It Started With Hello ⇒ Camren

Fourty Nine

[Mani Bear - 8:55 p.m.]
It was a summer day, just before dinner time when the doorbell rang. I ran to the door to answer it and was greeted by a lady and a girl who looked around my age with long black hair. She was looking down, holding a tray of brownies, giving off a shy vibe.

[Mani Bear - 8:57 p.m.]
The lady introduced herself as Clara, Lauren's mom, and then introduced Lauren before asking if my mom was home. I called my mom to the door and her and Clara fell into conversation. Lauren gave my mom the brownies and she invited them in.

[Mani Bear - 8:59 p.m.]
They ended up staying for dinner and Lauren and I hung out in my backyard for a while afterwards. By the time she left, I had already pulled her out of her shell and we declared ourselves as best friends.

[Mani Bear - 9:00 p.m.]
We ended up walking to and from school together every day, doing homework together every night, spending all of our free time together. Our moms became best friends. Her mom was, and still is, my second mom and vice versa. If we weren't at my house, we were at hers.

[Mani Bear - 9:02 p.m.]
With that being said, I knew everything going on in her home life. Including the fact that when we were eight, Lauren's dad started to become very in and out of the picture. He would be home one day and the next he would be gone, sometimes for weeks at a time.

[Mani Bear - 9:03 p.m.]
Lauren would pretend to be okay with it, act like it was a normal thing and that it didn't bother her. But it did. I knew it did and I tried to make up for it in every way even though my eight year old self knew that I couldn't. Nothing stopped me from trying.

[Mani Bear - 9:05 p.m.]
When we were nine, Lauren showed up at my bedroom window for the first time ever knocking lightly around ten at night. Her mom was on a business trip and had no choice but to leave her with her dad but she would come over after school and stay with me until she had to go home and sleep.

[Mani Bear - 9:07 p.m.]
Anyways, I turned on the light extremely confused until I turned back around and saw she had a black eye. I opened the window and let her in and she was crying. She made me promise not to tell anyone her dad hit her.

[Mani Bear - 9:08 p.m.]
My mom found out when she came to wake me up in the morning and Lauren was cuddled up with me in bed. Lauren's mom came home the next day.

[Mani Bear - 9:10 p.m.]
A month later, Lauren learned her dad had a drug problem. Clara filed a divorce but Lauren still had to see him on weekends because the court claimed he had gone through rehab and was sobered up.

[Mani Bear - 9:11 p.m.]
To this day I still don't know if he actually was sober. All I know is that he called her names, he'd tell her that she's the reason he started to take drugs, he'd tell her all the times he left for weeks and didn't come home was because of her.

[Mani Bear - 9:12 p.m.]
And that's why Lauren has trust issues. That's why she hates when people leave. It destroys her mentally because she's stuck in her head blaming and hating herself, telling herself that she did something wrong to make them go away.

[Mani Bear - 9:13 p.m.]
She warmed up to Camila extremely fast, faster than I've ever seen her warm up to anyone.

[Mani Bear - 9:14 p.m.]
And I think the fact that Camila suddenly pulled away put the idea of "it's all my fault" in Lauren's head and now she's stuck in her head with the constant thought...

[Finah Dinah - 9:20 p.m.]
holy shit dude...

[Finah Dinah - 9:21 p.m.]
it's not lauren's fault

[Finah Dinah - 9:21 p.m.]
what the fuck do we do?

[Mani Bear - 9:22 p.m.]
The only thing I can think of is having Lauren explain all of this to Camila but I know she won't.

[Mani Bear - 9:23 p.m.]
Not without a reason.

[Mani Bear - 9:24 p.m.]
And we don't know that Camila likes her for sure, therefore we have no reason.

[Finah Dinah - 9:25 p.m.]
but we're almost positive

[Mani Bear - 9:26 p.m.]
But almost positive isn't enough. Yes, there's a lot of clues, but there's still that small chance that she doesn't and if we give false information we might fuck everything up for good.

[Finah Dinah - 9:28 p.m.]
so what do we do?

[Mani Bear - 9:29 p.m.]
I think right now all we can do is wait for Camila to come to her senses. I really don't want to fuck this up for them.

[Finah Dinah - 9:30 p.m.]
that's gonna take forever.

[Mani Bear - 9:30 p.m.]
She's your best friend. Have some faith in her.

[Finah Dinah - 9:31 p.m.]
ugh alright