Camila couldn't get out of bed. It'd been four weeks since she'd last seen Lauren, four weeks since she'd last talked to her, and she couldn't breathe.
Couldn't function.
Her head told her this separation was temporary. Her head told her that Lauren would somehow find it in her heart to forgive her.
Her heart knew that she had done the unthinkable. The secret she kept from Lauren was unforgivable.
When Lauren told her about the residency in South Africa, Camila felt as if the bottom had fallen out of her world. She woke up with constant anxiety, plagued with thoughts of being separated from her. She had a deep fear of suddenly being thrust into a long distance relationship and she hated not knowing if the distance would somehow negatively effect their relationship.
Camila could not rid herself of the sense of impending doom that she felt everyday knowing that Lauren would leave. It reminded her too much of her childhood. The dead weight of responsibility, the relentless pressure of perfection, and that terrifying feeling of being her parents only hope of success in America. Her parents came from nothing and risked it all for Camila to make something of herself. And when things weren't quite right, they drilled the notion into her head that it was somehow her fault and if she just tried harder, things would be better. That mentality had affected every area of her life. If something did not go the way she wanted it to, Camila felt like she had the right to control it. To fix it, somehow.
She'd meant well—Camila talked to Dr. Gardner and came up with a plan to keep Lauren in the states. And it would cost her big time. Camila committed to working at Harvard for an extra year, speaking at fundraising events. It seemed like a good idea at the moment. And somehow along the way, Camila had convinced herself that Lauren didn't need to know- that she didn't deserve to know. And over time, it had become harder and harder to get up the courage to tell her.
Camila had completely done the wrong thing. She'd taken it all away from Lauren- her dreams, aspirations- all because she was too selfish to let Lauren go. She knew it was all her own fault; and she really wasn't sure she was ever going to be able to fix it.
Hell, she tried to fix it. She attempted to get Lauren's internship back but the spot was already filled with a new candidate. She did convince the reporter to omit Lauren's name from the article. Ally stepped in and paid a hefty 50k to the New York Times reporter to seal Lauren's tarnished reputation indefinitely. But four weeks passed and still no sight of Lauren.
Camila held high hopes that she would get a brief glimpse of Lauren walking across the stage two weeks ago. But Dinah informed her that Lauren opted out of graduation services.
So here she was. Four weeks later. Missing Lauren.
Camila walked through the apartment. She couldn't hardly stand living in the empty space, the closet and dresser only half full. She walked down the hall, stopping by the room they once shared. The room looked bare, as if she had never been there, as if they had never made love on the bed, never found joy in each other's arms.
She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a fresh glass of wine. The pale gold bottle, newly opened, felt damp and cold in her hand. The weight of the bottle felt good. It was a familiar feeling, and reassuring. Camila looked forward to newly opened bottles of wine. It meant that there would be plenty more if she wanted another glass.
And she'd want another glass.
Anything to dull the ache in her chest.
Camila wandered into her office and sat at her desk, its walnut surface scarred with nicks and glass rings and one long burn from Lauren's cigarette ash that could have set the whole house on fire. In the lower left-hand drawer, there was a stack of leather-bound journals.
She took out the one on top and opened it to the place marked by the thin red ribbon attached to the binding. For several years Camila wrote in her journal almost every day; now weeks went by without a word, her guilt and sorrow shriveled to a hard kernel stuck permanently in the back of her throat.
She smoothed the journal open with the heel of her hand and pulled out a fountain pen; there was something comforting in the permanence of the blue-black ink soaking into the page.
June 10th
How long does it take the human brain to realize that something is gone forever?
I have spent days trying to convey this agony. I have come to believe there is no combination of words in any language that could possibly relay my heavy heart onto this paper.
Thoughts are creeping through my head like darkness slips around the bodies of sky scrapers in every city we've ever been to. From the bottom up, suffocating the life on the street first and then raising to the head and the brain, circling into smog and clouds until the black stretches up so high that nobody can even remember what the stars used to look like.
I don't want to walk around beating a heart of love with no owner.
Maybe one day she'll come back. Maybe she never will.
