Three Is A Crowd

Chapter 55: Bad Kind of Butterflies

I check my phone. There's a text from her. Said she'll be back soon -- had to grab some coffee.

Now she gives me updates about her coffee-buying, but when she left her own party she couldn't be bothered to text me or even answer her phone?

Her mother was frantic, and it was me she has been bombarding with questions. Sinu almost went here, but now I remember telling her to let me talk to Camila first. Come to think of it, maybe it was Ale who drove me to campus last night.

I don't like the way I'm feeling. I dont want to be bitter. It's not me. But am I wrong to feel this way? Like I have been neglected and I don't even know why?

I immediately feel bad. What if Camila has been suffering from an anxiety attack? What if she's been stressed and overwhelmed with schoolwork -- which has happened before. Maybe that's why she's been acting weird and distant. Maybe she's been failing her subjects? I wish she'd tell me, I would have helped her any way I can. Whatever she's going through, I will do my best to help her.

Something is for sure going on, but I don't want to judge her without basis. This is Camila, after all. I've known her basically my whole life, and I know this girl is incapable of hurting me, as much as I am incapable of hurting her. She's been nothing but kind and understanding, a loving girlfriend through and through. Sure, we have been in a rough patch lately, but I know in my heart that she loves me.

I'll wait for her to talk. She must have a good reason. I just need to listen and be more understanding.

I stand up to stretch my legs, and look around the room. Lauren's area still scares the heck out of me, like there's a dark aura emanating from her corner. Like some dark voodoo magic going on. I make sure I don't step beyond the invisible partition of the room. It's not difficult, each sides are as different as night and day, like that Netflix show Camila likes to watch -- the one with Wednesday Addams, dark and serial killer-y, and her roommate, peppy and colorful. Very that.

Both are messy, though. If I didn't have a splitting headache right now I would have tidied up a bit already. Clothes strewn everywhere, underwears hanging all over, cucumbers and bananas litter their table, and there's this Metallica shirt half-hidden under Camila's bed collecting cobwebs.

I put the shirt into Camila's hamper, folding it first. Then it hit me. Just a random spurt of memory that I probably didn't think of much back then. But now? Why did I think of it now? Like some spider sense telling me something's up with that shirt.

I recall that time I was here, hanging out with Camila several weeks back, with Lauren on her own bed reading a thick book and wearing the same Metallica shirt. I remember it specifically because I rarely talk to her (because she scares me) and I complimented her. I told her it was a cool shirt and she nodded -- probably her friendliest way of saying thanks -- and told me she got it from Hetfield himself. Family friend or something, she might have mentioned.

At that time, I thought I was making progress with her since she wasn't being antagonistic at all, so, to make conversation, I ask her what her favorite Metallica song was. She shrugs and says that she wants her family to play Enter Sandman at her funeral. I wasn't sure if she was joking or not, so I just said cool, and she shrugged, and I shrugged, and I guess that's that for our conversation.

I left their dorm room shortly after, with Lauren blasting Nine Inch Nails on her speakers, and Camila eating the banapple pie I brought her.

Five minutes later, I come running back to their room because I have forgotten my books for my afternoon classes, and as I was about to knock on the door, I realized something weird. It was silent. So silent I had to make sure I was at the right door -- which I was -- and when I knocked, nobody answered. I literally left just moments ago, I thought it was impossible that they're now asleep, or gone.