The alarm woke Lauren with a jolt.
"Shit."
She rolled over and pressed the button on her phone, silencing it. Sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Lauren cursed multiple things.
She cursed mornings. She cursed the fact that she didn't get any sleep last night. She cursed the bar she'd been in last night for serving drinks until two in the morning. She cursed her job. Not for any particular reason, she just fucking hated it. And she cursed her boss, who was a lot less understanding than her previous one, and probably wouldn't tolerate her being late.
She shuffled around the room, picking up some clothes and putting them on slowly. Pretty much everything she wore was black anyway, so getting dressed in the dark was never really an issue.
The stairs creaked as she padded down them, and she winced. Luckily, no one seemed to wake up.
When she reached the kitchen, she saw a figure standing there, pouring a glass of water.
"Hey, what are you doing up?"
"Well someone woke me up a few hours ago with her drunken singing. I figured there was no point trying to get back to sleep," Chris replied.
"Yikes. Sorry about that," she grimaced.
"It's alright. Natalie's still asleep," he handed another glass of water to Lauren, who took it gratefully. "You know, I should probably tell Mother you're here."
Lauren barked out a laugh. "No chance. She'd force me to leave, and probably douse you in holy water for letting me in your home."
"You know she's not that bad."
"She killed Luce!" Lauren burst out, before realising that she probably woke up Natalie. Ah well. If she had to get up at this ungodly hour then so did everyone else.
Chris smiled sympathetically. "No, she didn't. You know who killed Lucy? The guy that pulled the trigger. Not our mom, not her mom... and not you."
Lauren scoffed. "I don't-"
"Not you," Chris said with a finality that indicated he wouldn't be argued with. He tilted his head slightly, before turning around and heading back upstairs.
This was why Lauren hated staying with Chris. (Well, one of the reasons. There was always the loss of her dignity, having to rely on her baby brother because her foray into the adult world had left her jobless and homeless.) He always seemed to know exactly what was going on in her mind, which was unnerving. She'd become quite accustomed to being an unreadable mystery to most people.
Sighing and finishing her water, she picked up her bag and headed out the door. It was bright, which was not a good thing. Even though it was pretty cold, the harsh sunlight gave Lauren a headache and she struggled to keep her eyes open.
She put on a pair of sunglasses as she walked to the bus stop, hoping that it gave her more of a cool vibe than a 'I'm super hungover and pissed off' vibe. Although, as long as it kept people from talking to her, she didn't really mind.
The bus was late, which gave Lauren just enough time to curse the weather, young children who made obscene amounts of noise early in the morning, and public transportation as a concept.
"The Lustig Mall," she mumbled, handing over her change before the bus driver could even tell her how much it was. She knew. She'd been getting the same bus every morning for three damn weeks.
Thankfully, the bus was pretty empty. She found herself a seat at the back and leaned her head against the cool window.
As the bus drove along the high street, Lauren averted her gaze. She didn't want to see a certain thriving tattoo parlour, and she definitely didn't want to see the empty shell next to it. They hadn't even turned the space into anything else yet, so it was just sitting there looking derelict, reminding Lauren of yet another decent thing in her life that she'd fucked up.
Come to think of it, the tattoo parlour had a similar effect.
When the bus went past and Lauren could no longer see the two shops, she let out a sigh of relief. That was definitely not getting easier.
The ride to the mall was boring and the scenery certainly wasn't much entertainment. There were buildings. Some fields. Oh look, more buildings.
Thrilling.
When the bus ground to a noisy halt, Lauren strolled off, giving a quick 'thanks' to the driver. She stared at the ugly architecture of the daily reminder that she was bound to a capitalist and materialistic society.
"Show time," she mumbled, before walking in to start the day.
The Disney Store sucked.
Lauren had hated customer service enough when it was in Florist Gump, but at least that florist's never had more than two people in it at a time, and they were hardly ever under the age of thirty five.
In her new job, she had to deal with children.
Not that Lauren actually minded little kids when they were on their own. They reminded her of Chris from a few years ago, back before everything had gone wrong.
But when you get twenty of them in a small enclosed space, and added a bunch of toys into the mix... eurgh.
"No, honey, that toy is for girls. How about a Buzz Lightyear?"
Lauren looked around for the source of that complete bullshit. Her eyes fell on a young boy clutching an Elsa doll. His bottom lip was wobbling as his mother tried to pull the toy from his grasp.
"But I don't want Buzz Lightyear. Elsa is cool."
"Elsa is for girls. You're a boy, honey. So we could get you some cars, or an Iron Man..."
Lauren rolled her eyes, stepping out from behind the counter and approaching the lady.
