can yall believe this is my take on a twin fic............. vote & comment if u like <3
-
"Are you sure you're okay with this?"
Camila Cabello knocks her head back against her seat, her bangs falling in front of her eyes. "You've asked me that a dozen times, you know that? Yes. I'm okay. I'm so okay."
"Alright." Camila's mother is chewing on her bottom lip as she turns the steering wheel. "You can call me whenever, okay? I mean it. The both of you," she adds, shooting a glance towards the backseat, where Camila's younger sister Sofia is staring out the window with huge eyes. "Anything goes wrong, you can come right back home."
"What the hell would go wrong?" Camila asks.
"Language, Jesus christ." Camila's mom snaps her fingers in Camila's direction.
"Language, Jesus christ," Sofia mimics from the backseat. Camila hides her snort in her fist.
"Hey." Camila's mom snaps her fingers behind her now. "Don't take the lord's name in vain, Sofia."
"We're not even religious," points out Camila, but her mother just shakes her head, eyes narrowing in that stern mom way that Camila is going to miss terribly.
The truth is she is so okay with this, even though it's kind of hard to believe, and she knows why her mother's so nervous about this. Yes, she is okay with uprooting her whole life and moving hours away and starting her junior year at an entirely new school. Yes, she is okay with living with her dad for the next two years, even though it sucks and she's going to miss her mom like nothing else, but, well-
She also kind of needs this.
It's all one big mess, really. Camila's old school was a trainwreck. Private, Catholic, all-girls, the whole nine yards. Along with the mean, mean girls, the ones who found out she was gay and taunted her mercilessly. You have to understand - Camila doesn't tolerate that shit, really. She's strong, and stubborn. She has a hell of a backbone. But then it got all dyke-in-big-Sharpie-letters-on-her-locker, which is so nineties, really, and stealing her books, her gym clothes. It made Camila cry but it also made her furious.
Her mother? Even more furious. She'd marched straight down to the school and reported the girls and complained, but it quickly became clear that the Catholic school's Catholicness was going to be a conflict of interest because they basically said it was Camila's fault for being so obviously gay and therefore her fault for being bullied. So in seconds Camila's mom was pulling her out of school and now, well-
Her parents got divorced when Camila was thirteen, and she's sixteen now, and there was never much of a gaping wound. Sofia (five then, eight now) is too young to remember it. All Camila gleaned from it was that her parents simply were no longer in love. There was no fighting, no big scenes - which, in retrospect, was probably the best thing they could've done - and instead it was a clean break. Her dad moved hours away for his job, and he got Camila and Sofia every other weekend, the holidays split evenly. Truly, her mom and her dad couldn't have done co-parenting better.
In conclusion, Camila has grown up surprisingly well-adjusted despite all of this. She's a good student, a good daughter, a good sister. And she is also an incredibly positive person. Moving to a new high school for what is supposed to be the hardest year of her high school career? Rough, but you know. Entirely manageable. Definitely preferable to being bullied by homophobic assholes.
Sofia is similarly looking forward to this. She's always liked her dad's house a little bit better, what with him living in this ultra-rich suburb very close to the city, and she makes friends like nobody's business. She's certainly doing better than Camila in the personable-and-charismatic department.
"It's so pretty here," Sofia says behind them, her voice dreamy. Lincoln Point always is - all green, and lush, and well-manicured - and this is something Sofia says, without fail, every time they come here. "It looks like Pretty Little Liars."
"You are way too young to be watching that show, Sofia," scolds their mom.
"What? Kaki let me watch it with her."
Camila feels more than sees the glare that comes next. "Karla Camila Cabello."
"Sorry," Camila tells her, but she can't stop the grin that splits her face, because she knows that they're turning on her dad's street, and Sofia's right and Lincoln Point really is so pretty and she can see the house now and it all feels kind of like a shiny, optimistic new beginning.
-
Her dad is ecstatic to have them here. Camila knows because he says it, like, at least five times after they walk through the door.
"Are you sure you have everything for school, sweetheart?" he asks her as he mills around the kitchen. Cooking is something Camila can never remember him doing while her parents were together, but he's taken it up over the years.
"Yep." Camila and Sofia are doing a puzzle on the kitchen table - they do it every other weekend when they come to their dad's, and now that they're going to be here for the foreseeable future, they don't know how they're going to keep the tradition going. Whatever. It's a big one of New York City, and they're almost done with all the edge pieces. "I checked a billion times." She's already got her backpack packed for school on Monday and everything. Camila can be sort of anal. Sue her. She likes being organized.
