Three Is A Crowd

Chapter 47: What Do I Know About Love?

AN: This is also a previously published chapter, but I urge you all to re-read it again as I have made a few alterations.

°°°

Just like some terrible fingering in a tacky porn scene with the usual bad lighting, fake moaning, where an ugly, balding, pot-bellied older guy jack-hammers his fingers inside a girl's vagina as if it's how shit actually works is pretty much how Camila is jabbing the elevator button at this very moment, with basically the same horrible lighting surrounding them, and tiny moans of distress and sense of urgency coming from her.

"Abusing the poor button won't make the lift go down any faster, Mila," Dinah says, tapping her foot while scrolling through her phone.

"Is it even working?" Camila groans loudly, pressing on the poor button yet again.

"Jab it a little harder, maybe you'll make it squirt."

"Dinah, shut up."

"Leave the poor button alone, then. Lauren isn't going anywhere." Dinah primps her hair while using her phone screen to check her reflection. Even her face obscured in shadow is gorgeous, damn.

"What if she dies and I'm not even there?" Camila counters, barely keeping herself from tugging at her hair and wailing theatrically.

"Oh lord, such melodrama!" Dinah rolls her eyes so exaggeratedly she would have gotten the lead role for a demonic possession movie. "Lauren won't die," she scoffs. "She'll scowl and glower at Death, and Death would run away and retire."

Her mind is racing. Confusion and regrets pouring in and spreading all over her like lava slowly melting her resolve. It's been a few days since their last altercation in the dorm room, and while they have been in somewhat of a truce, not quite back to their usual dose of bickering but casual enough to tease each other every now and then, they both have refused to acknowledge the conversation they have had. Now, Lauren might be in mortal danger, and Camila does not want their story to end like this. Whatever their ending will be, she doesn't want one of them dead... or physically damaged.

The elevator doors open and Camila rushes in and starts jabbing the button once again as the door closes -- super excruciatingly slow.

Staring at the red numbers, waiting for it to stop at number five, she taps her foot, bites her lip, and twists her fingers as her mind plays out several different scenarios, each one getting more gruesome with every ding of the elevator.

Second floor, Lauren is flung off her motorcycle, breaking her legs, hitting her head, or losing her limbs.

Third floor, she's trampled to death by a speeding ten-wheeler truck.

Fourth floor, Harley explodes and Lauren burns to a crisp barbecue (which, inevitably, makes her think of grilled chicken dripping in shiny red sauce, which reminds her that she's hungry because she hasn't eaten her dinner yet -- she was about to, before Dinah got the call from Normani), so unrecognizable her corpse is that her family would have to cremate her.

By the time she and Dinah step out of the elevator, she already has imagined (involuntarily -- she can't help how her mind works at times) Lauren dying in so many ways it has turned her numb from the imaginary trauma, and now she's at a point where she's accepted this tragedy and is just calmly thinking of what kind of urn Lauren's ashes would be in.