Cannonball

Thirty

Camila's PoV

March 27th 2013.

Wednesday 8:45am

Miami, Florida.

"I'll be parked right out here at three o clock. You make sure you come straight out, okay?" My Mom warns me sternly, because apparently being chauffeured to and from school is part of my punishment for loving Lauren.

"I have cheer practice after school." I lie, hoping that if I'm lucky Lauren and I can find an empty classroom or somewhere just to spend some time together, that way my Mom can still pick me up from school when she thinks 'practice' is over and I get to spend some more time with Lauren, alone.

"Not today, you don't," she replies coldly. "No practice while you're grounded."

I grit my teeth and bite my tongue. "And how long exactly am I grounded for again?"

"For the foreseeable future," she snipes back before glancing in the wing mirror to where Sofia is sat looking fed up and bored. "You make sure she gets straight to class without running off to see that Jauregui 'thing'."

I glare at her and Sofia rolls her eyes. "I'm not her babysitter." She huffs. "She clearly does whatever the hell she wants to anyway." Her voice is cold and I turn and look out of the window to see everyone going about their usual morning routine. Nothing seems different, everything is normal but I know that as soon as I get out of this car things are going to change.

"Yes well a lot of things will be changing around here." She replies stiffly.

I send her a side glare and roll my eyes. "Whatever," I huff, opening the door and slamming it shut behind me, not caring if it's an immature action because this whole thing is ridiculous.

I just need to ride this out because this can't go on forever.

"Come on then," She glares at me once she climbs out of the car, already two steps ahead of me as she glides straight past me in long strides. "You heard what Mom said." I mutter under my breath and follow her out of the parking lot and towards the main building of the school

I ignore the way that heads start to turn in my direction.

Ignore the stares.

Ignore the whispers.

"You know, I'm older than you therefore you don't get to tell me what to do."

"But clearly I'm smarter than you and since you insist on acting like a child, it's no surprise that Mom and Dad are going to start treating you like one." She snaps back coldly and I shake my head.

"How long is this going to go on for?" I look at her in exasperation, already sick of getting this treatment from my family. My Dad literally ignored me this morning; he didn't say a single word to me, despite my best efforts. My Mom is acting like I've just murdered a children's choir and Sofia is looking at me like I'm the devil reincarnated.

"Until you see sense and dump that asshole you're suddenly calling your girlfriend."

"Yeah well that's not going to happen so you're just going to have to suck it up and deal with it, Sof."

"Or they can deal with it," she scowls and I look up just in time to see Dinah and Normani walking hastily towards us. "I'm done babysitting you, if you have any sense you'll listen to Mom and Dad." She pushes past my two best friends once they reach me. "She's all yours." She snipes bitterly and I watch as Dinah and Normani awkwardly glance at each other before turning to face me. A determined look Dinah's face.

"Okay so we have a major SOS problem on our hands, Camila." Dinah jumps straight in, edging closer to me while discreetly looking around to see that our fellow peers are turning their heads to stare at me while they walk past. "I don't know if you've heard...or if you've noticed...but some skank has spread a rumor around school that you are dating Lauren Jauregui," she scowls in disgust. "We think it was Alessia but it could be that crazy skank Ellie, you know the one who we kicked off the cheer squad last year and now she just sits in the back of our English class glaring and muttering to herself? Or maybe it wa-"