XV.
Trigger warning - talk of abuse/homocide
"So yes. I do know how much you love me." I turned my head and let her lips lock to mine; the characteristic sweetness doing its job in washing every other thought away.
"And I love you too."
Telling Lauren everything I did was a feeling akin to lifting an anvil off of my chest cavity. I woke the next morning feeling fresh, ready to get going and clash with whatever chaos the day was sure to bring. I began by heading to school with a tray of to-go coffee cups, each matching the orders of my beloved yet annoying friends. When everything was distributed, I then sat through three classes and an early birthday cupcake before getting cornered by Shawn and forced into a talking-to.
"Okay, first tell me you're feeling better."
I shrugged. "I am."
"Great. Now there's this comic book store downtown that's having a costume contest. The prize is five hundred dollars, and I know that if we enter you as wonder woman, we can't lose."
I blinked at him a few times, then turned and started to walk away without another sound.
"Camila wait!" Shawn dashed forward behind me and clambered for my arm. "Okay, just hear me out. It's only two hours, you don't need to say anything, just show up and look pretty."
"No."
"Please? You've got the pretty part down, all you really need to do is show up. Oh, if you want we can do Disney princesses. You would make a fantastic Jasmine."
"No."
"Oh come on, a few days ago you said you'd do anything for me."
I looked at him, a glint of amusement in my eye. "Shawn, you're right. I would do anything for you..."
"Yeah?" His face brightened.
"Yeah." I nodded. "Except for that."
"Camila!" The boy broke out into a whine again. "Come on, it'll be fun!"
"No."
Shawn began to follow me as I made my way down the hall and towards the school's exit. "Maybe Lauren would help me. Do you think?"
I laughed. "Unless you somehow make that Y chromosome magically change into an X, I think you're going to be out of luck." I informed him, recalling just how savage Lauren had been towards that flirting boy. "But you could always ask. You know, just for fun."
"Ugh." Shawn and I made our way out of the school and towards the parking lot. The day was quickly passing, and I was looking forward to a relaxing Friday night with not a word pertaining to school. With him stretched out in the back and Dinah with her feet on the dashboard beside me, we followed roads into the underground parking and unloaded our things.
"So what are we going to do for your birthday Camila?" Dinah asked, pulling her bag over her shoulder. "Are we going to go out on the town and experience everything Miami has to offer?"
"Like what, the raging sun and gross little lizards that get stuck under the wheels of your bike?" I said, grinning at her. "No. For my birthday, I'm going to sit on my couch in a pair of yoga pants and a tank top. I'm going to pull the waist of the pants up over my stomach fat and use it as a table for a big ass bowl of chips and salsa. Then I'm going to turn on the TV, and watch classic Disney channel original movies until my eyes are dry."
My friends both turned to me, looks of confusion on their faces. I just proceeded to smile sweetly and walk past them, entering the lobby and heading to the elevators.
"Come on Camila, you can't just spend your special day alone in your apartment!" Dinah protested, scurrying after me.
"Yeah" Shawn added. "And have you seen yourself? You literally have zero percent body fat. You could eat all the chips in the world and you wouldn't gain as much as a pound."
"Yeah, it's not fair." Dinah followed up with a irritated grumble. "It's every woman's dream."
"Shut up." I stalked past them again and up the stairs, aware that they were both hard on my heels. "I just want quiet, it's much better that way. You guys remember last year when we went to that grade-wide party? I spent the whole night on my knees, throwing up in some random bathroom."
Dinah snorted. "That was hilarious."
"So funny." Shawn agreed. "You almost dropped your phone in the toilet, I remember you screaming at me to jump over the door and take it from you."
I turned around with a glare, and both idiots shut their mouths. Heading down the hall and into the unit, I locked the door behind them and tossed my things over the back of the couch.
"We have to at least go out to dinner or something!" Dinah proposed. "You can get a free piece of chocolate cake with a cute little candle in it. They'll even give you a paper crown."
