For You ... -Camren

**CHAPTER 02**

"Let her be, hon. We have a cake to bake."

"She's hurting, she needs me."

"She needs you to give her some time. Go up in half an hour or so-let her decide if she wants to need you." Lauren stared at her, shocked, but Carol just gestured to the cake ingredients.

"She needs me," she repeated, no real fight in her tone.

"I know," Carol said sadly, shrugging. "But give her time anyway."

She went up an hour later with a cup of tea as a peace offering. But when she opened the door, Camila was sitting next to the unopened cardboard boxes, fast asleep. With a sigh, Lauren pulled the covers off the bed and draped it around Camila's shoulders, then settled down across from her.

(Three truths: 2. Becoming her friend was an active choice.)

She'd seen her around campus. Saw her in coffee shops, ran into her at a bookstore, ended up at the university's cafeteria at the same time. They never really acknowledged these passing glimpses, never acknowledged that on a cold, wet day, Lauren had rammed into Camila and Camila had lectured a total stranger on the detriments of sleep deprivation.

But then they took Sociology together.

It was a large class, Lauren had only taken it because she'd heard the professor was interesting and easy, and ten minutes into the first lecture, she found herself staring at the back of a brunette head, wondering why it looked so familiar. (It took her three more lectures before she gathered the courage to sit next to Camila. Another one after that before she introduced herself and properly apologized for running into her on that cold, wet day. By the eighth or ninth lecture-she stopped counting-they began to actually talk. Small talk, but talk nonetheless. Then suddenly, Camila stopped showing up to class.)

"Lauren?"

"I'm here." Camila stared at her for a moment, her brown eyes red rimmed, looking soft, looking open, looking vulnerable.

"I want to make a closet joke," she said, grinning, and Lauren watched as her best friend shut down, as she turned away for a moment and seemed to remember that she wasn't letting Lauren in anymore-that she couldn't be vulnerable in front of Lauren anymore-and Lauren's heart stuttered and puttered and fluttered for a moment before resuming its normal, agonizing, beat.

"I'm not in the closet."

"Literally, though. Literally, you kinda are."

"You were here first."

"Ah touché. So. How did cake baking go?"

"Mrs. Cabello has proclaimed me to be a lost cause."

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

"She wants to try cookies tomorrow. She says screwing up cakes she can forgive. But cookies are an absolute must in the Cabello family."

"Part of the family, are you?"

"She knows, you know. That we're lying. But she's helping because she says Sinu is too intense."

"And she's teaching you Cabello secrets? She must really like you. We take our cookies very seriously." It was a joke, Lauren knew that. But somehow, the words felt like knives, the tone felt like a twist. For a moment, Lauren felt all the air leave her lungs, leaving her gasping, reeling, heaving.

"Camila."

"I mean, this is super serious. It's like an initiation into our family," Camila said, not noticing or not caring about Lauren's sudden inability to breathe.