"New York is so cool," muses Sofia.
"You'd never want to live there," Camila tells her. "There are rats everywhere."
"Gross!" Sofia frowns at her. "There aren't rats in Gossip Girl." Jeez. Maybe Camila needs to refrain from letting her eight-year-old sister watch all these teenage shows.
After dinner and quite a bit of progress on their puzzle, Camila goes to her room, which all of a sudden seems very impersonal - something she realizes only after she stares at it for a little bit. Her room here is substantially larger than her room at her mom's, but her room there is all her and her collection of plants that she takes very good care of and her color-coded closet and her book collection. Her room here, in comparison, seems kind of empty.
Her mom promised to keep Camila's plants watered back at her house, but there are absolutely none here. Hmm. Maybe she'll go plant shopping tomorrow. But first she's going to take an hour to stress about everything that could possibly happen at school on Monday, which is only three days away, and Camila, though almost annoyingly positive, is nothing if not ever-so-slightly neurotic and a classic overthinker.
Oh, well. Maybe this shiny new beginning can give her an opportunity for some personal growth.
-
Here are three things Camila thinks are of note about Lincoln Point High School:
One - they don't have to wear uniforms. Thank fucking god. At her private school their uniforms were atrocious and none of them could get away with the slutty schoolgirl thing because all their skirts were frumpy and to their knees. But right now it's August in California and Camila can wear shorts and a tank top that shows off her summer tan and flip flops - goddamn flip flops. It's pretty much a miracle.
Two - everybody is almost annoyingly pretty. She doesn't mean to notice this one. Maybe it's because everybody's rich and there's something in the water. Either way, Camila cannot stop noticing it. It makes her feel both slightly out of place but also like she's in her own version of a high school movie. Like, there are people wearing actual designer clothes and shit. It's not a private school but it's fancy enough to be.
And third-
"Oof!"
Third, Camila isn't paying attention and runs smack-dab into someone.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," she rushes, running a self-conscious hand through her hair. "I wasn't looking where I was going, and-"
"No, it's all good." The someone she ran into is a girl, and she's laughing, much to Camila's relief. "My bad. I think I've had too much caffeine this morning." Camila notices the extra-large Starbucks cup the girl is carrying and again thanks heaven above (not like she really believes in that, but who cares) that she didn't knock the coffee all over either of them, because that would've been seriously mortifying and also would've made Camila quite the cliché.
When she looks up at the girl's face- wow. She is immediately struck by how beautiful this girl is. She's around Camila's height, maybe a little shorter, with brilliantly green eyes framed by eyeliner and thick lashes, long, dark hair pulled back into two braids, pale skin, and freckles scattered around the bridge of her pert nose and the apples of her cheeks. When she smiles, Camila registers deep, deep dimples and an endearing little gap between the girl's two front teeth.
"You're new," says the very beautiful girl - pointedly not a question.
Camila straightens, hitching her backpack further up her shoulders. "I am. Um. How did you know?"
The girl purses her glossy lips, one of her thick eyebrows lifting upwards. "You just have that whole Cady-from-Mean-Girls fish-out-of-water thing going on," she tells Camila, gesturing up and down Camila's body. She doesn't know why, but despite her intimidating prettiness, there's just something about this girl that makes Camila feel instantly comfortable. It must be the way she's talking to her with this overt familiarity, natural and easy, like she's known Camila for a while instead of only meeting her only seconds earlier.
Camila tilts her head. "Right. Are you gonna tell me you think I'm really pretty?"
The girl mocks her tilted head in feigned thoughtfulness. "I think you're... adequate."
Camila's jaw drops, but she can't help from laughing, especially because the girl is grinning this shit-eating grin and it's totally infectious. "You're kind of an asshole, huh?"
The girl presses a dramatic, offended hand to her chest. "You can't call me an asshole!" she protests, voiced pitched higher. "We just met!"
"We just met and you already called me ugly!" Camila shoots back, and the girl throws her head back and giggles, like Camila has passed some sort of test.
"You're twisting my words," says the girl. "I said you were adequate."
"Oh, that's so much better."
"I know, right?"
Camila's eyes narrow, and she shakes her head, a little incredulous and all the way amused. "You are really something," she says.
"Not something." The girl sticks out the hand that's not holding her coffee for Camila to shake. "Logan Jauregui. Nice to meet you."
"Logan," Camila repeats, shaking her hand.
