Camila woke up late the next morning, having slept badly. Her chocolate eyes were puffy and red from crying as she padded slowly towards the lounge, seeking out her girlfriend.
"Camila?" A quiet voice emitted from inside the room, and the brunette jumped. Eagerly, she pushed open the door, hoping to find the emerald eyed girl inside. All she wanted was an explanation from Lauren. But when she entered, she wasn't met with the sight that she was craving.
Dinah, Ally and Normani were sitting together on the couch, fully dressed. This was contrasting to the smaller girl, who was still wearing her sleeping things. Lauren was noticeably absent.
"W-where is she?" Camila asked tentatively, her raspy voice cracking slightly as she spoke. Searchingly, she peered around the small room, as if hoping that her girlfriend was hiding behind the door or under the pile of blankets on top of the couch.
Dinah sighed, bracing herself to tell the smaller girl the truth. "She left earlier," the Polynesian admitted softly, "I don't know where she went. But she said she had to do something." Seeing the crumpled, broken look on her best friend's face, Dinah outstretched her arms for Camila to crawl into. However, the Latina didn't accept the offer. Instead, she felt her knees buckle beneath her and simply sunk down to the floor.
"Mila?" Ally whispered concernedly, climbing hurriedly off the couch to rub the younger girl's back soothingly. "It's okay," she said gently, observing the tears that were pooling in Camila's eyes.
"What did I do to her?" Camila cried despairingly, allowing the moisture to spill out of her brown orbs and choking down a lump in her throat. She didn't understand why her girlfriend had become a different person overnight. Even on the phone she had still been the old Lauren, if slightly tired and sluggish. What could possibly have turned her into an unrecognisable girl in the space of a few hours? "I just want to understand what I did wrong..." she whispered, forcing herself not to let out the sob that she was holding down in her chest.
Normani and Dinah exchanged distraught glances, scooting down to sit on the floor beside the other two girls. "None of this is your fault, Mila. You didn't do anything wrong," Normani promised, taking the brunette's hand and squeezing it gently.
"Yeah, it's Lauren who's acting like an idiot," Dinah said bluntly, making Camila smile weakly through her tears. "Come on," she encouraged, helping the smaller girl up and leading her into the kitchen to sit down again. The other two girls followed, passing glances of both relief that Camila had stopped crying and sadness at the unexplainable situation.
The Polynesian pulled Camila onto the couch closest to the kitchen. While Normani sat down and began to talk quietly to the smaller girl, Dinah discreetly instructed Ally to make Camila some breakfast. All of them had already eaten and knew that the Latina would avoid food at all costs, considering her outburst the previous night.
"Here you are, Mila," the eldest girl said a moment later, turning around to face the other three girls sat on the comfortable couch with a pink bowl in her hands.
"What's that?" Camila asked suspiciously, with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She couldn't face the thought of eating this morning; not when Lauren had completely abandoned her. Everything in her life was spiralling out of control, just like her girlfriend seemed to have spiralled out of it.
Ally gave her a quick smile and the other two girls looked at Camila nervously but reassuringly. "Your favorite cereal. We just...we wanted you to know that just because Lauren's been acting a little...strange, it doesn't mean everything else in your life has to fall apart too." She handed the bowl and a spoon to the brunette, who was staring down at the cereal like it was an approaching enemy on her own personal battlefield.
Without realizing that she had spent an entire minute simply looking at the food in front of her, Camila picked up the spoon. The three girls next to her grinned simultaneously in delight. Maybe last night had just been a tiny bump in the road, rather than the hill that they had expected it to be.
However, to their dismay, Camila let out a long sigh and let the spoon clatter back down again. "I can't do it," she breathed, gazing up anxiously to Dinah, who was sat beside her.
Dinah replied quietly, determined to impress upon the smaller girl that she had to eat something. "Yes you can. You've done it before, Walz. Nothing bad happened, did it? Bad things only happen when you don't eat." Her tone was solacing, telling the brunette the truth. Although Dinah was younger than Camila, she often felt like the elder out of the two. The Latina was just so...breakable. And Dinah felt a fierce protectiveness over her that she couldn't quite explain.