"I can invite some of the guys." Shawn added eagerly. "We can make a night out of it."
I just ignored them with a sigh, grabbing my laptop out of my bag and collapsing down on the couch.
"That's a yes?"
I looked up at him. "No."
The door opened, and Lauren walked in with a bunch of bags over her shoulder and a smile on her face. "Hey guys. How was school?"
"Camila's being stubborn." Dinah got up and took the bags from her, setting them down on the kitchen table. "Maybe you can talk some sense into her."
"Probably not, but I can try." Lauren shot me a smile and Shawn a ruffle of the hair before following Dinah. "What's up?"
"Her birthday's coming up, and she doesn't want to do anything." Shawn informed her. "We were thinking maybe a night out, or a nice dinner." He looked at me, a teasing glint in her eye. "But she's being an old lady."
"Your birthday's coming up?!" Green eyes turned to me in surprise. "You never told me that, that's so exciting!"
"Hardly." I slid down further on the couch and balanced my laptop on my knee. "Another year closer to death. What's so great about it?"
"Because it's the only day of the year where you can do whatever you want and your friends won't ever judge you." Shawn chimed as he propped his feet up lengthwise on the couch, taking up every other inch of space. He had retrieved a large bag of pretzels from the groceries that Lauren had just brought home, and was now tearing into them like a starving piranha.
"Agreed." I reached blindly for the bag and grabbed a handful, my eyes not leaving my screen. "Did you not hear my plan?"
"What's your plan?" Lauren asked on the other side of the room.
"She's going to eat chips and watch movies." Dinah replied, opening a cupboard and stacking some jarred items. "Which is exactly what my grandpa does during the Super Bowl. He always hated football."
"Why?" The other girl replied curiously.
"He didn't really agree with a bunch of sweaty men running around and slapping each other on the ass." Dinah shrugged. "He's always been more of a sophisticated golf person. Sometimes cricket... and he's done a little lawn bowling."
Shawn scrunched up his nose. "Lawn bowling? How is that possible?"
"The balls are really little and a lot lighter than normal bowling balls." Dinah explained to him. "You usually use an artificial turf, and instead of pins you use one smaller white ball. The aim is to get the darker ones as close as possible. Kind of like curling, but there's no moving on the field. You just stay where you are."
"That sounds like an old person sport."
"It is."
Lauren laughed. "Alright, let's not get too far off topic or we could be here all night. Camila, how much fun would it be to go out? Just one night?"
"No."
"How about if I can get my hands on drinks, we can just hang out here?" Lauren proposed. "Like a meet in the middle sort of thing. I bet watching movies and eating chips would be so much better drunk and giggly."
"I could get alcohol too." Dinah piped up. "My sisters don't mind buying as long as I pay them back."
I shrugged, closing the lid of my laptop and setting my handful of pretzels down over it. "I could be okay with that. Nobody is allowed to vomit though. Or if they do, they're cleaning it up themselves the morning after."
"Hey, you're the infamous barfer." Dinah joked. "Don't go putting that on us."
"Shut up." I mumbled through a mouthful of pretzels, getting up and setting my things down on the floor. Making my way into the kitchen, I tucked into a quick side hug with Lauren and smiled a silent hello.
"It was my first time drinking actual alcohol. Those wine coolers my dad bought me during freshman year really didn't prep my tolerance as much as he thought it was going to." I then explained. "I don't know what they mixed with that redbull, but it didn't even taste like it had any alcohol in it."
Dinah had migrated over to the couch and was sitting with a handful of her own pretzels. The bag was nearly done at this point, and Lauren had clearly noticed.
"So do you guys want to go out to get dinner, or are we going to sit around and eat like second graders at snack time?" She asked.
"We could go out." I nodded. "As long as its no more than a few blocks away. I don't want to drive."
