The Guidance Counselor

It's Dangerous

As suspected, Normani and Dinah were waiting in Camila's room at the Hamilton residence as soon as she returned from the library, questions in their eyes and from what Camila could see, questions written down on a piece of paper, as if they were worried they would forget to ask her one of the many questions burning in the two girl's minds.

"Are you fucking crazy?" Normani blurted out as soon as Camila walked into the room. Dinah let out a laugh and Camila just sighed and shrugged her shoulders, maybe she was crazy, she definitely felt crazy most of the time. "Mila, when we made that joke last night about you two dating, it was exactly that, a joke! We didn't mean for you two to-"

"This didn't start today," Camila said truthfully as she walked across the room and settled onto the bed. "It's been going on for a bit now, she's not a teacher, not-"

"That's not the point," Normani scoffed loudly. "The point is, she's like five years older than you and teacher or not, she works for the school. The school you attend because oh hey, you're still a minor!"

"She makes me feel normal," Camila sighed, laying back on the bed with her eyes trained on the ceiling. "She didn't initiate it, I did. She makes me feel like it's okay to be me, when I'm with her, I'm happy, when I'm with her all the bad stuff disappears and I can just be."

"Start from the beginning," Dinah said cautiously, her hand on Normani's forearm as if she was holding the girl back. "Tell us everything."

Camila sighed, her lips pursed as she rubbed at her eyes, everything was a lot and Camila wasn't even sure how to explain it all. "Fine, but no cutting in and I'm giving you the short version, because if I don't we will be here all night and Lauren and I are going on a date so-"

"You can't be seen with her in-"

"Out of town, we're going to be careful," Camila quickly cut in, not wanting to let Normani ruin the idea of how the night was going to go for her and Lauren. "The library, today, that was a one time thing, she's not usually that reckless and neither am I. That was a reaction to a situation, not a regular occurrence, we don't make a habit of making out on the library deck."

"I would hope not," Dinah mumbled under breath and Normani just quirked an eyebrow as if to tell Dinah not to encourage the notion. "Start from the beginning," Dinah told the smaller girl, repeating what she had said earlier before they started to get off topic. "We're listening and we're not judging-"

"I'm judging-"

"Okay, Mani's judging because she's an asshole, but I'm not judging, I'm genuinely curious," Dinah said as she move to lay down with her head on Camila's stomach. "Tell us yours and Lauren's story."

"It's not done yet."

"Tell us what you have so far," Normani resigned, situating herself so she was sitting cross-legged and looking down at Camila, her exterior less hardened than it had been when Camila first walked into the room.

Camila nodded and took a breath, her eyes closed as she started to speak. "It started with the confrontation Dinah and I had in the hallway, she saw, she saw the whole thing, she watched Dinah pin me against the locker and roll up my sleeves and scream at me and on Monday she called me into her office to talk, she started with some bullshit excuse about being concerned about my grades and then she moved on to the issue of self harm, I got mad and ran out of her office, but she followed and she told me she wanted us to meet up, but I refused and I avoided her for a few days, not attending the meetings she had scheduled off record for her and I. Then I ran into her at the library. I was outside reading and she came over and told me it was too hot outside for me to be drinking coffee and then told me to call her Lauren and the rest is history," Camila shrugged and Normani shook her head.