"Uh, hi," she plastered on her best 'Disney-grin', "You know these toys have no gender. Your son can play with whatever he-"
"Don't tell me how to raise my kid," she snapped, before snatching the plastic Elsa away from the boy, who burst into tears. Lauren felt rage bubble up inside her, but she pushed it down. She couldn't yell at customer like she could in her old job. She was expected to be perpetually cheery.
Lauren would have doubted all that happiness was possible had she not known a certain ball of 24/7 sunshine. Who was probably still happy, what with how successful Colour Me Cute seemed to be doing and all. Not that Lauren was paying attention or anything.
Picturing Camila's goofy smiled helped Lauren to calm down, and she flashed the woman a smile.
"My apologies. If you want I could show you our Avengers toys..."
A few minutes later, when the woman swept out of the shop, leaving her gloomy son to carry a Captain America toy, Lauren leaned down and slipped an Elsa sticker into his hand.
"Sssh," she put a finger to her lips, "Don't tell your mom, okay?"
He grinned wide and nodded, before running off behind his mother.
Lauren smiled. Of course that sticker would come out of her pay check, but she was sure she could manage to spare two dollars if it made the kid so damn happy.
the lafon-brain: DUDE i have something important to tell you!
broody mc-grump pants: I'm at work.
the lafon-brain: well when do you get off? because you will NOT believe this!
Lauren hated malls. They reminded her of how tiny and insignificant they all were, and not in the good way. People running around, arguing over arbitrary items of clothing as if it would change the fact that they're all gonna die eventually.
She shifted on her plastic bench. LaF was meant to be here already. There was nothing to do and this public a space made Lauren nervous.
LaFontaine rushed up to her, dropping their bag on the floor and sitting next to her on the bench in a flurry.
"Are you gonna tell me what all this is about?"
"Okay so I have bad news and really really great news!" they seemed out of breath but smiled widely. Slowly, though, the smile slid off their face, "Actually, on second thought, it would have been good news a few months ago. Now it's probably just salt in the wound. So I guess I have bad news and more bad news."
"Just get to the point," Lauren crossed her arms and leaned against the grey wall of the mall.
"Okay okay okay, so. I ran into Mila-"
"Oh great," Lauren pushed her hair out of her face, "what's the other bit of news?"
"Oh no, that was neither of the bits of news. So, yeah, I ran into Mila at the university."
"Why was she there?"
"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you! She was there to visit Alex."
"Fuck."
"No wait it gets better. So I was on my lunch break, talking to Professor Leda about my biochemistry, right? Because obviously I entered the course late on in the semester so I had to catch up, and then the next thing I know I'm being hugged by this tiny person..."
Lauren couldn't help but laugh. That sounded like Camila all right. Good to know she hadn't changed.
"And she asked me how I was doing, and I explained about starting to get my degree and then she asked how you were doing-"
"What did you say?" Lauren asked. She felt a small leap in her chest at the thought that Camila still asked about her, even after everything that had happened.
"Don't worry, I said you found a new, totally cool, job in some record shop now stop interrupting. So I said goodbye to Prof. Leda and me and Mila went out for lunch, and I asked why she was there, and she said her friend was a Lit TA. So I asked her who, and she said Alex. So at this point I was reacting pretty much the same way you are, but then she waved Alex over to us from the queue."
"Is there a point to this story other than just to make me feel awful?" Lauren sighed.
"Yes! Because dude, Alex? Is a girl."
"What?!" Lauren bolted up onto her feet in complete surprise.
"Yeah man, you heard me."
"Fuck!"
"I know, right?" LaF also stood up, "You're a silly noodle," they smiled and patted Lauren on the shoulder.
Lauren felt like an absolute idiot. Alex is a girl. Camila likes girls.
Camila could have liked her.
Fuck.
"I fucked up. Oh my god I fucked up," Lauren said, completely ignoring all of the small children and families who were milling about the mall. "What do I do? Fuck. Even if she did like me, now she's back with Alex-"
"Oh no, dude, don't worry. Her and Alex are just friends. Unless they've got some polyamory thing going on."
"What do you mean?"
"Well after we all had lunch together, Alex left to go and get ready for a date, and Mila wished her good luck."
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck," Lauren started pacing, "I need to go and explain it all to her. I need to go right now-"
"Wait!" LaF grabbed her by the arm before she could run off. "I have something that could help."
"Flowers? Seriously? After everything?" Lauren raised an eyebrow and stared at LaFontaine, who was holding a bouquet of roses with a proud expression on their face. Why they had to drag Lauren all the way to their bio lab to show her flowers, she still wasn't sure.
"Not just any flowers. This is what I've been working on! These are completely, one hundred percent, hypoallergenic. No hay fever. No Mila sneezes."
"Dude, that's awesome!" Lauren grinned, taking the flowers from LaF. Now she understood. "Wait, you've been spending all this time at university chemically enhancing flowers? After finally being freed from your mom's old store?"