"Oh, let's try that Italian place down the street!" Dinah chirped. "I swear I've walked past it twelve times this week and the smell just got better and better!"
"I can't." Shawn sighed, stuffing his face again. "My grandparents are coming into town tonight, and my sister and I have to entertain them while my parents go out to the opera."
Dinah turned. "Your parents go to the opera?"
"Yeah." He rolled his eyes. "Ever since they got their hands on that coupon for a discount on a theatre membership, they've been going every Friday night. My mom even put a bunch of CDs in the car."
"Aw, I like your grandparents. Whenever I go over and visit, your grandpa would always have a bag of barbecue chips and a ten dollar bill ready." I grinned at him from the kitchen. "And your grandma tells me I'm pretty every two minutes."
Shawn laughed. "Yeah, she has a pretty bad short term memory."
"And you're pretty." Lauren added from behind me.
"Ugh, alright." Dinah interrupted. "I guess we could make it a girls night. They probably have discounts."
Lauren and I looked at each other for a moment before we both turned to Dinah with a smile.
"Great!" Dinah grabbed her phone and headed towards the door. "I'll give them a call, let them know that there's a chicken parm waiting to be made with my name on it."
Shawn hopped up off the couch and padded into the kitchen, pulling open the fridge with the hand that currently wasn't grasping the half empty bag of pretzels. I watched him dig around for a few seconds before pulling out a foil wrapped block of cream cheese.
"Hey you." I said with a playful sharpness in my voice. "Quit eating me out of house and home. Didn't you get lunch today?"
"No." Shawn sighed. "I had to help the tech team set up some lights for the annual play. It's James and the Giant Peach, they're putting it on this weekend."
"Wow." I shook my head, folding my arms across my stomach. "You just get nerdier and nerdier every day."
"Oh come on, I'm not that bad."
I looked at Lauren. "He asked me if I would go to a costume contest at some comic book store. Tried to get me to dress up as a disney princess."
Lauren snorted.
"Oh come on!" Shawn grabbed knife from the side drawer, peeling off the wrapper around the cheese block. "Don't you think that'd be fun? We could go and get you guys pretty dresses, and do your hair all nice. The theme could be strong, independent women who make every guy in that store no longer have a will to live?"
I watched Lauren, hoping her response would be as entertaining as I had built it up in my head.
"Oh yeah? And what princess would I be?"
"Hm..." Shawn studied her. "Well Camila would be Jasmine... Dinah could be Aurora because of her blonde hair... and you..." He furrowed his brow. "Maybe Pocahontas? Oh! Or that Scottish girl with the bow and arrows! She was such a badass."
"Oh, you mean Merida?" Lauren replied in the most brilliant Scottish accent I had ever heard. She walked over to him, slinging a haphazard arm over his shoulder and catching him completely off guard. "That's not happening laddie."
I couldn't help but burst into laughter, traversing over to sit on the back of the couch and lean on my hands.
"You... are so mean." Shawn muttered, glaring at her. "And that sounds more Irish than Scottish." '
"You would know." Lauren smirked, moving away and grabbing a pretzel from his bag. "So what other options do we have?"
"Well..." Shawn thought for a moment. "You guys could do the female justice league. You could go all Arkham and rock Harley Quinn, Catwoman and Poison Ivy! Maybe female teenage mutant ninja turtles?"
The door opened and Dinah re-entered, a confused look on her face. "I'm gone for twenty seconds and you guys are already talking about female teenage mutant ninja turtles? What the hell is going on?"
"We're trying to give Shawn false hope." I replied for the room, smiling when the boy's face fell. "He wants us to enter some costume contest at a comic book store."
"Oh god." Dinah rolled her eyes.
"No no wait!" Shawn tried again. "Think about all the amazing iconic female trios in pop culture! You guys could go as the Powerpuff girls! Oh! Or the plastics from Mean Girls! Wait no, how about Peach, Daisy and Rosalina from Super Mario!"