"Yeah. My parents thought I was going to be a boy, but alas, I was not. You gonna tell me your name, new girl?"
Camila smiles at her and inexplicably is entertained by this girl who seems to be very smug and sarcastic and uses words like "alas" in order to be dramatic. Maybe her extreme clumsiness is turning out to be a good thing, today of all days.
"Camila Cabello," she says. "Nice to meet you too."
-
Turns out Logan Jauregui, in with of her exquisite beauty and apparent god complex, is sort of Camila's meal ticket. Logan even says it to her: "I'm your meal ticket," completely unabashed.
"What? How?"
And this is how: Logan is the student body president, and a very popular senior. Everyone greets her as she walks down the hall, and Logan introduces Camila to at least ten really pretty girls who are uncommonly nice and are sort of freaking Camila out with how nice they are.
Camila spies anti-discrimination/anti-bullying posters on nearly every classroom door they pass, which settles her nerves a little bit. "So how do you guys feel about gay people?" Very subtle, but whatever.
"I am a gay people," says Logan. "So. We love them."
"Cool." Camila casts a sideways glance at Logan. "I'm, er, a gay people too."
"Rad." Logan has a valedictorian good-girl vibe happening with her clothes and her AP classes and her face that contrasts with her sarcastic, deadpan humor. It's very intriguing.
Yeah, so. Logan's her meal ticket, and Camila likes her immediately.
-
Camila's first week at Lincoln Point goes by in a breeze - mostly thanks to Logan. The girl has a god complex for a reason.
She may be a senior to Camila's lowly junior, but they have AP Biology together, and they claim each other as partners immediately. Every single teacher seems to be obsessed with Logan and Camila can't decide whether it's her student body president-ness or if she's just that likable.
Logan basically demands Camila sit with her at lunch and so she meets all of Logan's friends - Normani (ultra-gorgeous head cheerleader, intimidating, totally perfect), Dinah (their school's star soccer player, loud, brash, hilarious), and Ally (way too smart and laid-back and sweet to be involved with the rest of them but ostensibly is anyway). There's also some other girls on the cheer squad and the soccer team alike who sit there, and some guys too, but who gives a fuck about the guys, really?
"I'm only sitting here because I'm Logan's friend by association." This is one of the first things out of Dinah's mouth when Camila sits at their table. She's a junior, like Camila, and they share an AP Calculus class. "I already swore my loyalty to her sister years ago. Logan's my second choice."
Logan chucks a potato chip at her. "Fuck all the way off."
"You have a sister?" Camila asks.
The energy is immediately a little different, and Camila sort of gets the feeling she shouldn't have asked, but she can't put her finger on why. Logan seems to sober up.
"Um, yeah," she says. "We're twins. Identical."
"Oh." Camila looks around, but she definitely would've noticed if there was someone walking around looking the exact same as Logan. "Where is she?"
Logan scratches behind her neck and crosses one leg over the other. The table has gotten quiet. "She's starting the year late," Logan explains. "She's gonna come in next week. She was at boarding school last year, and she fell behind on credits, so she has to retake junior year. You might have her in some of your classes."
There's a small silence, but then Dinah cracks a joke about something and the energy at the table goes back to normal. They actually include Camila in the conversation, which is nice, and Logan cackles at everything she says because it turns out they have very similar senses of humor. Ally is a sweetheart and seems to have a habit of mothering the group and Normani is gorgeous and really cool and also gorgeous. They have a good dynamic, but...
Maybe Camila didn't notice it until they said something, but it does sort of feel like something is missing. Like someone is missing. Logan's elusive twin sister, probably. Camila wonders if she'll even be able to tell the difference between the two of them when Logan's sister joins them eventually. She'll sit at lunch with them, Camila's assuming. Logan's pretty good with names and faces, but identical twins are a beast she's yet to battle, so we'll see about that.
Yeah, so. Her first week goes awesome. It's, like, night and day from her old school, and she can't believe she didn't do this sooner.
-
She and Logan become very close very fast. On Friday after school, Logan declares that she is going to take Camila out shopping and they end up at Home Depot to buy plants.
"If you get dirt in my car I'm going to kill you," says Logan as they peruse through the gardening section. "Also, I hope you don't expect me to do anything. You can carry the plants by yourself, right?"
She's an asshole, but it's sort of part of her charm. "God, how does anyone even like you?"
"Pretty privilege."
"Of course."
