Blame It On Bad Luck (Camren)

Chapter 14

"Hi Chris, how is everything?" she asked, making her way over. Kayla stood smiling while holding onto her uncle's hand, swinging them back and forth playfully.

"It's going good. What about you?"

"Um...it's good," she lied, not wanting to bore Chris to death with the details of her messy breakup with her girlfriend because she cheated on her with his sister, who she is now sleeping with. It wasn't exactly a conversation she wanted to have...like, ever.

"That's good. How are things with..." he trailed off, looking behind Camila at Mrs. Scott who was busy chatting with another kid's parents about something. He brought his voice down. "Lauren?" And Camila didn't even have to ask to know what he was referring to. He looked a bit nervous, she noted.

"It's going pretty well actually," she told him, but only watched his face grow extremely confused.

"It is?"

"Yeah."

"That doesn't...sound like Lauren..."

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean..." he paused and sighed, looking down at his niece who had no idea what they were talking about. He let go of her hand and put his hands on her shoulders instead, kneeling a little to get to her level. "Kayla, sweetie, why don't you wait for me at your desk, okay? I need to talk to Camila in hall about something." She nodded happily, not questioning him and ran off to the back of the room. Chris then looked to the brunette and nodded towards the door, gesturing for her to follow him out.

"What's going on, Chris?" she asked once they were a decent distance from the classroom.

"Lauren's lying to you," he said right away, getting straight to the point. Camila was taken aback by his words and how blunt he was being about it. "She's not sober." And what was worse, he sounded so sure.

"What?"

"Trust me, Camila. If she was really trying to be sober she wouldn't be fine. I've seen her off the drugs. It's not pretty...at all."

"I thought you said she only ever told you when she was serious."

"I love Lauren, I really do. But she is a liar. She's promised a million times that she would stop or go get help. Only a few times did she actually try and it was fucking awful. The withdrawal was so bad."

"But...I'm with her so much. And it's not like she does it when she's with me. I would have seen her doing it."

"She'll figure out a way. Any moment alone she can get, she'll probably take advantage of that; even if you think she's going to the bathroom or something. There's probably a ton of drugs hidden in your apartment that you don't even know about. I'm telling you, if she was getting clean, like really getting clean, it would be very obvious. And it would be very messy."

"God, I can't believe this," she breathed out, rubbing her temple as a headache creeped up on her.

"I'm sorry, Camila. I should have warned you before. But Lauren lies all the time. Ally and I have had to deal with her for years now and we've accepted that she doesn't want to stop. I'm still hopeful she'll get help and get clean because I know how much she wants to be in Kayla's life but..."

"I understand. I just...I want to help her, Chris."

"You can't help someone who doesn't want it. This is who Lauren is. You can't put all of that on yourself when she isn't going to do anything about it. It's too much to put on one person; you can't carry that load especially when Lauren is only looking out for herself," he told her sympathetically, genuinely sorry she got sucked into his sister's mess of a life. He knew what it was like to try and help when she didn't want it in the first place. "You can't hold your breath for someone who's just going to watch you suffocate."

"I don't know what to do," she mumbled, growing more and more frustrated with Chris's words. She knew her roommate had the tendency to lie and hide things but she really wanted to believe she was being honest with her; she thought they were friends. Or was she just pretending the whole time so that Camila wouldn't question anything? Was that her intention all along because she knew Camila would feel bad for her? "I should have known."

"Don't be hard on yourself; Lauren is just...really good at hiding things from people. But this is just who she is. I was really hoping this time would be different but I guess it really never is."

"Fuck."

"Again, don't be hard on yourself. She's fooled all of us before." She shook her head, running her hand through her hair, pushing it back.

"I'm sorry it wasn't different this time, Chris."

"Yeah," he nodded, knowing what she was feeling too well. "Me too." After saying goodbye, her roommate's brother went back to retrieve his niece from her classroom and took her home. Camila on the other hand, drove herself back to her and Lauren's apartment, growing increasingly more frustrated the more she thought about the green eyed girl lying to her. She'd had enough of people lying to her and Chris's revelation was like the final nail in the coffin.

And she was fuming by the time she made it upstairs. Because after putting up with the raven haired girl and all of her bullshit from the beginning she thought she was actually getting somewhere. She was secretly praying that Chris was wrong but he had to know his sister better than she did. And it made sense. Why would Lauren change just because Camila offered to help? Why would she care?

She wasn't fully thinking things through when she entered their bedroom, seeing that no one else was home, and went straight for Lauren's side. Normally she wouldn't dare go through her stuff. Because Camila knew it was a death wish, God forbid she got caught or if she ever found out. But she was on autopilot and opened her drawers, moving things around and not caring if she was making it obvious.

She went through her closet and under and behind anything she could think of. She kicked some of her shoes back near the wall where they were, getting herself worked up in the process of tearing their room apart. And she was about to just give up on the task until she remembered something Chris said.

She turned the light on in their bathroom, looking through the medicine cabinet and knew she needed to think outside the box. Lauren had been careless and misplaced her drugs before; she wouldn't just have them anywhere Camila could accidentally find them again. She looked in any box or bottle she can find, feeling under the sink and behind the toilet. She lifted the lid of the tank and her eyes immediately landed on a small plastic bag taped on the inside.

She ripped it off, feeling her stomach turning. And it infuriated her that she was so upset to begin with. But she knew deep down that she cared about Lauren and she absolutely hated that this was affecting her at all. She saw how it affected Chris and Ally and she didn't want to feel that way. She didn't want to give a shit but she knew that she did. And Lauren knew she would too.

"Camz?" Camila froze, nearly dropping the bag at the sound of her roommate's voice coming from the doorway. She glanced over to see her watching her with a fire in her eyes she prayed she would never have to experience. Her grip on the bag tightened and she swallowed but still felt like she was suffocating. "What the fuck are you doing?"

*    *    *    *

A/N: so I'm pet sitting all week, aka I'm by myself in an apartment with a pit bull who keeps using me as a pillow so relatively fast update for you guys since I can't leave. hope you enjoyed this cliffhanger, everyone loves a good cliffhanger, right?

I'm hoping to get the next update done quickly too but who knows with me. in the meantime I'll be a douche and include some shameless self promo here, feel free to check out my other camren story "For Me This Is Heaven" if you haven't already, it's already completed.

as always, feel free to leave any comments, questions, or concerns, or if you just feel like yelling at me for this chapter

and of course thanks for reading!

-lex