I sighed, falling back on the couch and stretching out down it's length. Lauren made her way around as well while Dinah took our place in the endless argument. She sat down, crossing her legs under her and peering up at me.
"Good day at school?"
"Tiring. I'm glad it's Friday."
The girl just nodded. "I bet."
I rolled onto my side and gazed at her, watching the small flecks of amber in her eyes move each time she blinked. "You should come along with me one day, just for fun."
Lauren laughed. "You're asking me to go back to high school?"
"Oh don't tell me it was that bad." I grinned. "There are a billion kids at that school, I promise they're not going to notice if I sneak another one in."
The girl leaned back. "I know you try pretty hard sometimes, but you really don't edge well." She said teasingly.
"What, I'm not the kind of person who should be standing in an alley with a leather jacket on and a cigarette in their mouth?" I asked, matching her playful tone.
"More like the kind of person who should be skipping through a peach orchard with a feather boa on and a big cup of dippin' dots in the crook of their arm."
***
A few hours later, Shawn had left for home and the three of us were just off for dinner. The night was unnaturally cool, one of the three days of the year where a jacket might actually have been necessary. Regardless, I didn't wear one. Instead, I opted for a simple white cut-off top and dark jeans, pulling my hair into a half up, half down, maybe-some-effort-went-into-this type look. Realistically speaking, all eyes were going to be on the other two anyway.
After a very mature dinner of curly pasta and straw spitballs, the three of us took the long way back home, wanting to hang around the comfortably cool night a little while longer. We talked about a little bit of everything, from why mannequins didn't have feet, to which movies were playing at the local theatre and which of those were worth going to.
About five minutes into the walk home, something caught all of us off guard. We stood a few metres away from the corner of the block, the road ahead leading into an intersection that was roped off on the right turn. Projected onto the building on the opposite side of the street were a series of blue and red flashing lights.
"I wonder whats going on over there." Dinah commented, pointing at them. "It looks like there are police."
"You know, police don't really come bringing good news." Lauren muttered, craning her neck to see if she could get a better look. "Let's just head home."
"Aw, I want to see what's happening." Dinah replied as she started to walk towards the corner.
"Dinah." Lauren warned. "You may end up seeing things you don't want to."
"Oh come on, where's your sense of adventure?" I added, a small grin on my face. Dinah had already started to make her way towards the lights, walking backwards so she was facing us. I took off as well, glancing behind me to gesture for Lauren to follow.
She rolled her eyes before doing so.
"Whoa." I muttered as the three of us screeched to a halt. The entire area was alive with people, pedestrians littered on nearly every inch of sidewalk surrounding a building that was a small barber shop on the bottom, and an apartment style home on the top.
"What's going on?" Dinah asked out loud, causing a young woman with a shopping bag to turn and face her.
"Oh, you didn't hear?" She replied. "Apparently some people walking by heard random screaming coming from that unit up top. They called the police, and five minutes later they had a guy arrested. He had been harbouring three missing women and abusing them for months now."
I looked up to where the apartment unit was being scoured with flashlights.
"Jesus." Dinah followed my gaze. "That's insane. Are the women alright?"
"No. I think he murdered them all when the sirens started." Another voice chimed in, a man who was standing a few feet away. He had an angry, yet saddened look on his face. "They brought in some vehicles that didn't look like they came from the hospitals and went inside with a bunch of black bags."
I stepped back, my shoulders up to my ears. Lauren, who had previously been standing on Dinah's right, had migrated so she was next to me, giving off a strong air of reassurance.
"Can we go?" I asked in a small voice. "I don't really want to be here for this."
"Yeah." Dinah turned and nodded. "Let's-"
"Hey!" A voice broke into the conversation, and all eyes turned to the source of the noise. "There he is! There's the guy!"
Suddenly, the doors to the barber shop burst open, and three policemen walked out first. They were followed by another two, and between them, a man handcuffed with his head down. The crowd began to chant profanities into the air, spitting and cursing as he was pulled along by the officers.
