May 27th, 2017
10:00 A.M.
Camila
I woke up in yet another hotel room, tangled up in its signature pristine, white sheets. I grinned to myself when I remember that I was in the U.K., but that grin soon faded once I remembered what else that meant: I had spent the night before in the U.K., at an English club, with an English girl.
And I was waking up alone.
I sunk deeper into my bed again and began to reminisce on the night's events...
"You don't have a plan, do you?" Olivia asked.
"How could you tell?" I chuckled, finally stopping in my tracks.
The two of us had left the club about a half hour ago and I still hadn't made up my mind on what the hell I was doing with this girl. We had been walking around hand in hand, presumably going to a destination that I was supposed to lead us to.
"I should've known better than to let an American girl lead me around my own city.", Olivia teased, "Is this where you kill me?"
"Not yet." I winked as I turned to face her.
"So, why are we in an alley? Or, better yet, why have we been sulking around all of the sketchy streets?"
"Wait, do you really think I'm going to hurt you?"
"Camila, I'm not sure what to think, honestly. You kiss me and lead me out of there like some gorgeous seductress and then you proceed to walk around shady areas for a half hour with me. You're rather confusing."
"I'm sorry, I..."
I wasn't even sure how to begin to explain the 'walking through sketchy parts' thing. The truth was, I was hoping that nobody would see me. If I was caught roaming the streets holding hands with a woman, Roger would literally have my head. All hell would break loose.
What would Lauren think?
"I'm just sort of new to this." I chose to say.
"New to what, exactly?" she asked, leaning on the brick wall behind her.
"Just...being single, I guess. It's been a while and I was never really good at it to begin with."
"I must say I'm not shocked."
"Shut up.", I laughed, giving her arm a light shove.
Olivia smiled back at me, a mischievous glint present in those blue eyes of hers. In that moment, I realized how much I loved eyes. They were always the feature that I was the most drawn towards. They just seemed to say so much without saying anything at all.
"You're quite lucky you're beautiful." she practically whispered.
"Yeah?", I grinned, "Why's that?"
"Because...", she said as she took a step closer to me, now lightly caressing my forearm, "It means I can forgive you for making me walk this much...if you just let me take you back to my place."
I licked my lips as I stared back at her, entranced by her words and her accent and her eyes. I had zero game and yet I still had a gorgeous girl asking me to come back to her place with her. Someone up there loved me.
Another burst of courage ran through me as I looked at Olivia and let her words sink in. I took a step impossibly closer to her and held her face in my hands just before pressing my lips up against hers again.
This time, the kiss lasted much longer, and more started to follow after it. Olivia placed her hands on my waist and pulled me even closer to her, shifting a bit so that we were pressed up against the wall.
Holy shit. I had a beautiful stranger pinned up against a wall and we were making out.
And I was overthinking every single second of it. Her hands felt amazing as they began to wander all over my body, and her lips were on fire, but all I could think about was what it all meant and why I was doing it and why I had drank so much and how the heck I had let it all get to this point and what the heck Lauren was up to and...
I abruptly pulled away from Olivia, sliding my hands from her face to rest on her shoulders.
"What's wrong?" she asked, placing her hands innocently on my waist again.
"N-nothing, I just..." I began, avoiding her eye contact.
"Camila?"
I slowly looked up into those magnificent eyes again, completely silent.
"Are you alright?" she asked cautiously.
I was trying to be, but I had made the mistake of trying Lauren's approach to healing. That wasn't me. I just wasn't programmed to go out and drink and hook up with random people like that. Sure, maybe it would be fun once in a while and Olivia had been absolutely stunning, but that wasn't what I wanted; that wasn't going to make me any happier and I knew it.
I rolled over onto my side and signed, part of me wishing that I could be that girl, that I could be Lauren. I wished that I could somehow magically make all of the loneliness and emptiness go away. The music had definitely been helping, but I needed to pour my heart into someone else, not just something else, and in the right way.
This morning revelation was extremely interesting to me, not because of what it was, but because of what it meant. It meant that I was finally getting over Lauren; that I could see myself pursuing something with somebody else; that I actually wanted to start trying to.
I didn't want the random hookups and the warm body by my side at night. I had never wanted that. I wanted the connection, the conversations, the real stuff. That's what had always been important to me. I couldn't let myself lose sight of that just because Lauren was doing it.
Olivia and I had parted ways after I apologized for wasting her time. That's all that so many people were doing to each other, right? People hooked up because it was 'fun'. How fun could it be waking up the next day and realizing that you're still alone, if not more-so than the night before?
