Remembering Yesterday (Camren)

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Her name is Lauren.

You love her.

The ink is faded on her skin and messily written so it must have been done some time ago. Camila looks over her shoulder to where a girl lay on her bed, back facing her. Black hair is splayed across her pillow and the skin on her back is white and looks smooth to the touch. Camila hasn’t properly seen her face yet except for the brief moment when she had turned over after waking up and jumped back after seeing someone else on the bed with her, but Camila knows that the girl is beautiful. Her heart jumps just by looking and Camila wonders what she’s like, how her voice sounds, how her eyes look. She wants to know who she is.

Her name is Lauren.

Camila loves her.

She just can’t remember why.

--
The first time, it’s raining. It had started suddenly while Camila was walking home from work so in an effort to save herself – and her shoes – from the pouring rain she had ducked under the first shelter she could find.

Camila likes the rain. It’s always different, always changing. A drop of rain can never hit the ground twice. Camila likes that. She likes it when things change because nothing ever does for her. She feels like she’s been stuck in the same day for years with no way of moving forward. It’s tiring feeling like she’s always missing something, like she’s always the last to know.

And she is.

Because she will never remember yesterday.

As she’s standing in front of the small convenience store, looking longingly at the rain soaked streets in front of her, someone else quickly runs underneath the makeshift shelter. Camila watches with mild interest as the girl drops the cheap magazine she had been using as an umbrella, sighing with distaste at its uselessness. She’s completely soaked, strands of wet hair clinging to a flushed face and clothes dripping with water. She looks up at Camila and their eyes meet.
She’s beautiful.

“The rain came out of nowhere.” The girl says dejected annoyance laced in her tone.
Camila swallows and nods slightly. She’s always been wary about talking to strangers.

The girl sighs and stares out at the rain.
“Doesn’t look like it’s going to let up anytime soon, does it?”

“Y-yeah”

As Camila focuses on breathing from her peripheral she sees the girl turn towards her, feels her eyes bore into her. It makes her shift uncomfortably being under such scrutiny.

“I’m Lauren.” She says.

When Camila looks at her she sees a smile and nothing else.

She swallows the lump in her throat.

“Camila.”

--
Camila writes every day. She has two journals. One is to document her every day experiences. It’s a small leather bound journal she keeps in her back pocket. She writes her experiences as they happen so that even if her mind forgets, the memory will still exist. The other is smaller in width but bigger in length. She reads this one every morning. It contains all the important information she needs to know before she can step foot outside of her apartment.

You quit your office job; you work at the bookstore with Ally and Dinah now. Your parents are divorced; your father cheated – you don’t talk to him anymore. Your sister is studying in abroad. She calls at 2pm every day.

As Camila sits down that night she goes through her small journal and reads through all the things she wrote that day. She reads of how Ally had called in sick unexpectedly so she spent three hours shelving books on her own; of how she and Dinah spent their break singing pop songs at the top of their lungs until their throats were sore and their stomachs hurt from laughing; of how she spent the last hour of work looking out at the darkening sky and hoping that it would rain.