Imaginary Lover // Camren Fanfiction

Chapter 31

A/N: Grab your tissues, issa 'bout to get emotional

Lauren sat on the end of the staircase and looked out the frosted glass window to the front garden. The clock on the wall said 7:30 p.m. Camila had never been late before and she hoped she was OK. However, her sense of anger was rather more active at that moment than her worry for her.

Her behavior on Saturday night gave her reason to think that her absence was due more to cold feet than foul play.

She had thought about Camila all day yesterday; about not meeting her friends, her family, or her work colleagues, the lack of sexual contact, and in the dead of the night as she battled with finding sleep, she had realized what it was that she had been trying to hide from herself. She felt she knew what the problem was; Camila was either in a relationship already or unwilling to enter into one.

Any niggling feeling she had along the way she had ignored. It was unusual for Lauren not to plan, not to know where, exactly, their relationship was going. She wasn't comfortable with this big change. She liked stability and routine, everything Camila lacked. Well, now it could never work, she thought, as she sat on the stair waiting for a free spirit, just as her father was.

And she never discussed her fears with Camila. Why? Because when she was with her, every little fear dissipated. She would just show up, take her by the hand, and lead her into another exciting chapter in her life, and while she was reluctant to go with her at times, often apprehensive, with her she was never nervous. It was when she was without her, moments like now, that she questioned everything.

She decided immediately that she was going to distance herself from her. Tonight would be the night she would discuss it with her once and for all; they were like chalk and cheese, her life was full of conflict and as far as she could see, Camila ran so far so fast just to avoid it.

As the seconds ticked on and it moved into her fifty-first minute of being late, it looked like she didn't need to have the conversation with her after all. She sat on the stair in her new cream trousers and shirt, a color she would have never worn before, and she felt foolish. Foolish for listening to her, believing her, for not reading the signs properly and, even worse, for falling for her.

Her anger was hiding her pain, but the last thing she wanted to do was to stay home alone and allow it to surface. She was good at doing that.

She picked up the phone and dialed.

"Benjamin, it's Lauren," she said rather quickly, speaking before she had a chance to backtrack.

"How would you like to get that sushi tonight?"

-----

"Where are we?" Camila asked, strolling down a darkly lit cobblestoned street in inner city Dublin. Puddles gathered in the uneven surfaces of an area that consisted mainly of warehouses and industrial estates. One red-bricked house stood alone between them all.

"That house looks funny there, sitting all on its own,"

Camila remarked, nodding toward the house.

"A bit lonely and out of place," she decided.

"That's where we're going," Ally said.

"The owner of this house refused to sell his property to the surrounding businesses. He stayed here while they sprung up around him." Camila eyed the small terraced house.

"I bet they offered him a fair bit. He could probably have bought a mansion in the Hollywood Hills with what they would have paid him." She looked down at the ground as his red Converse runner splashed into a puddle.