Camila gets two smaller ones to start on what is sure to be an abominably huge collection in the future: a Chinese perfume plant, which she already has the perfect pot for at her dad's house, and a Hoya carnosa Krimson princess, which she's gonna hang from her ceiling. She's seconds away from getting this stunning ruby rubber plant, but it was too big and Logan refused to let it into her car, so. She'll come back later to get it with her dad.
Logan does help her carry her Hoya carnosa, so she's not that much of an asshole. She also points out the cute little bookstore-slash-café in this little shopping square as she's driving Camila home after Camila tells her she loves to read. "That's where my sister works," Logan says. "If you like to read, it's the place to be. It's also nice to do homework there, since it's usually pretty quiet." Camila vows to check it out later.
Her and Logan just click, and it's awesome, because Camila's never had a best friend, not really. She was too loud and too not-straight and tended to get very excited and passionate about small things like her plants or her book collection. Logan doesn't seem to mind any of this, though. Actually, none of the girls seem to mind. They are all shockingly welcoming. It's a breath of fresh air.
She hangs out with them on Saturday, where they all go to the mall and it's right out of some cheesy teen rom-com and Camila's living the cheesy teen rom-com life, trying on clothes and scoping out hot people at the food court and drinking too much coffee. Dinah comes even though she insists she only tolerates Logan because of Logan's sister, and she and Camila click, too. There's something about being with people who are wholeheartedly, unashamedly themselves which makes Camila's heart swell and feel really, really happy.
There's only one thing lacking from her teen rom-com moment, and it's, well... the rom. She has yet to meet a love interest, even though she's managed to somehow surround herself with uncommonly beautiful girls. And she and Logan connect, but not in that way, even though Logan is super gorgeous and unfairly charismatic. Logan, with her snarky humor and sunny disposition, is almost too much like Camila. And so Logan is not quite her type.
"I want to date someone," she says while they're in Victoria's Secret and she is not ogling pictures of Alessandra Ambrosio on the wall, thank you very much. "I've never dated anyone before."
"But you're so hot," says Normani.
Logan puts a thoughtful finger to her lips, dodging as Dinah tries to spray her with candy-sweet perfume. "You know what?" she says in all of her five-two glory. "I am going to be your matchmaker. I will find you the perfect girl."
"Jeez. How many sapphic girls are in Lincoln Point?"
"More than you would think." Logan flicks through skimpy underwear and picks up a particularly scandalous pair to twirl around her finger. "I'm going to be your Cher from Clueless."
"I'm Dionne," Dinah and Normani say at the same time, then glare at each other.
"You're a virgin who can't drive?" Camila asks.
"Check and check," chirps Logan. "My standards are incredibly high. And, well- you've been in a car with me." She's telling the truth. Logan fucking sucks at driving.
Camila is living her rom-com movie moment and she forgets that things don't come in pretty, neat packages like they do in movies. And of course the love interest is never exactly what you expect. And you rarely ever fall in love with the perfect person - you rarely fall in love with people you should.
In fact, in every iconic story ever told, you often fall in love with people you shouldn't. But, like I said: Camila is swept up in the moment. She hasn't realized any of this yet.
-
It all happens on that Monday on that second week of school. She meets Dinah at her car for the coffee Dinah promised her, and she is not disappointed.
Dinah seems fidgety, though, which is unlike her. She keeps craning her neck like she's looking for someone. Camila eyes her between sips of her iced coffee. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Dinah tugs at the hem of her skirt, shaking her head, her bouncy blonde hair settling around her face. "Sorry. It's just- Logan's sister starts school today, and I haven't seen her yet."
"Oh, right." The mysterious Other Jauregui. Camila's still kind of paranoid she's going to accidentally mistake the sister for Logan and say something, like, super embarrassing. Or super rude. She and Logan don't exactly have a filter when they're around each other. "I guess I'll meet her at lunch."
Dinah chews on her bottom lip. "I don't know. She might go off-campus for lunch."
Camila blinks. "I thought juniors aren't allowed to do that." Hey, she's learned some things in her first week.
"They'll let her," says Dinah, and Camila doesn't know why Logan's sister would get special privileges, but whatever. Maybe it's because she would be a senior now if she hadn't had to repeat junior year.
"Okay." Camila nudges Dinah's arm. "Are we going in, or...?"
They do. Camila always feels a little bit more badass walking into school with Dinah. It might have a little to do with how she's tall and blonde and really hot and always looks like she just stepped straight out of a music video, but it also might have to do with the fact that they're in Logan Jauregui's friend group and that sort of makes them the Plastics of Lincoln Point. Or at least this is how all of it was relayed to Camila by Logan herself, who has an ego so big Camila has no idea how it fits into her very toned body.
