Falling is the easy part (Camren)

16

Camila:

"What are we?"

Lauren's words had haunted me all night. Okay so maybe haunted is a bit strong, but I couldn't get the whole conversation off my mind. At all. I hadn't slept a wink. Not one single measly minute. I just laid, staring at Lauren's ceiling, as she slept soundly beside me, her arm around my waist hugging me close, her head in at my neck, her soft snores tickling me. I'd even found myself just watching her sleep for a bit, hoping that it might persuade my body to shut off or something. She'd just looked so cute.

She's making me soft.

I'm Camila fucking Cabello for Christ's sake. I don't do soft. I don't do cuddles and romantic evenings. I don't do sweet and soppy.

But Lauren? Lauren makes me want all that. Lauren makes me want to do soft, and cuddles and romantic evenings. She makes me want to be sweet and soppy and all that Hallmark crap. But I hadn't told her that. Even when she'd given me the perfect chance. Even when she'd pretty much said that she wants me to want that, that she wants there to be an 'us'. I just chickened out. I'm a fucking coward I know. A fucking idiotic stupid slag of a coward. And then lying there, watching her sleep, all cutely snuggled into me, all I could think about was her words.

"I want us to be more than that, don't you?"

She'd looked hurt when I said whatever it was I'd said about having fun. This was more than that to me too. But yet there I was, still running scared, still playing the blasé Camila fucking Cabello part. I tried to ignore the dull ache in my chest when she agreed, when she plastered on a fake smile and kissed me again. Lauren had just offered me everything I wanted and I couldn't take it. Instead I'd reverted to the version of me I was when she met me, the part I play so well, the me that runs from feelings and hides from the truth. I was back to bailing before she'd even woken up, dressing quickly in the early morning dark of her bedroom, leaving her sound asleep and blissfully unaware in her bed.

It hurt. It hurt like hell. But I didn't know what else to do. I don't do this falling for people thing, let alone falling for a girl. A perfect girl. A perfect girl who looks after me and orders me Chinese food and who makes me laugh and forget who I am for an evening. A perfect girl who deserves so much better than me. Standing there in her room, looking down at her cute sleeping form, I'd felt terrible. Like a bigger bitch than I'd ever felt walking out on a sleeping lad before. Like a bigger bitch than I'd felt this first time I'd walked out on Lauren. And the second. She deserves so much more than this, than me. She deserves to be treated like a princess. And yet I still walked out on her, grabbing a post-it from Lauren's desk and a pen lying in her open text book and scrawling a quick note.

I'm sorry. Swimming. C xx

I'd not gone swimming. Just told coach that my stomach wasn't feeling right. Thankfully he'd accepted the excuse, happy with my new improved attitude to swimming over the past month and told me he knew I'd make it up another time. I'd tried to ignore that dull ache again when I realised that my happier mood had all been down to one person. One person I'd just walked away from. Again. And now here I am. Sitting with my head in my hands, at a lonely table for one in a pub I've never been to before, having been sat here for the past couple of hours, wondering what the hell I'm gonna do about all this. What the hell I'm gonna do about all these feelings. Feelings for Lauren. Strong feelings. Like really strong feelings.

Fucking hell.

Camila fucking Cabello is falling for someone, a perfect someone, the best kind of someone.

I should have said something. I should have told her. I should have just said that yes, that's what I want too, I want more, I want her. I should have told her that I really like her, that it's not just about the fact that we have mind-blowing sex that makes me come round every night. I should have just said something other than telling her I just want to keep having fucking fun. I was almost too busy fretting over my disastrous show of stupidity last night to notice a glass of what I presume is coke being shoved under my nose. When I looked up, there was Jay, stood over me watching me carefully, a dish towel thrown over his shoulder. Wait. Does he work here? Trust me to pick the pub where he works out of all the pubs in Miami.