Phantasm (Phantasm, #1) - Camila/You

Chapter 15 [📱]

"What is it?"

"It's actually my birthday gift to you."

I tilted my head and studied the green-eyed girl. "You guys already gave me a gift though."

"Well... umm," she started. She looked away from me as I saw a slight blush tint her cheeks. "This one's personally—I mean it's mine. Well it's technically yours now but—but—I picked it out myself."

"A personal birthday gift?"

She glanced at me and immediately looked away when she caught me staring at her. "Y—yes."

"Can I open it?" I asked with a small smile. She nodded and looked intently as I slowly unwrapped her present.

"I'm sorry I didn't give it to you yesterday," she said. I looked up at her briefly and saw a sad smile play on her lips. "With what happened with Camila in Mexico, I didn't want her to get the wrong idea."

I finally pulled the last bit of wrapper to reveal a notebook underneath. It was a spiral notebook about medium-sized in thickness which had a pen inserted on the side. The cover was hard and rough against my skin with the words 'Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music' engraved on it.

"I had it specially made," she said, opening the notebook. Her hands touched mine in the process and she cleared her throat. Lauren opened to a random page and pointed to a blank page on the right. "It's a notebook for you to write your songs in. This side is where you write the lyrics." She then pointed to the left side which was filled with random lines criss-crossing against each other. "And on this part, is when you get writer's block. You can shade them in different strokes and colors until an idea pops in your head."

My hands felt the smooth paper and I found myself slowly flipping the pages. The others didn't just have lines too but also had circles, squares, and even flowers. I couldn't stop the smile that appeared on my face.

"Umm... do you like it?" she asked.

"Lauren, it's perfect. I love it." She started blushing again and she was trying so hard to hide it from me. "And you said you had it made?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I hand drew the shapes."

"You—you did?"

"Yeah. Do you... not like them?"

I shook my head. "I do but, Lauren you didn't have to do that. I mean the effort it took—just a notebook would've been okay."

She giggled which made me chuckle. "Yeah but then it wouldn't be special."

A thought suddenly entered my mind but I immediately dismissed it. I knew there were similarities on what Lauren was doing for me to what I was doing for Camila before but they were probably just coincidences. It just wouldn't be possible that Lauren was feeling for me what I felt for Camila.

I wasn't the type to attract girls like Lauren Jauregui.

"Thank you for this, Lauren. I really do appreciate this. I promise to take good care of it and write all my billboard number ones on it."

Lauren giggled again and I found myself smiling at the cute sound. "I'm just glad you like it, Y/N."

"Uh... sorry it's a little late but do you wanna come in? Maybe you want some coffee?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I have someone to take me back to the apartment waiting for me downstairs. I just wanted to give you that personally."

"I understand." I stepped closer to her and hugged her tight. I felt her body tense for a second before she hugged me back.

I decided to accompany her while waiting for the elevator. Before she could leave, I thanked her and gave her another quick hug. Phantasm was waiting for me when I arrived back to my room.