Maybe it worked for some people. Maybe it was fun for them. Maybe I had been born into the wrong generation. Maybe Lauren and I could've had a shot in another timeline.
That last maybe was the one that always made me jolt up out of bed and start my day. That maybe was way too dangerous to dwell on.
................................................................
June 1st, 2017
9:00 A.M.
Lauren
It had finally happened. We had been recording new songs, performing at various events, and doing interviews for months now...and yet suddenly it was all hitting me at once that Camila wasn't a part of any of it.
Maybe it was the fact that we were actually performing our first new single without her. We weren't up there singing Camila's parts anymore. She had no parts anymore. And it was suddenly fucking destroying me.
"Lauren?" Ty's raspy voice appeared to my right.
I turned to see him closing the curtain behind him as he made his way towards me. We had just performed 'Down' along with 'Work From Home' on Good Morning America and I had to rush backstage after all of my stupid, unexpected feelings started to suffocate me. There was no way Ty wasn't about to ask me what was going on.
"You good?" he asked when he finally reached me.
This was it. The moment of truth. This was where I would really see if Ty would handle all of my Camila drama or if he would run away like Lucy.
I said nothing and simply leaned into him, urging him to wrap his arms around me. I buried my face into his chest and willed myself not to cry, willed myself to get my shit together so I could just put my past behind me and be happy.
And then the tears came.
"Laur, what's going on?" Ty asked as he rubbed my back.
What was going on? That was an excellent question. Why did she have to continue to plague my mind and my heart like this even when I thought it was all over? Sure, maybe it was us performing our new song for the first time, but maybe it was also the fact that I was having to hear her songs now.
Camila's single, 'Crying in the Club', had been released a few weeks earlier, and I had basically managed to block that out of my head. But then there was 'I Have Questions'.
"Talk to me, baby." Ty whispered, moving his hand up to play with my hair.
"It's such fucking bullshit." I finally managed, my face still buried in his chest.
"What is?"
I finally moved away from his embrace and forced myself to look him in the eye. I had to know how he would react. Would he laugh again? Would he run like Lucy?
"Camila." I simply said.
"Huh?" he asked.
"I'm...she's...I don't know how to explain it."
"Try."
"Ty, I told you about Camila and me but I didn't really tell you about Lucy and me."
"What about you?"
"Camila was sort of...the reason we broke up."
"Did you...?"
"No. Well..."
I thought back to the kiss Camila and I shared when Lucy and I were still dating. I had tried so hard to convince myself that it had meant nothing, but it was simply a foreshadowing of what was to come. Maybe 'cheating' wasn't really the reason that Lucy and I broke things off, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it might as well have been.
"It wasn't the reason we broke up." I chose.
"But you said--"
"Camila and I kissed once while I was with Lucy and it was stupid and we were drunk...", I cut him off, "...but we still dated for months after that. We broke up because...I just....I kept having these...moments."
"Moments?"
"Imagine being with someone who randomly breaks down or is just in a shitty mood because of their ex. It's not exactly a reassuring feeling."
"Laur, I don't get it. You've seemed fine lately. Did you see her again or something?"
"No! God no."
The thought of seeing Camila in that moment practically destroyed me. I wasn't exactly sure why or what would happen if I did, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle it.
"So why is this happening now?" he asked.
"I don't fucking know, Ty.", I snapped, "It just happens. That's what I'm saying. Lucy couldn't deal with it and..."
You probably won't be able to either, I thought to myself as I stared into his big green eyes. I couldn't bring myself to say it. I didn't want him to know how terrified I was of my own insanity. I didn't want him to know how uncertain I was that I would ever love anyone the same way again. We were supposed to be casual, drama-free.
"I'm not Lucy." he finally said.
"I'm aware." I replied.
"Just chill out, ok? Everything's going to be alright."
With that, Ty pulled me into him again and wrapped his arms around me. He placed a quick peck on the top of my head before placing his chin in the same spot.
Just like that, he had done it again. With that simple sentence, he somehow made me feel more at peace. I relaxed into him and repeated his words over and over again in my mind.
Everything's going to be alright.
I wanted to believe it so badly. I had spent so long trying to convince myself of that, but I still wasn't sure. Ty could make the worries melt away temporarily, but he couldn't eradicate them completely. He couldn't erase my feelings for the brown eyed girl who was slowly starting to feel like a stranger.
It felt like it had happened in another universe, Camila and me. Then again, if it had, we probably wouldn't be hurting this much. We would probably be together and in love and--
Ah, shit. I burrowed my wet face into Ty's shirt once again, willing the thoughts away.
