Behind The Scenes

Prologue

Camila has terrible, terrible luck. The worst kind of luck that you can have. Like win the lottery but die the next day kind of luck. Like never been on a cruise before and end up on the titanic kind of luck. Like hit by lighting seven times, only known person to be hit by a meteorite, sitting on a bench that was just painted in a brand new outfit, break your arm only to break it again the day you get the cast off kind of bad luck.

She always has, as long as she can remember.

She thinks maybe it started when she was born.

Her mother had gone into labor later expecting one child, and one child they got, a beautiful baby girl who they were quick to name Catalina. They had spent months picking out a name that was special to them, it meant pure, like their love for each other. They had everything planned out. Well there was one thing they didn't have planned, Sinu Cabello was pregnant with twins and thus Camila was born ten minutes after her sister, a complete surprise. She was named Karla, after their guy nurse Karl. Wow, really special.

(Thank god her grandmother had been there to pick her middle name, she wonders if maybe she hadn't been, Camila wouldn't be Camila and instead a Brianna after their maternity doctor Brian)

It only went downhill after that. Catalina was an adorable baby, not that Camila wasn't, but there was one large factor that made it easy to tell the two girls apart, despite looking exactly alike. Catalina was born with a head full of hair whereas Camila was a cue ball until the age of nearly two, basically she was a bald child and the small amount of hair that she did have formed a small spike on her head.

Her hair situation got better after that, but it was just one bout of bad luck after another. Catalina was talking rather fluently by two years old, Camila rarely talked and for the for the first three years of her life, her parents didn't think she could talk at all. Catalina was social and talkative and captured the hearts of all their relatives whereas Camila was awkward and quiet, she never knew what to say and she opted for sitting by herself and observing whenever the neighborhood kids came over to play.

She remembers when her and Cat were five years old and they went to Cuba to visit all of their cousins and extended family. The whole family met at her grandparent's house to wait for their arrival and when Sinu Cabello showed up with two children instead of one, everyone was quite surprised. They had seen so many Facebook videos of Catalina dancing around the kitchen and trying to sing or doing cartwheels before smiling proudly at her mother. Catalina was photogenic which lead to a lot of photos taken and posted to Sinu's Facebook profile (the only real way Sinu kept in touch with her family and vice versa) and Camila was well, how do you put it? Oh yeah, not.

At six years old Camila found out that she loved school. Not the people of course. No, the people were loud and mean and there were way too many other kids and they all love Cat. So she didn't like the people, but she loved to learn. So of course as soon as Camila finds something she likes to do, her bad luck sets in. One year later she was diagnosed with Dyslexia. And of course Catalina, who could care less about the learning part of school, found it effortless to get perfect grades.

It was cause and effect. Something good happens to Catalina, something bad happens to Camila. Camila finds something she likes, something prevents her from being able to do it and to make the situation worse, Catalina suddenly finds herself mastering whatever it was Camila liked but wasn't good at. Camila wants something, Catalina gets it. Everything always came so fucking easy for Catalina, opportunity just fell from the sky and landed directly in her hands. She was naturally talented at almost anything that she tried to do. She could make friends easily, people always liked her, she always knew what to say and when, what more does Camila have to say? Catalina was the good part of Karma and Camila was the bad.