Camila stared at the journal, silent tears running down the sides of her face. Maybe she never will.
Panic hit her, flooding her, as she scrambled to find her phone. Her hands shook as she dialed the familiar numbers. After the first ring she went straight to voicemail. Her stomach knotted, gutted. She tried to call again. Again, straight to voicemail.
The panic grew, exploding in her chest, shooting into every limb. She tried again. Voicemail.
She called back a fourth time, shaking, and left a virtually incoherent message. "Sorry, Lauren, I'm sorry. I'm just . . . stupid. I don't deserve you. I don't know what's wrong with me. Forgive me. Please forgive me."
---------------
It could be worse.
Lauren made the words her mantra. A daily chant, an affirmation—and the best part was that it was true. It could, in fact, always be worse. Pestilence. Famine. Disease. Death.
Any of those were much worse, obviously, than what Camila did. But this wound cut deep. Weeks later, Lauren still felt the core of her being torn apart by the one she loved the most. It was the worst type of pain. She still felt shell-shocked by all of it, numb.
Beneath the numbness, though, was a raw and terrible anger that was unlike anything she'd felt before. She had so little experience with genuine anger that it scared her. She actually worried that if she started screaming, she'd never stop.
What Camila did ran on an endless loop through her mind. All day it was what she thought about. At night, it was what she dreamed about. The lies. The betrayal.
Jerking awake, Lauren sat up. "Shit," she whispered to herself. "Shit," she repeated, even as Dinah's hand came to her back, rubbing it lightly.
"You okay, babe?" Dinah sleepily asked.
"I'm fine." But her voice caught on the last word then tears were falling down her face. Again.
"It'll get better. I promise." Dinah whispered from behind her. "Time can heal anything."
That was so far from the truth that she laughed harshly. "Sure it can," Lauren said sarcastically. She immediately felt guilty about her response. Dinah had selflessly allowed Lauren to live at her place until she could figure out her next step. Dinah didn't deserve her mood swings.
Just a year ago Dinah was in this same position. Her douchebag ex had sent her text ending their two year long relationship. Lauren will never forget the day it all fell apart: how puffy-eyed Dinah sulked around her apartment in a daze, how Lauren helped her eliminate all traces of the man who had just blindsided her. They threw out his organic peanut butter, his electronic toothbrush, his favorite Harvard sweatshirt. Then they sat in the bay window in the living room for hours, sipping wine and trying to decipher his cryptic parting words: I love you too much to continue this.
One year later, Lauren never would have imagined that the roles would have reversed. Lauren reached for her best friend's hand before getting up. "I'm sorry, Di," Lauren stated softly.
"That's okay, Lo." Dinah smiled before turning over and falling back to sleep.
Lauren walked into the bathroom and turned on the overhead light. She caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair was scraped back from her face in a rather haphazard ponytail, and her eyes had dark circles under them. Eyes that had once seduced Camila were now dulled by the misery of the past few weeks.
Her mother had told her when she was a little girl that there were many things that made a woman beautiful, but none so much as being in love.
When Lauren first discovered the truth, she had felt despair that ran through her body like liquid, creeping into every crevice, filling her up, so that all she could do was lie in bed with the shades drawn. She wailed pitifully. She did not sleep or eat. Instead, she replayed each moment of their relationship, searching for the instant that it all went wrong. Had love blinded her from seeing certain instances where Camila was more controlling than the norm?
The endless loop began to replay in her head. The look on Dr. Gardner's face when he said some things were out of his hands. The look of guilt on Camila's face when she found out that Lauren had lost out on the internship. All the clues had been there.
Hot tears of self-pity began to run down her cheeks, falling onto her Harvard sweatshirt. Everything she knew and trusted had suddenly been ripped from under her. The walls began to close in on her and Lauren felt like she was losing her breath again.
It could be worse, Lauren reminded herself. Amputated limbs. Suppurating sores. Cancer of everything.
Lauren needed air. She grabbed her car keys and left with no particular destination in mind.