I knew that collectively, the three of us wanted to leave, but we just couldn't tear our eyes away.
"Bastard." Lauren muttered under her breath, soft enough so only I could hear. I looked over at her to see that her eyes were dark, and her jaw was clenched in rage. Then, as if on a silent cue, the man lifted his head amidst the chaos and looked up.
At me.
He was middle aged, wisps of thin hair pushed down by a black toque that sat on his head. His eyes were nearly black in the night, hollow and tired as he gazed across the madness at me. As badly as I wanted to turn around and run, something was stopping my brain from sending the command to my feet.
Then all of a sudden, my view of him was blocked. Lauren had stepped in front of me, every muscle in her body tensed in anger. I peered around her, to see that the man had diverted his attention and was being shoved along by enraged police. When he looked at Lauren, his expression changed. Like night and day, he went from being tired and broken, to downright terrified.
Dinah had noticed it as well, and was looking from me to Lauren in confusion. The man's chest began to elevate quicker, his eyes widened so much to the point that I could nearly see the whites, and his body stopped moving. He was shoved again, pushed from the sidewalk into the back of the cop car right before the door slammed closed in his face.
"It's twisted." The man who had explained the situation to us spoke again. 'To think that any kind of person would have the nerve to pull something like this. The number of people who think it's okay to toy with human life like it's nothing at all is just absurd."
Lauren turned from where she had been watching the police to observe the speaking man. "Why?" She asked, her voice neutral. Dinah and I looked at each other again, then slowly turned to listen in on the new conversation.
"Why is it absurd?" The man frowned at the girl.
"No." Lauren shook her head. "Why do people do it?"
"Oh." The man shrugged. "Because there are billions and billions of people in this world. They can't all be good, right? Some people can be pretty sick and twisted, that's just the way the world is."
Lauren looked back at the scene, her eyes drifting to the cop car. I was hesitant in reaching over and placing my hand on her arm, curious as to what her response would have been. When I did, she turned to look at me. There was something different about her, the way she moved and the bleakness in her eyes.
"Um... Lauren?" I cut the silence between us with a meek announcement. "I don't mean to end the party here, but if we don't leave soon, and I have to see a full body bag, then I will vomit everywhere."
"Yeah. We're getting out of here now." Lauren muttered, grabbing my arm in one hand and Dinah's in the other. Pulling us in the opposite direction, we turned the original corner, leaving the scene behind.
"Um..." Dinah asked once she had been released from Lauren's grip. "What just happened?"
"That's the last time either of you walk towards a crime scene." The green eyed girl replied, her voice sharp as she looked from me, over to Dinah, then back again. "Is that clear?"
"Yeah." Dinah nodded. "Sorry."
"Sorry." I added, feeling like a small child being scolded by a parent. "We just wanted to see what was going on. That's all."
"Never ask questions you don't want the answers to. And never poke your nose into places you don't want to see." Lauren's reply was stony. "Never."
Dinah and I exchanged glances again while Lauren began to make her way down the sidewalk without waiting for us.
"Is she okay?" She asked me, watching Lauren walk away with her hands stuffed in her pockets. "She seems a little off."
"She's just like that." I shook my head. "Don't take it personally, the last time I tried to be curious and help her she got mad at me as well." I took Dinah's hand and gave her a little tug, the two of us heading in the direction in which Lauren had vanished. When we turned the corner, we saw that she had stopped walking and was staring at something near the ground.
"Lauren?" I questioned her hesitantly. "What's that?"
Rather than responding, she gestured over with her chin. I followed her line of sight down to a small orange metal box that held a series of cheap local papers. The contraption was old, judging by the worn mechanism and layer of rust. When Dinah and I were close enough, I crouched down and started to read the bold headline.