"We are not the Plastics," Ally scolded Logan, and Camila doesn't think they are either, not really, but for the millionth time, after years of being ostracized, she's going to take her rom-com moment and fucking run with it. Well, is Mean Girls a rom-com? Maybe not. But it is indisputable that Logan Jauregui is the It Girl and Camila's meal ticket and all that shit she said she was on the very first day. Perhaps she has a reason to be so hilariously conceited.
"Alright." Dinah wavers outside Camila's AP Lang classroom - she has Health, which is just down the hall. "I'll see you in third period?"
"Yeah." Camila raises her coffee cup at Dinah in farewell. "See you, bitch."
It might be a little early to tell, but Camila thinks AP Lang is going to be her favorite class this year. She's always loved reading, and their teacher, Mr. S, who is pretty young and sort of dorky but in a good way, seems to actually care about his students and Camila finds it very sweet. They don't have a seating chart and so Camila sits where she's been sitting for the first week - third row, closest to the window. They're gonna be reading the Scarlet Letter first, and Camila's knowledge of that book is limited to Easy A, which is a movie she's seen conservatively fifty times. She's gonna hate in it that way she always hates classic literature but she'll appreciate it nonetheless - she already knows. She knows herself well.
It takes ten minutes into the class for it to happen. Maybe it was so shocking because Camila wasn't expecting it. Maybe it was because she was thinking about Easy A rather than who could possibly walk into class late. Maybe it's because she had a picture painted in her head of what this was going to look like, and what happened was nothing like that, nothing at all.
It happened ten minutes into class, near-exactly. It happened like this:
The door opened, quickly, and it creaked, turning every student's head towards the door. Mr. S paused from where he was lecturing at the front of the room, and his face formed this expression - the expression that you make when someone tells you that their boyfriend broke up with them, or that they failed a test - pity, sympathy. There were gasps. There were loud whispers. There were-
"Miss Jauregui," says Mr. S. "Welcome back."
It turns out that Camila never needed to be worried about getting Logan confused with her sister, even though she knew that they were identical twins. Because they might have the same vibrant green eyes and the same face shape and pert noses and fair skin and full lips, but even though the girl is unsmiling Camila can tell through her slightly open mouth that she does not have a gap between her teeth, and this girl's hair is chopped to her shoulders and dyed black, where Logan's is long enough to reach her ribcage and a dark brown, and this girl is maybe an inch or two taller than Camila, which means she's taller than Logan, and this girl-
And this girl has scars on her face, on both sides, running up and down in harsh, dark red, diagonal slashes, covering the hollows of her cheeks, starting at her jaw and ending towards her cheekbones, five or six jagged lines on either side. Her face moves and Camila can see the scars move with her. She looks like she's been attacked by some sort of animal, or maybe like she has been in some sort of accident. It is-
God. They're horrible. That is the only thing Camila can think. She knows it's terrible, and clearly this girl has been through some sort of traumatic injury to have scars like that, but they're a little bit horrifying to look at and judging by the way the people are murmuring around her she can tell that they think so too.
In the back of her mind it registers that the girl is beautiful, or maybe once was - beautiful like Logan is beautiful, and then again in a wholly and completely different way. Camila doesn't want to stare but she cannot look away from her. She was beautiful. Or she is beautiful. And those scars- Jesus christ.
Mr. S still has that look, and Camila understands the look now. "Would you like to introduce yourself to the class?" he asks, gently, like the girl in front of him might break. She doesn't look like she is going to break. She doesn't look weak. She doesn't look like Logan, either, who prances around with her silky hair and girly dresses and wedge heels, her head held high, her makeup professional-perfect - no, she doesn't look like that.
This girl wears no makeup, and a very large sweater, so big on her it must be from the men's section, and a dark forest-green color. Her jeans are baggy, and she has beat-up sneakers on her feet. Her hair is messy around her face, choppily cut like she did it herself, and she is not wearing any makeup, making her eyes look almost alien in how large and bright and green they are.
She doesn't look weak. Just a little ghostly, maybe, like she could fade away at any second - a little unreal. Camila needs to stop fucking staring at her.