Camila, for the second time, lifted the spoon again. It had only one Cheerio on the rounded metal surface, but she managed to bring it up to her mouth. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she ate the spoonful slowly. The other girls could see the pain on the brunette's face as she swallowed the cereal, but they knew she had to finish the majority of the bowl.
"Keep going, Mila," Normani whispered, seeing a tear spill over onto Camila's cheek. Dinah reached to brush it away as the small girl gathered some more cereal onto her spoon and placed it into her mouth.
After a few more spoonfuls she stopped, her hands coming up to cover her face.
"No, Mila—" Ally said softly, leaning over to embrace the younger girl. She could feel Camila's body trembling.
"I can't do anymore," the Latina let out shakily, allowing the bowl to fall to the ground and spill its contents all over the floor. It didn't matter. Nothing felt as if it mattered anymore.
"You did good, Walz," Dinah said carefully, her heart breaking at the sight of Camila crying softly before her. "We're proud of you for at least eating something." She stopped, pulling the small girl close to her body and whispering hesitantly in her ear. "Is it starting again? Does it feel the same as before?"
Camila nodded after a long pause, and then shook her head. "It never really went away," she croaked, "I just got better at ignoring it. Lauren helped me to ignore it," she said, a sharp gasp escaping her lips. "I-I can't...I don't want to feel like this again." Her voice was utterly broken, making all three of the other girls tear up.
Before, when she had actually eaten something, it had been mainly for others, but at least partially for herself. Now she just felt the same draining numbness that she had become so accustomed to, and when she had eaten the cereal it had been completely for the benefit of the girls. Not for herself. She didn't care enough to do it for herself. It scared her that Lauren had so much power over her, but she realized that this would ultimately have happened anyway. This was her coping mechanism; her way of dealing with the problems life aimed at her. And since Camila's life seemed to think that she was a target in a bizarre form of target practice, it aimed a lot of problems at her. This was her way of solving them.
"Mila?" Ally asked, after a long period of silence. Camila simply stared blankly at the floor, watching the milk from the discarded bowl spread slowly into cracks and crevices.
She said nothing.
~
Several weeks passed, and Lauren felt herself slipping further and further away from her girlfriend. She still talked to the other girls, who treated her with a cold caution due to how badly she was affecting her smaller girlfriend, but she felt a sense of overwhelming loneliness creeping in upon her.
Camila felt herself slipping away not just from Lauren, but from everyone.
It was just like before, except this time she had no one to turn to when she was having panic attacks. She kept them completely masked from the girls. Sleepless nights plagued her far more frequently than nights of sufficient rest, and as a result she constantly had tired bags under her eyes. The other girls, who were beside themselves with worry for the brunette, had driven themselves crazy trying to convince her to take care of herself.
Dinah had sat patiently next to Camila as she forced herself to put food in her mouth. She could see the dullness in her best friend's eyes growing more lifeless every day that went by, but she was powerless to stop it. Nothing she said or did made any difference. The Polynesian has lost count of the number of hours she had spent trying to get Lauren to tell her what was going on; she only ever received answers of "I can't explain it" or "I can't tell you". Even when she had burst out that Camila was destroying her body again, making tears spring to Lauren's ocean eyes, the girl did not relent.
Lauren could see exactly what Camila was going through. But she was terrified that if she told the small girl the truth of what she had done that night, she would drive Camila away forever. And that would only worsen the younger girl's state of mind and desire to nourish herself. She was locked in an isolating place, full of secrets and closed doors and exhausted eyes.
Her girlfriend was shrinking gradually by the day, both physically and mentally. The small frame that she had once had was decreasing rapidly; she looked sicker than she had been before she was admitted to rehab. Camila was aware of the fact that a lot of the fans could see her body wasting away, but she couldn't bring herself to stop what she was doing. Despite the tears of exasperation and pleading from Dinah, Normani and Ally, she wouldn't give in. There was no reason to, in her eyes.
Even when her parents and younger sister had FaceTimed her a few days previously (having received a frantic call from Dinah about Camila's deteriorating health), they had been unable to convince her that she needed to change.
"You're relapsing, Mija," her mom had said in a quiet voice that sounded tearful. Sofi had simply gazed at her older sister, unable to understand what Camila was doing or why she was doing it.