The community is deeply saddened by the unexpected loss of eight year old Brooklyn Wilson, who passed away last night in the hospital due to residual injury. Just two weeks prior, Brooke and her older brother Samuel were on their way back to their suburban home when their vehicle was caught up in a lightning storm and mangled within an internal gas fire. While on the scene, both children were evacuated by officials, and rushed to hospital, each one walking away only forty eight hours later with second degree burns and minor fractures.
Weeks later the family was left grief-stricken when news of Wilson's relapse became known. Doctors continue to look into the cause of her death, the most current suspicion being a negative reaction to initial treatment. Brooke will be remembered for her positivity, her innate ability to make friends at the schoolyard, and her immense strength in the days of her recovery. We ask the community to keep the Wilson family in your prayers as they deal with this difficult and troubling time.
I got to my feet again, taking a laboured breath in. It was no doubt the family that had been in the car accident, convincing me even more so when I saw the picture above the article. It was a happy shot, a green-eyed middle aged woman with her arms around two children who looked strikingly similar.
Lauren had already taken off, her back turned to me once again.
"Lauren." I called out as Dinah took a turn at reading the paper. "Hey, wait up."
"Keep up." Lauren countered, a hint of amusement returning to her eyes. "Come on slowpokes. Let's go home."
I looked behind me to see that Dinah had risen to her feet and was hurrying to catch up, and I followed suit seconds later. We didn't do much talking on the way home, that is until Lauren headed upstairs and I agreed to give Dinah a ride home.
Naturally, she bombarded me with questions the moment we were in the car.
Ninety percent of which I had no answer.
***
When I returned home, Lauren wasn't in the apartment. Instead, I found her standing on the balcony, leaning against the living room window with her arms crossed and a concentrated look on her face.
"Hey, I'm sorry that we dragged you into that." I started, ensuring to approach quietly to feign spooking the living daylights out of her. "Sometimes we're just stupid little kids who don't know when to keep their noses out of unnecessary business. You're the real adult here."
"You don't need to apologize." Lauren replied, not moving her gaze. "I was a little harsh on you when I didn't need to be."
"Oh, well if it makes you feel any better Dinah didn't take any offence from it. She was just confused."
Lauren shrugged, releasing an audible breath out.
"Um..." I shuffled on my feet nervously. "So, are you good?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, things got a little weird back there when the police brought that guy out. And then you started to talk to mr suit and tie..."
"It was nothing." Lauren shook her head, finally turning to look at me. "But there was something that I wanted to talk to you about."
"Yeah?" I perked up. "What's that?"
"It's been four."
I blinked. "Four?"
"All four." Lauren nodded.
My expression remained unchanged. "You're going to have to explain yourself better than that my love."
Lauren looked back out at the city and took a few steps towards the balcony railing. Her hair had gotten just a little longer since I'd met her, but the breeze could still pick it up off her neck and blow it to the side like a giant fan in a music video.
"Back when we went to dinner..." She began. "And we saw that car overturned. When we were coming back from shopping, and that crazy old man stopped us by the elevators... when you and Shawn stopped that guy from jumping into the ocean... and tonight, when they found that creep who killed those women."
"Lauren..." I took a step forward. "You're kinda scaring me."
"That's four different instances. All four examples." She looked at me again. "Accidental. Natural. Suicidal. Homicidal."
It took me five seconds of staring at her blankly for the pieces to fall into place. The four different means of death. Each one laid out in front of us, each one harrowing in their own way. I looked at my toes, half wondering what I was supposed to say next, half trying to figure out how Lauren had been smart enough to realize that.
Maybe I had just been oblivious and dumb.
"What do you think that means?" I asked. "Do you think it's just a weird coincidence?"
"Do you believe in supernatural coincidences?" The girl countered, answering my question with one of her own. "Because unless you do, then it must have been, yeah."
Moving so I was standing just next to her, I leaned on the rail and looked down. "It's not like there's someone behind the scenes that made it all fall into place the way it did." I shrugged. "I guess it was just a really specific coincidence."