-------
After wandering aimlessly for a few hours, Lauren parked her car at 727 Campbell Drive. She stepped out of her car and into the still night. She held her cell phone in one hand and balanced a brown paper grocery bag on the opposite hip.
The first time Lauren saw the house, she nearly cried. There was a futon positioned a few feet away from the world's smallest television set and flanked by milk crates on either side. In the bedroom, a mattress lay on the floor beside a splintering dresser and bookcase that the owner had pulled from a stranger's trash on moving day, and a set of bright orange van seats.
Camila was thrilled with the potential that the house had. She loved the large windows, the wood floors, and short commute to the city.
So they purchased the townhouse, their own little project. They spent the fall in a haze of love, strutting along Kadence Avenue and spending untold sums of both their hard-earned money on Oriental rugs, thousand-thread-count sheets and towels, nice china, a glass-topped dining table with white upholstered chairs, and a king-sized mattress and box spring with a white fabric headboard.
The bedding too was all white, topped with a white down comforter, so plush that it felt like you might float away. Lauren hated it, she thought it looked stark and stale. They argued over the bedding, that choice being their biggest problem at the moment. Camila thought it looked like their own piece of heaven on earth. Lauren obliged. She secretly loved the look in Camila's eyes when the simplest things brought her joy.
Lauren walked through the front door of the house she'd spent so much time making into their refuge. She walked past framed photographs that captured choice moments from their life. Their first trip together to her favorite beach down in Rhode Island. That first Christmas at Camila's parents' place as a couple.
Lauren had arranged all of those photos together, picking and choosing memories, making sure the pictures were real and representative of who they were, of their life together. She'd had them all framed in complementary distressed woods, looking at once elegant and inviting between the built in bookcases that lined the long hallway.
Lauren found herself face to face with the photo that they took at the bookstore. The day they decided to officially become a couple. That day was filled with promise, hope and happiness.
"All lies," she muttered.
Picking it up, she hurled it at the far wall, where it made a loud splintering noise as the frame separated from the front. Walking over to where Camila smiled up at her from the carpet, Lauren ground her foot into her face until her features were unrecognizable.
"Now you know what it feels like to be walked over," she said.
She walked into the kitchen and placed the brown bag on the counter. It was four am and she suspected that Camila would be sleeping. Lauren reached into the paper bag, pulling out two bottles of cabernet and opening them both. She poured herself a big glass and took a sip. She lit a cigarette, taking a long drag before resting it against a tea saucer. Camila hated when she smoked in the house. When Camila was home, Lauren had always dutifully gone downstairs and out to the sidewalk. Even if she hadn't been home, Lauren still feared that she'd pick up the scent, so she smoked with her head sticking out of the open bedroom window like a teenager.
Fuck, she thought to herself, I was worried about cigarette smoke while she was out sabotaging my life. She smiled bitterly at that. Facing the truth of it in a way she had never allowed herself to do before.
She walked into the bedroom that they once shared, unsure of what she would encounter when she got there. With a bottle of wine in each hand, she surveyed the room. All the love that was shared on that bed, their safe little haven was now destroyed.
The same offending offending thoughts ran through her head.
We are going to add one more applicant on this year's admission list. Her name is Lauren Jauregui. She was initially rejected but her friend Camila Cabello refused to accept admission unless Lauren was admitted as well. And we can't afford to refuse admission to an Avery Foundation member.
"I asked Dr. Gardner to reject your application," she whispered. "I couldn't lose you. I couldn't lose you."
Lauren's body was becoming racked by a whole sea of searing emotions. Her heart was stammering out of rhythm; she wanted to suck in some deep steadying breaths of air but found her lungs unwilling to comply. They were locked up along with the torment. Stomach muscles, ribs, all were paralyzed by reaction, while her brain was the opposite, opening up and letting out all the suppressed pain and anguish, letting it taunt her, sniggering and sneering at her until she thought she would pass out.
Standing over the bed, she held each bottle sideways, and shook them up and down as if dressing a salad. The first splashes of purple on the bedspread made her heart thump. But it got easier as she went along, and soon she was emptying the remains of one bottle onto the pale blue rug, and the other straight into Camila's favorite pillow. She stepped back, surveying her work.
