lauren warmly. Her frown deepens when Lauren returns the hugs.

Camila recognizes it. She knows those hugs all too well.

From the start of their friendship Lauren had always been the one with the best hugs in the group. Of course, Camila probably thinks it's just a bias that she would prefer Lauren's over anyone else's. Her arms always had the way of making you feel like you were being taken in, in all of your entirety. Wrapped up close and snug like she was trying to bring you closer than just the physicality of the act.

It started in the shoulders, then the press of her body against yours, then her face buried in your neck.

Yeah, Camila remembers.

Even though she hasn't been on the receiving end of one of those hugs in a very long time.

"Long time no see," the girl murmurs against Lauren's shoulder.

"I saw you like last week, Lucy," Lauren says sheepishly.

Another girl comes to the door, after the two break apart.

"Who're you?"

"Nice to see you too, Vero." Lauren rolls her eyes before also bringing her into a hug, albeit a shorter one. "This is my friend Camila."

Camila tries not to notice the way Lauren stumbled over the word friend. Instead she forces a tiny grin (that probably ends up looking like a grimace), and extends her hand.

They both look down at her hand, before looking at each other, and laughing out loud.

"No need for the formalities. Any friend of Lauren's is cool with us," the first girl - Lucy - says with a dazzling smile.

It unnerves Camila how shiny this girl's teeth are, and how pretty she is, and how she locks arms with Lauren playfully.

She looks away from their intertwined arms to notice Veronica studying her intensely.

"I feel like I've seen you before," Veronica says, pursing her lips.

"She was a grade below us Vero," Lauren sighs.

"I remember now." Veronica's eyes travel up and down her body. A slow smile spreads across her already rather mischievous looking face. "You're the girl with the bows right?"

It's something so trivial and meaningless now, Camila doesn't know how to respond to it. There's a disassociating feeling that grips her whenever she's reminded of her past self.

Her face flushes and she glances to Lauren for help.

"Oh my god, Vero, way to be creepy," Lucy interjects with an eye roll.

Camila feels her face burn and the flush deepen beneath their stares. She isn't sure which is having more of an effect on her sudden facial pigment change – their curious gazes or the fact that they bring up the bows.

"Don't worry," Veronica consoles, as if she notices the way Camila's face has turned crimson. "It was pretty fucking adorable."

"Okay, can we come inside or what?" Lauren huffs.

"Fine. Alexa's upstairs anyway," Veronica says turning on her heel, and heading back inside. They follow suit.

Camila sharply inhales before crossing the threshold, Dinah closely behind her.