"Sure," says the girl, and Camila is startled by her voice - full and raspy, hoarse like maybe she hasn't used it in a while. Her voice doesn't sound weak, either. It sounds strong, a rich alto. "I'm Lauren. I'm sure a lot of you know that already." And everyone is whispering, like they do. But Camila doesn't- she doesn't know at all. "I- Mr. S, do you want me to share fun facts about myself or something?" She shuffles her feet a little, the corner of her mouth tilting up: almost a smile, so close. The scars fold in the lines of her near-smile, an accordion motion. For a second, it reads a little sardonic, like one of Logan's sarcastic smiles, but then Camila realizes she sort of looks shy.
She is beautiful, Camila thinks, and it almost shocks her. She is really, truly, completely, utterly beautiful.
Mr. S clears his throat, like he isn't quite sure what to say. "Alright," he settles on. "Um, yeah. Three facts about yourself. Hit me."
"Okay." Lauren lifts her chin, tucking her messy hair behind both her ears. "I, ah. I'm seventeen, I have three siblings, and my favorite book at the moment is Perks of Being a Wallflower." Her radiantly green eyes scour the room, imploring, intense.
When they land on Camila it's like she can't breathe. All she can see are those eyes - those damn eyes.
The other corner of Lauren's mouth lifts up, finishing her smile.
"Very nice, Lauren." Mr. S is still watching her closely, like they're in Girl, Interrupted or some shit, but Lauren doesn't seem to mind. "You can take a seat next to Miss Cabello."
It's the only open seat, so Camila is sort of expecting it, and she lifts her hand as both an introduction and a half-wave. Lauren makes her way over to Camila, her movements fast and precise, like she's making a conscious effort to draw as little attention to herself as possible. When she slides into the chair, Camila can smell her perfume - almost smoky, almost more cologne than anything. It is instantly intoxicating and Camila feels like a creep.
Lauren leans back in her chair. The sleeves of her sweater are so long they nearly cover her hands. Camila wonders what would compel a person to wear a sweater and jeans in California heat, and is so lost in thought that she nearly misses Lauren say, "Hello."
Camila draws her gaze from Lauren's hands to her face. "Hi."
"You're Camila." Her voice seems less hoarse now - still raspy, but almost musical. "My sister told me you'd be in this class."
"Oh, cool." Camila gnaws on her bottom lip and tries to not make too much of an ass of herself. "She didn't tell me you'd be in this class. Well, I haven't seen her yet today, so I don't know when she would've been able to tell me. But she didn't text me or anything. I guess she could have, actually. I haven't checked my phone in a while. I, um." She gestures at the Starbucks cup on her desk. "Do you like coffee?"
For a beat Lauren just stares at her with big, luminous eyes.
And then, to Camila's surprise, she laughs, a melodic, perfect laugh, one that makes her nose scrunch up and her eyes squint and her head move backwards, one hand clapping over her mouth, covering her grinning teeth. She laughs with her whole body and it is magic, and Camila watches, mesmerized.
She is so beautiful. She thinks it and she cannot stop thinking it. She is so beautiful.
"I love coffee." Lauren's voice seems to be getting smoother by the second, and she's not talking as quickly anymore. "Are you offering me your coffee?"
"Yes!" Camila takes it and holds it out to her. "I mean, if you want it. Well, you just said you love it, so I'm assuming you want it. But you shouldn't assume because it makes an ass out of you and me. You know my fifth grade teacher used to tell us that? I think that's too young to hear something like that. We were, like, ten."
Lauren accepts the coffee. She's laughing at her again. She's even more beautiful when she laughs.
"Sorry," says Camila.
"No, don't be." Lauren sips the coffee and then waves it at Camila. "You're cute when you ramble."
Camila's brain short-circuits. "You think I'm cute?"
"Well." Lauren speaks rather methodically, Camila notices, calm and even. She has a very nice voice. "You know, when Logan said you were adequate, I didn't really know what to expect."
Camila's jaw drops. "She did not tell you that."
Lauren's shoulder raises in a half-shrug. "I mean, she did. Why, does that not sound like something she'd say?"
"Ugh. No, it definitely does. Fucking cunt."
And Lauren is laughing again, her hand pressed over her mouth, eyes squinting, and Camila cannot stop looking at her.
"A cunt?" she's repeating incredulously. "Jesus, Cabello. I don't think I've ever heard someone use that word in real life."
"Sorry," Camila says again, because she knows she's being, like, overly aggressive and probably really embarrassing right now, but she can't help herself and she is obsessed with the way Lauren called her by her last name. "But, like. Am I wrong?"
