Imaginary Lover // Camren Fanfiction

Chapter 9

"Keana, did you call me?" Lauren called out from under the mound of carpet samples piled onto her desk later that day.

"No, again," came the dull, bored reply. "And please refrain from disturbing me, as I'm about to order two thousand pots of white magnolia paint for our future projects. May as well be organized and plan ahead for the next twenty years," she muttered, then grumbled loudly enough for Lauren to hear. "Because it's not as if we're about to change our ideas anytime soon."

"Oh, OK." Lauren smiled, giving in. "You can order another color in too."

Keana almost fell off her chair with excitement.

"Order a few hundred pots of beige as well, while you're at it. Barley, it's called."

"Ha ha," Keana said drily.

Camila raised her eyebrows at Lauren. "Lauren, Lauren," she sang, "did you just make a funny? I think you did." She stared directly at her, elbows on the desk. She sighed, blowing the loose strands of her hair as she did so.

Lauren froze, moved her eye sockets from left to right suspiciously, and then continued working.

"Oh, see how she treats me?" Camila said dramatically, holding her hand to her forehead and pretending to faint onto a black leather chaise longue in the corner of the room. "It's like I'm not even here," she declared. She put his feet up and stared at the ceiling. "Forget about being at a principal's office, this is like being at a shrink's." She stared at the cracks in the ceiling. "You see, doc, it all started when Lauren kept ignoring me," she said loudly into the room. "It just made me feel so unloved, so alone, so very, very alone. It's like I don't exist. Like I'm nothing," she exaggerated. "My life is a mess." She pretended to cry. "It's all Lauren's fault." She stopped and watched her for a while, matching carpets with fabrics and paint charts, and when she spoke again, her voice became soft. "But it is her fault that she can't see me because she's just too afraid to believe. Isn't that right, Lauren?"

"What?" Lauren shouted again.

"What do you mean, what?" shouted an irritated Keana back. "I didn't say anything!"

"You called me."

"No, I didn't, you're hearing voices again and please stop humming that bloody song!" Keana shrieked.

"What song?" Lauren frowned.

"Whatever that thing is that you've been humming all morning. It's driving me insane."

"Thank you very much!" Camila announced, standing up and taking a dramatic bow before plonking her body back down onto the chaise longue. "I invented that song. Andrew Lloyd Webber, eat your heart out."

Lauren continued working. She started humming again, then immediately stopped herself.

"You see, Keana," Camila called into the other room, "I think Lauren can hear me." She crossed her hands across her chest and twiddled her thumbs. "I think she can hear me very well. Isn't that right, Lauren?"

"Christ almighty." Lauren dropped the samples onto her desk. "Vero, is that you saying my name?"