Caught (Camren)

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"Just take it," he insisted, dropping the money on my lap and turning back towards his project.

"Andrew, I don't want to-"

"Mila, you know how this works," he protested. "If you win the bet you claim the prize, no arguments."

I stood from the couch abruptly and stomped over to him, slapping the money on the counter and burying my face in my hands.

"I don't want your fucking money, okay?" I choked out, my voice cracking in frustration.

He was quiet. I was quiet. Everything was quiet and completely unbearable. Any time I was enveloped by silence, all I could hear was Lauren's voice, begging me to hold on as I ran out of her room. The guilt was eating me alive. I shouldn't have let whatever our relationship was get to that point in the first place. Twice I had given her a good time, and the one time she was ready to return the favor, I ran out. What the hell was going on in my head? I wanted her and I knew I did, yet there I was, avoiding her and whining about it front of my best friend.

"Mila...what's wrong?" Andrew asked quietly.

"I don't know," I admitted, removing my hands from my face and staring down at my feet.

He grabbed my arm and led me to the couch, sitting me down and wrapping his arm around my shoulder supportively. I leaned into his chest and closed my eyes, trying to fight back the tears that were threatening to spill out. It wasn't like me to cry. In fact, in all the years I'd known Andrew, I didn't think he'd ever seen me cry, but I was just so confused. I didn't know what else to do.

"Explain to me exactly what happened," he instructed. "Start with the party."

"You know what we did at the party," I reminded him.

"I don't care. I want to hear it all," he insisted. "I can't help you if I have no idea what's going on."

I sat up and repositioned myself so that I was facing him, my knees pulled to my chest.

"The party's kind of self explanatory," I started. "Everything was great, then I passed out after the cops showed up, and when I woke up she was gone. That's not abnormal, of course. I've never stayed with a girl for the entire night, but I couldn't help but worry about her. I kept thinking, 'what if something happened to her,' or, 'what if she tried to leave and got hurt?' I've never worried about someone like that in my life. Of all the times I've hooked up with a girl as plastered as she was, she was the first one I've ever been genuinely concerned about. Then I got to school, and there she was- thank God- so I went to talk to her, and she told me to stay away from her. She told me I was a bad influence and she had more important things to think about."

"But I thought you hooked up with her again," Andrew chimed in.

"Well, I didn't say I listened to her," I laughed. "I apologized to her like you suggested, and sure enough she accepted it. She even said she didn't have a problem being friends with me, so I invited her over to hang out. Nothing more. My only intention was to get to know her, and we were off to a good start, but the next thing I knew I had her clothes on the floor and she didn't protest. After that point, she didn't really seem to have a problem with me. Then last week I tried to talk her into going to that party but she refused. She seemed kind of...distant. So I decided to stay with her instead, and we actually got to talk- like really talk- but then she started asking me about the other girls and telling me how good she could make me feel, and she came onto me. She kissed me and started taking my clothes off and...I don't know. I stopped her. It took me by surprise."

"So what was the problem?" he asked impatiently. "Were you just surprised because she wanted to fuck you?"

As much as I wanted to say yes, to just leave it at that and move on, that was not the case. I wasn't surprised in the least that Lauren wanted to do those things with me. After two days of unreciprocated contact with her, I figured she'd want to return the favor eventually. Granted, I was surprised, but not because of her actions. I was surprised by the way they made me feel. I was surprised by the things they made me think.