"Not at all." Her scars curl with her smile. Camila knows she shouldn't look at them but for a second she can't tell whether she's looking so hard at Lauren because of those scars or because she's so beautiful or maybe a little bit of both. "I agree wholeheartedly. Total cunt."
Camila isn't expecting it and so the laugh bubbles up from her chest too loudly, and Mr. S gives the two of them a look that's not sharp enough to be a glare, but still, a look. Camila mouths an apology at him and then snatches her coffee back from Lauren. "Look what you did," she says. "You made me laugh and now Mr. S is mad at us."
"Please. Mr. S loves me." Lauren's eyes twinkle. "I had him freshman year for English, too. I was his favorite student by far."
Camila cocks her head and can't tell if Lauren's joking or not. It's strange. She seems to have the same sarcastic, dry humor as Logan does, but where Logan is nearly larger than life, always talkative and prone to dramatic and very over-the-top reactions, everything about Lauren seems to be carefully measured, almost like she's afraid to make a scene. She only seems to lets it go when she laughs. Other than that, she's all gentle, delicate motions, calm and soft and elegant.
"You're nothing like your sister, you know that?" she tells Lauren.
Lauren nods, eyebrows lifting, and a little bit of the radiance falls from her eyes. "I know," she says, and for a second she looks a little sad. "I mean, Logan and I used to be a lot more alike, I guess. Used to act a lot more alike. Everyone always confused us with each other. Logan and Lauren, how could you not?"
"And what happened?"
"A lot of things happened. We grew up." Lauren exhales a little, looking slightly far away, but then Camila blinks and she misses it and suddenly Lauren is watching her out of the corner of her eye with a tiny, sly expression. "She became a cunt and I didn't."
Camila almost laughs too loudly again, but manages to contain herself, just barely, so Mr. S doesn't start frowning over at them again. Lauren gets this look on her face every time she makes Camila laugh - grinning like she's so pleased with herself. It's amazing. It is sort of magic.
Camila is human. She wants to ask Lauren what happened - how anyone could hurt a girl so gentle and endearing, how anyone could hurt her so horribly that it left scars like that. She couldn't imagine anyone feeling any sort of violent feelings towards the girl in front of her, not when she's grinning like that, soft in her big sweater. How could anyone? What monster could do that sort of thing?
She doesn't ask. She'll probably never ask.
(A very small part of her wonders if she'll ever know.)
-
"I met Lauren."
DInah shoots her a very suspicious glance. They're in Calculus together, and the two of them are sitting in the very back of the room so they can gossip. Both of them are decent at math anyway so they'll get it fast. "What? When?"
"She's in my first period." Camila kind of can't stop smiling. Lauren had walked her to her second period class and then given her the cutest little salute as she left. She'd seemed to have ignored all the whispering about her as she passed, and Camila didn't know how she did it. "She's very interesting."
Dinah is still eyeing her. "Very interesting as in her face is heavily scarred or very interesting as in you think she's hot?"
"Both."
"Jesus."
"Um, I wasn't going to ask her, obviously, because I know it would probably be insensitive, but-" Camila stumbles over her words. This is unfamiliar territory. "I mean, you know what happened to her face, right?"
"Yeah." Dinah is still looking at her like she's not sure what Camila's going to say next. "And no, I'm not going to tell you what happened. And no, you shouldn't ask Lauren. She'll tell you when she wants to."
"Really?"
Dinah shrugs. "It's Lauren," she says. "She doesn't do anything unless she wants to."
So Camila tries to put it out of her mind. She thinks about Lauren and how pretty her laugh is and how smooth her voice is and the way she was sweet until she got sarcastic, and the gentle way she leaned in when she talked to Camila, like she was sharing a secret all the time. And she tries not to think about her scars.
But also it's kind of impossible to not think about her scars.
-
These are all the rumors Camila hears throughout the day, because everyone is talking about it:
One: the girls on the right of her in Calculus. "Did you see that Lauren Jauregui is back?"
"Oh my god, yes. What the fuck happened to her face?"
"I don't know, it's literally disgusting. She looks like Freddy Krueger. I heard she got into a car accident."
"Really? If she got into a car accident, then I kind of feel bad."
"No, no, like, it's Lauren. She was probably driving and trying to give a hand job to a guy in the passenger seat at the same time." Cue a very inappropriate and insensitive miming of exactly that. Cue snickering. Cue Camila feeling sick to her stomach.
Two: the guys she passes in the hall on the way to lunch. "Dude, Lauren Jauregui is in my second period, and her face is fucked."