Lauren had wondered if perhaps she would feel sorry, seeing their home destroyed. But she felt free, like the only benefit of watching her world come apart was the fact that she had nothing left to fear. She had made this place perfect for the two of them. And since that perfect haven didn't exist anymore, neither should this house.
Lauren walked past the study and back into the kitchen. She opened the cupboard and then she lifted out a stack of plates. Lauren threw the first one down, but without conviction. It just wobbled on the floor for a moment before landing flat and intact. Something in her held back. She remembered the two of them standing in the china department of Bloomingdale's, playfully arguing over which pattern they should choose. Afterward, they waited in line at Dean & DeLuca for steaming cups of cappuccino, Camila's arm wrapped tight around her waist. Lauren felt safe, protected, blissful.
Lauren took a deep breath, feeling her rib cage fill up with air. She lifted the next plate from the pile, and this one she threw with great force, watching it break into pieces as it hit the ground. She repeated the motion with each of the plates below.
"Lauren?"
The husky voice whispered over her ears and sent chill bumps down her neck. She froze, her hand still on the last plate. It's been weeks since Lauren heard her voice. She turned, feeling oddly calm, yet lead-weighted.
Lauren saw her and came to an abrupt halt. In all the years of knowing Camila, she had never felt so vulnerable in her presence, or so aware of her tumbled appearance: her puffy eyes, made so by too much weeping, her tousled hair hanging limp and untidy around her pale face.
Lauren looked at her face, saw the lines of strain etched there, the greyish pallor.
Camila moved her gaze to the mess on the kitchen floor. She held back tears as she bent down and picked up the broken pieces of ceramic. Her hands was trembled as she picked up each piece.
Lauren open the refrigerator door and poured herself a chilled glass of wine. She sat on the counter and watched Camila quietly clean up the mess she had made.
Strangely, she felt incredibly calm. Disconnected almost. Her heart was pumping quite steadily, and her hands lay relaxed on her lap.
Several minutes of silence passed before Camila abruptly broke the stillness of the room. "Can we talk?" she asked suddenly, lifting those darkly fringed eyelids to reveal the dark brown beauty of her eyes to Lauren. "Are you ready to talk about this?"
Something inside her quivered desperately for expression, but Lauren squashed it down. "What's there to talk about?" she shrugged, still with that amazingly calm exterior.
"Everything! I'm sorry, Lauren. I never met for this to spiral out of control. It started out as a little lie but I never wanted to hurt you. I'd never intentionally hurt. Sometimes you have to make a big mistake to figure out how to make things right." She continued to ramble. "I-I just wanted you to stay and I had so much anxiety about us being apart and I needed you with me. I just needed you..." Her voice trailed off. "You have to say something!" she yelled, making Lauren blink, because Camila rarely raised her voice to her like that.
Lauren realized that she had been sitting there just staring blankly at Camila but not really seeing her. Her eyes felt stuck, fixed in a permanent stare which refused to focus properly—like her emotions—locked on hold until something or someone hit the right button to set them free.
"I'm moving out. Leaving the state," Lauren heard herself say. "I spoke to a realtor and I'll have the sale documents sent within the week."
Camila stood there just watching her, her pose one of violent helplessness as she watched Lauren carefully. "We can work through this..." Camila pleaded. She bit her lower lip, as if she was physically biting back words, and dropped her gaze to the floor. "Please don't give up on us."
Something snapped. "Oh shut the fuck up!" Lauren's fiery eyes met the younger one. "Why don't you start by being honest? I don't want to hear all this bullshit about you being scared of losing me! You weren't scared of losing me! You were threatened by me. You couldn't stand the thought of me having a better opportunity than you."
Camila's face fell. "You know that's the furthest thing from the truth," she stated grimly, raking a shaky hand through her dark hair. "If you think that, you clearly have never known me at all. If anything, what I did was out of love. I stupidly thought keeping you here would strengthen our relationship. It was out of love."
"Love?" Lauren spat out. "This was not a decision made out of love. It was selfishness. It was possessive." Lauren walked toward her. "Don't you dare call it love! You don't get to call that love. You don't destroy the person you love."