LaF shrugged, "old habits die hard, I guess. I mean you were planning on travelling the world but instead you're still in retail."
"Touche."
"Now, go and apologise to that girl for being a complete goober!" LaF said before grabbing hold of Lauren by the shoulders and steering her out of the bio lab. The door slammed behind her, and Lauren stood for a moment, clutching the roses, before exhaling and walking off towards the bus stop.
"Okay, Laur, you can do this," Lauren murmured to herself, staring at the door. "It's just a door. You've seen it a thousand times. Heck, you used to live next to it! Just knock on the door."
She raised a fist, "three... two... one."
Her hand stayed still.
"Come on! You can knock on the door! You've done all this shit to prepare, you're not gonna be defeated by a fucking door-"
"Uh, Lolo?"
Lauren whirled around, to find Camila standing on the landing, holding a grocery bag. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, "What's going on? What are you wearing?"
"Well... I, uh," Lauren felt herself going red as she spluttered. Although she'd talked herself through this moment multiple times, she still wasn't prepared to finally be faced with Camila, who seemed to have somehow gotten even more beautiful over the months they'd been apart. "I guess in my mind this was some big romantic gesture. You know, like in those awful movies you like so much." She refused to meet Camila's gaze, staring at her shoes. On second thought, the suit may have been a tad too much. But she wanted to do this right.
"A big romantic...?" Camila shook her head, laying the bag down on the ground and crossing her arms. "What are you talking about?"
"Okay, so..." Lauren closed her eyes, trying to remember the speech she'd written in her head, "I was kinda a complete asshole. In my defence, there were some communication errors and I thought you were being a complete asshole. But that was also my fault."
She cracked her eyes open to check Camila's reaction. Her arms were still crossed, but a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Lauren took that as her cue to keep going.
"When I said I didn't like you the same way you liked me, that was because I thought you liked me as a friend, and I liked you as-" her blood was thundering around her ears now, "-something more. But I understand now that my phrasing was extremely vague and was very easy to misinterpret."
"You thought I only liked you as a friend?" Camila said, a small laugh in her voice, "seriously? I'm pretty much the least subtle person ever."
"In my defence, I thought you were straight!"
Now that comment had Camila properly laughing, loud and beautifully. She was literally doubled over, clutching her sides. Lauren felt herself blush again, as bright as the bouquet she was holding.
"Well it's not my fault you dated someone with a gender-neutral name!"
Camila eventually managed to get her laughing out of control, just enough to wheeze out, "Wait a minute, you thought Alex was...?" She began laughing again.
"Yes, yes, I get it. Let's all laugh at me being a complete imbecile."
Camila calmed herself down, before taking a step towards Lauren.
"Yeah, you are," she was smiling, though, so Lauren found herself smiling too, "First off you assumed someone's gender from their name and the fact they like sports, which I'm sure LaF wouldn't appreciate, not to mention that it's conforming to traditional societal gender roles. And then you assumed that because I had dated a male in the past that I was straight! First off, a lot of lesbians date men before they realise their identity, plus I may not have been lesbian in the first place. Sexuality is a spectrum and you just erased everything in between the dichotomy of gay and straight, which is biphobic and panphobic and acephobic-"
"And you're really attractive when you talk about this stuff."
Camila just smiled, before taking another step even closer.
"And you are adorable," she whispered, before grabbing hold of Lauren by the lapels and pulling her down for a kiss. Lauren felt like all the air was knocked out of her, but at the same time she felt full. As if everything that had happened over the past few months had been building up and this was what she had been waiting for. Her lungs were in shock, but she was breathing in Camz, so who needed air, really?
They pulled apart, just long enough to allow Camila to smile and... holy shit did she just giggle?
Lauren captured her for another kiss because, wow that giggle was adorable and she wanted to make it happen again. She wasn't sure quite what to do with her hands, because in her right hand she was still holding the bouquet. So she settled for tangling her left in Camila's hair, and letting her right fall to her side.
"So..." Lauren said when Camila finally pulled away, "what does this mean?"
"It means that I've wanted to do that for a very long time," Camila said, running her hands down Lauren's arms.
"Well yeah but... are we cool now?"
"Lolo, you do realise my tongue has been in your mouth, right? I'm pretty sure we're cool now."
Lauren felt her entire body relax in relief. She hadn't realised how tense she'd been ever since her and Camila argued, but all of a sudden it was gone, and she felt like she could fly around the world.
Or maybe that was because, as Camila had so eloquently put it, she'd just had Camila Cabello's tongue in her mouth.
"Uh, I also got you these," Lauren said, awkwardly holding out the flowers between them.
"Lauren! They're gorgeous, but you know I'm allergic-"
"Oh, no, don't worry. LaF did some science shit on them so they don't make you sneezy. Totally safe."
"You got me chemically engineered flowers? And they say romance is dead."