"You know what I heard? She got knocked up and actually had the baby. That's why she was out of school for so long."
"So then what's going on with her face?"
"Her baby daddy's girlfriend came at her with a knife, and, like, totally-" Cue slashing of a knife, Hitchcock-style.
"Man. I mean, we knew that girl was a whore anyway, right?"
"Dude. Yes."
Three: in the girl's bathroom during lunch. "Did you see-"
"Lauren? Yes. Holy fuck."
"It probably happened during some weird sex ritual. She's literally the sluttiest girl in Lincoln Point."
"Bitch, I know. How many times have her nudes leaked? Like, ten?"
"Fifteen? I don't know. Have you seen her sex tape?"
"Gross, no. I don't need to see her skanky ass more than I already have. Remember when she skinny dipped at that party sophomore year in front of everyone?"
"Oh, god, yeah. Jesus. Whoever cut up her face had the right idea."
"Oh my god, don't say that! That's horrible." Cue giggling.
"What, you think she didn't have it coming?"
"Well..."
"Exactly." Cue more giggling.
It's awful. It's so completely awful. Every single part of it.
-
"Hey." Logan pokes at Camila's arm. "Camila. Camila."
"What?" They're in the middle of AP Chemistry, and neither of them are paying attention because Miss Valedictorian here has an ego the size of Jupiter and believes she can pass any test without studying, and she promised Camila she could cheat off of her, so. "Jesus, you are so god damn annoying."
Logan looks unfazed. "Were you nice to my sister?"
"No, I stuck her head in a toilet and flushed it. Yes, Logan, dear god, of course I was nice to her."
Logan wrinkles her nose and pouts. "You're such a bitch." She doesn't stop poking her. "What'd you think?"
"I think she's awesome and I like her better than you."
Logan's pouting transforms into a beaming smile. "Isn't she the best? I knew you'd love her."
"Right." Camila shakes her head over at Logan. "What, did you think I was going to make fun of her for her scars? She's really nice and really cool. I don't know why anyone would do that."
"Yeah." Logan sighs. Camila knows Logan must have heard those disgusting rumors flying around, too - there was no way to miss them, and people were mean, people were really mean. "I don't know, either. I guess you've probably heard by now that Lauren had a bit of a reputation before she left, but she's not- I mean, she's not like that. She's nothing like what people think she is."
"I figured," says Camila simply. "I try not to believe rumors." Not when Lauren Jauregui is so sweet and soft and pretty and laughs like the way she does, like an angel, like magic. "Is that why she didn't sit with us at lunch today? Because people were saying stuff?"
She'd been looking forward to sitting with Lauren at lunch so maybe the two of them could get to talk more, but when she got to the table, it was all the usual suspects, and Camila figured that Dinah was right: Lauren must've gone off-campus for lunch.
"Yeah." Logan's fists clench. She seems to be protective over her sister like she tends to be protective over her friends, but even more so. "It's so fucked up. I don't know how people- they don't even know what happened. Nobody knows what happened." She levels Camila with a slightly stern look. "Seriously, do not ask her about it, it'll just upset her."
"Alright." This is clearly agitating Logan, so Camila goes to change the subject. "So I'm guessing you two are close?"
Logan nods. "Best friends. Like, best best friends. We've been like that since we were little. I know twins are supposed to fight a lot, and I guess we still do sometimes over petty stuff, but Lauren's my rock. And I'm her rock. I literally cannot imagine a life without her." Something hitches in her voice then, and she turns away from Camila, sliding her bottom lip underneath the gap in her teeth.
Camila feels herself soften, because underneath the god complex and somewhat assholeish behavior, Logan can apparently show real human emotions. "I get that," she says quietly. "I have a little sister - she's eight - and lots of people think it's weird that we're as close as we are because the age gap between us is so big, but she is surprisingly precocious for her age."
Logan's eyes get big. "That's sweet." She pokes Camila again with her very pointy nail. "Who knew you could have feelings?"
"Me?" Camila swats her away and then pokes her back. "Who knew you could have feelings?"
They poke each other until their chem teacher tells them to stop. So politely, too, because no one steps on the student body president's toes. Camila's just glad she's innocent by association. Logan Jauregui really is something.
Well, both of them are, really. And Lauren, with her big sweater and her smooth voice and the way she laughed, and- jesus. Camila needs to get a hold of herself. She just met this girl today, and she's already sort of losing her mind over her.
-
idk if i'm gonna get to the rest of this until after bound to you is finished so let me know if u liked it LMFAO