Camila reached out and grabbed her wrist. Lauren pulled away but Camila's hold tightened. "I know I've hurt you, Lauren" she murmured, trying to keep a rein on her own distress. Lauren could feel the tension in her chest, in the erratic thump of her heart. "But please don't make any rash decisions while you're in such an..." Emotional state, Lauren guessed she was going to say, but Camila stopped herself. "We have everything going for us if you'll just give it another chance. Don't throw it all away because of one stupid mistake on my part. You can't throw it all away!' she insisted thickly.
Absurd, Lauren thought. Yet Camila said it as if in her world, there was a cresting soundtrack and all the right kind of lighting, making her the hero of this moment instead of its villain.
"I didn't do the throwing away,' Lauren countered, and this time, when she pulled away, Camila let her go, her eyes dark and bleak. "You did this to us. Not me. You can't emotionally try and manipulate this situation. I have every right to be infuriated. You knew how much this internship meant to me. I made a promise to Christopher..."
Camila interrupted. "I love Christopher more than anything but Christopher is gone. In every way. Gone." Camila's voice trembled, gaining momentum. "He's not hiding behind a headstone. Not floating around like fairy dust. And he sure isn't sitting on a cloud somewhere with harps and wings."
For some reason that strangled declaration tipped Lauren right over the edge and, on a totally alien burst of violence, she brought her hand up and slapped Camila right across her face.
Lauren stepped back out of reach, her eyes at that moment revealing a murderous kind of hatred that no one who knew her would ever have believed her capable of. And Camila stood stock-still, digesting the full horror of that look, while she held her stinging cheek.
For a moment, Lauren felt a flood of compassion towards the stricken girl before her. This was Camila. Her best friend. The love of her life. The axis in which she centered everything on. And no matter what transpired between them, Lauren never wanted to be the reason for those tears that slowly slid down Camila's cheek.
Tears welled up in her own eyes, seeping in a wretched spill on to her lashes. "I think we both have a different definition of love. And...I think staying together, would destroy me," Lauren whispered. "I can't do this anymore."
Lauren could see the sheen of tears in Camila's eyes, the moisture beneath, the way her mouth trembled. She could see and hear how her breath came too quickly, and she knew her well enough to know that this was the beginning of a complete and total panic attack.
"You can't do this..." Camila's eyes searched Lauren's, and widened at whatever she saw there. Her eyes were like thunderclouds. Shock and fear filled them. Her face was paper white. Her body shuddering. "Don't you leave me!" Camila gripped her shirt and tried to shake her, tears falling from her eyes. "Don't you leave Lauren." She screamed the order, eyes blazing, her lips trembling as tears fell and hysteria threatened to overwhelm her.
Lauren could not physically stand to see her in this state. She had always been Camila's comforter. The one who calmed her down. She was tempted to soothe Camila out of her panicked state but that would not be healthy for neither of them.
"Bye Camila," Lauren swiftly walked out of the house. She heard a feral cry behind her but walls quickly went up around her heart, an act of self preservation.
Lauren pulled out her phone and sent a text to Ally.
Hey Ally. I just ended things with Camila and she's having a panic attack. Can you stay with her? Remind her to breathe. Tell her that she is going to be okay. Reassure her that these feelings won't break her. They're painful and debilitating, but they will eventually pass. Maybe not immediately, but sometime soon, they are going to fade and when they do, she'll look back at this moment and laugh for having doubted her own resilience. Although it feels unbearable right now, keep breathing, again and again. This will pass. Promise her it will pass.
Lauren's eyes blurred and she couldn't continue. She sent the text and sat in her car. Lauren desperately needed to rebuild. Loved ones were a weakness. Caring was a weakness. And she had already learned the punishment for caring far more than she could bear.
She was still heartbroken, but she felt stronger somehow, clearheaded, the way you feel on the first morning of recovery after an illness. She knew what she needed to do.
She would leave Boston—she had no reason to be here without Camila—but she would not just slink off, the pathetic scorned woman. She would make her remember.