But, when I closed my eyes, all I could see was her face.
................................................................
June 5th, 2017
2:00 P.M.
Camila
Sometimes the flashbacks hurt too much; but sometimes they were like rewatching my favorite movie...
May 1st, 2016: 1:00 A.M.
"Lauren, this is the worst idea you've ever had." I whispered as I let the green eyed girl lead me by the hand.
"I feel like I've had worse.", she giggled, "Relax. We'll be back before anyone even knows we're gone."
"Not if someone sees us."
"That's what the hoodies are for."
With that, Lauren stopped us and tugged at the strings on my black hoodie, slightly tightening the circle of cloth surrounding my face.
"You know what the real issue is going to be?" she whispered, leaning closer to me.
"What?" I grinned.
"Disguising that ass of yours. People are gonna spot that shit from a mile away."
"I hate you." I laughed.
"No you don't." she said in her baby voice.
"No I don't."
With that, I closed the distance between us and connected our lips in a tender kiss. She tasted like her strawberry chapstick, sweet and delicious. We pulled away but Lauren leaned in again for a quick peck before releasing her grip on my hoodie.
"Ready?" she asked, holding her hand out to me again.
"I was born ready." I stated as I intertwined our fingers.
She flashed me that gorgeous smile of hers and suddenly I knew that this would be one of those moments that I would replay in my head for years to come, no matter what happened between us.
I learned that that's how relationships worked: in snapshots; vivid images strung together to create an incredible love story. This would be one of my favorite pictures: Lauren Jauregui in a black hoodie, holding my hand and smiling back at me like I was the only thing that mattered in the entire world, her bright green eyes piercing through the L.A. night sky. She was worried about people recognizing my butt, but it was her eyes that we needed to worry about.
Lauren and I stole away into the night, the adrenaline from the thought of being caught rushing through our blood like hard liquor. We hadn't been able to spend much time with each other since our team found out that we had gotten back together again. They had gone back into full 'Camren shut down' mode, which only forced the two of us to make time to hangout, no matter the cost.
Earlier that day, my green eyed love had taken it upon herself to find a low key place in L.A. that was open late and we had planned to sneak out together once everyone was asleep. It wasn't like either of us slept much anyway, especially not me.
We finally arrived at the small diner, our faces encapsulated by our dark hoodies, and Lauren quietly asked the hostess to seat us at a table for two. We were led to a small booth in the corner and took our seats across from each other. I looked into her beautiful eyes and involuntarily held my hand out to her across the table. I craved her touch.
"You know, I'm pretty sure even if we spent every second of every day together I still wouldn't get sick of you." I said once the hostess had left us.
"We do." she giggled.
"Not really. I mean, not alone."
"I'm pretty sure you'd get sick of me."
"No, because even if I like didn't want to talk or anything we could just sit in a room together and do our things and I'd be happy."
"What if I wanted to talk and you didn't?"
"Then you'd respect me enough to shut the fuck up or I would love you enough to suck it up and listen to you rant."
We both giggled at that, knowing that it was true. Lauren gave my hand a light squeeze before letting it go and grabbing onto the menu instead. I instantly missed her touch, but knew that we should probably figure out what we were going to order. Only a few seconds passed before she spoke again.
"Camila."
I looked up from my menu and smiled at her, loving the way my name sounded coming from her lips.
"Yes?" I asked.
"I love you." she said softly.
"I love you."
Lauren smiled at me sweetly before blowing me a kiss and returning her gaze to the menu in front of her. I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face as I returned to trying to focus on the food options. I was so in love.
And so blissfully unaware of how little time I had left with the gorgeous girl in front of me.
Luckily for me, this was one of the flashbacks that left a permanent smile on my face. Yes, heartbreak hurt so much, but it was so fucking worth it. The snapshots were so beautiful.
I realized that that night had taken place only a month before Lauren and I officially broke up. That month of back and forth with her had seemed so incredibly long at the time, but I realized that it really was such a short amount of time.
I wish I could've stretched it out. I wish I could've stopped everything and made that month, or even just that night, last a lifetime.
I had meant every word that I said to the green eyed girl that night. I could've lived in that booth with her and never gotten tired of it. She was addicting. Every word, every touch, every breath...I lived for it all.
And I wanted it back. I wanted that feeling of being completely and totally intoxicated with somebody again. And for the first time in ages, that longing actually made me smile.
I looked down at the notepad in front of me and scribbled a few words down, thinking of that night, thinking of Lauren, thinking of love. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, dim, but burning nonetheless.