"What kind of world do you think this would be if supernatural coincidences did exist?" Lauren asked, the moment I had finished speaking. It seemed like she had a bank of questions at the ready, and wasn't shy in terms of asking them.
"I don't know." I responded absentmindedly. "I guess society would be really different... the laws would be different... it would just be a different world altogether."
Lauren turned her head to me. "Would that be a bad thing?"
"You never know." I shrugged. "It could be bad, it could be good. That's why we have books right? So we can write away realities that didn't ever have a chance at being real? So that people with new and amazing galaxies in their heads have a chance at letting them be free?"
"I guess." Lauren slouched down against the rail, inching closer to me and leaning against my arm. "You know, there are times when you sound like a five year old, and times when you sound like you have years and years of wisdom."
"Which one do you like better?" I asked in response.
Lauren grinned, straightening her back and looking over at me.
"I like them both." She replied. "I like you."
I mirrored her movements before reaching over and brushing the pads of my fingers against her temple. "You have such pretty eyes, you're so lucky you know that?"
"Nah." Lauren looked down, a flush rising in her cheeks.
"You do." I insisted. "They're so light... and colourful."
"There's more to the beauty of someone eyes than their colour Camz." Lauren smiled down at me. "A person's eyes can be as dark as night, and still be beautiful."
"I know, I know." I looked out onto the city. "Eyes are the windows to the soul, I've heard it all before."
"Have you though?" She replied. "Because that's not at all what I was going to say."
"Fine." I smiled up at her, turning my head. "Lay your wisdom on me Lauren Jauregui."
"Eyes tell all the things about a person that they're too afraid to tell you themselves." She said to me, gaze locked up on the navy sky. "They're more a window to emotion rather than a window to the soul, and you don't need colour to portray emotion. Even the blackest eyes hold it, you just have to look carefully."
"And there's the wisdom." I sighed, leaning my hand on my cheek.
"I can see grief in your eyes you know." Lauren added, absentmindedly. "I saw it the moment you looked up at me through the rain. For someone who looked so innocent and harmless, I knew then that you had already taken quite the internal beating."
"Really?"
Lauren just nodded her head in response, gaze unmoving. "I can see ferocity in Dinah's eyes, and I can also see heartbreak. I can see insecurity in Shawn's eyes; I can see the need to prove himself to himself, and more than anything I can see a childlike charm that's never going to fade."
"What do you see in my eyes right now?" I asked, looking over and waiting for her to do the same.
"Love." She replied with a light shrug before looking back up.
"You're just saying that."
"Am I wrong?"
I shook my head no.
"What do you see in my eyes?" She asked next, lifting an eyebrow my way. "And I don't want to hear the words green, emerald, amber, glassy, vibrant or galaxies."
I looked at her, furrowing my brow and searching every inch of my brain for a reply. The words green, emerald, amber, glassy, vibrant and galaxies were all I could find for the longest time. The seconds passed felt like hours before I finally replied. The word sat at the tip of my tongue, and although it was a long shot, it was all I had. In fact, it was the best I had.
"Camz?" Lauren was eying me with a smug smile as she awaited my answer.
I exhaled, the corner of my lip tugging up. The only thing I could see was that criminal's face when he saw Lauren. The way all the colour drained from his cheeks, his eyes flew white with terror and his movements stopped. The answer was there; I knew it had always been there, and was only just seeing it now. The word danced off the tip of my tongue, floating over to Lauren and wrapping her essence up perfectly.
"Power."
***
A/N: My Friday night: A cup of tea, alternating between writing this camren fic, reading other camren fics and Write on Me on an endless loop. OH, and this is ridiculously overdue, but thank you so so so much to everyone who's shown me support with this story. It's so different from my last, I'm glad people are still down with reading my writing, and I'm VERY sorry for the frustrating lack of detail and answers. But yeah, thank you a million times over, you guys are amazing. 💕