"I know," Camila had replied hollowly, avoiding the eyes of her family, particularly her little sister's. "I have to go now, okay? We're performing in an hour." Ignoring the protests from her father and mother, she had ended the FaceTime with a small peek at Sofi. The youngest member of the family looked confused and upset, making Camila feel guilty for a moment.
But it wasn't enough. Nothing was enough to break the familiar cycle of waking up from nightmares, avoiding food, feeling depressed and anxious, playing a show while feeling no emotion at all and then ending the day trying to fall asleep for hours yet again.
This usual routine was interrupted on the day when the girls were performing in New York City. It was lunchtime; Camila's least favorite time of day. That meant catering - when everyone on their team sat down together to eat before the afternoon of meet and greets and soundcheck.
Lauren, for the last few days, had taken an alarming turn. Rather than just being standoffish and ignoring the girls, she had skipped a show completely and at other times, walking around in a daze of apparent shock and anxiety. Her girlfriend had noticed the change, but was facing so many of her own problems that she had tried to block out the older Latina's latest behavior.
"Camila?" A voice echoed into the corridor where the brunette was sitting, pondering about Lauren's actions for the eighteenth time that day. She shot up, feeling a rush of dizziness to her head. Shaking it away impatiently, she backed around the corner. This happened most days: one of the girls would find her and force her to go to catering. "Mila?" The voice came again, and she breathed a sigh of mollification, believing she was well hidden.
Not for long.
"There you are!" Normani's relieved voice came from behind her tiny frame, causing Camila to jump. "Let's go," she said firmly, grasping the younger girl's arm in a tight grip.
Camila protested, but was dragged into the room where lunch was being served. She met eyes with Lauren for a brief moment, who was sat by herself on the other side of the room. Rather surprisingly, the older girl's eyes were watery and red. Camila ignored this fact.
"Come here, Mila," Dinah beckoned from a nearby table. The smaller girl made her way slowly over to her best friend, sitting down. This was a regular thing for her. Normani finally let go of her arm, hearing Lauren's raspy voice calling out for her from the distant table. She smiled softly at Camila before leaving to talk to the other Latina.
"I don't want to do this," Camila said emotionlessly, pushing the plate of food that was in front of her away. Dinah had gotten a meal for her, knowing that the smaller girl was incapable of choosing a normal amount for herself. "Please just let me skip today. I promise I'll eat tomorrow."
"That's what you said yesterday, Mila," Ally said gently, eyeing the tiny brunette with worry. "You need to eat, Camila. If you don't you'll end up back in rehab."
"I don't care," Camila muttered darkly, but under the watchful eyes of her two friends, she consumed half of her plate painstakingly slowly. When she had eaten as much as she could bear, she pushed the food away once more. "I'm done," she said quietly, tears already tracking down her face. She stood up at once, walking hurriedly out of the room.
They let her go, knowing how hard it was for her to even put the food into her mouth. Camila ran down the hallway to the bathroom, barricading herself into a tiny cubicle. Crying harder every second, she sunk down to the floor. Why do they even bother trying to make me eat? she wondered through her aching head and relentless tears. It takes more than just a meal at catering to fuel a person once they're not interested in living anymore.
Camila often had thoughts like this. It wasn't that she wanted to die exactly; she just didn't think she could withstand any more life at the moment.
Her soft cries were interrupted when the bathroom door swung open and she heard two pairs of footsteps enter the tiled room. Camila stayed as silent as possible, not wanting to reveal herself.
"Lo, what the hell is the matter?" She recognized the voice of Normani, and held her breath when she realized that Lauren must also be there.
Lauren's voice cracked as she spoke, and she sniffed loudly; she was clearly crying. "I need to tell someone," she let out in a burst, and Camila felt the raw emotion in her words. The smaller girl's heart sped up, beating frantically in her chest.
"What do you need to tell?" Normani's tone was softer than it had been before, and sounded curious. "Laur, is this something to do with why you've been avoiding Camila for the past few weeks?"
There was a silence, and Camila assumed that Lauren was nodding.
Normani spoke again. "What is it?" she asked gently, and there was a tense moment when no sound could be heard at all. Then Lauren let out a response.
"I think I might be pregnant."
~A/N~ thank you for 4K reads! Sorry this chapter was quite depressing...and I apologize for the cliffhanger (: Thank you for reading x