"So that's it? We're Over?" Lucy hisses causing another sting of hushing from the librarian. Lauren piles more books into her arms with a roll of her eyes.

"Over? Had we even begun?" she asks in a hushed tone causing glare from the girl next to her. "Friends?" She asks with a hopeful smile.

Lucy purses her lips before knocking over her books with a single, perfectly manicured hand, leading up to her strutting off.

"Shhhh!" the librarian growls and Lauren made it her mission in life to glare at her the whole time while picking up her things.

-

"Time for education, child!" Lauren closes the front door with her foot, almost falling in the process but then again she still had those books piled high in her arms. Camila spoke before she even stepped foot into the kitchen.

"I don't need an education," she was perched on the counter like usual, a novel in her lap. Her softball sweater was draped across her shoulders, wild curls getting tangled with strings of the hood and she smiled while setting her things down on the counter.

"I didn't say the education was for you," she sighs, taking a seat on one of the stools.

"Who would the education be for then?" Camila speaks without lifting her eyes from the current page.

"Sadly, the education is for me."

"Can we stop saying education?"

"Education." She throws in with a cheeky grin before pulling one of the textbooks from her stack. Nearing the end of the school year basically meant cramming more tests in at last minute.

"So why don't you go to school?" Lauren asks while ripping open a package of twizzlers she'd bought earlier.

"I graduated my sophomore year. School was hard for me anyway... socially," she mumbles the last part, as though embarrassed. Just as Lauren looks up, her nose was implanted in that goddamn book again. She wanted to say something. She wanted the girl to talk to her. At least a small conversation and she wanted to throw that book across the room to get her attention. But she didn't.

Two hours, three textbooks, and infinite silence later, Lauren had finally given up, her head falling into a page full of human anatomy notes as her eyes droop to a close. It was the state of half asleep, half awake, things happening at this moment to later be questioned as a dream or reality. Soft fingertips grazed her midnight hair, gently picking up her head to pull the textbook from underneath it. Camila stared at the girl longer than necessary, her features softer and relaxed when sleeping.

Her nose crinkled as a strand of hair fell to her forehead and the brunette quickly brushed it away to keep her asleep. And then she left. Waking up at two in the morning on an uncomfortable bar stool was not the most pleasant thing in the world. Lauren's back cracked as she sat up and she winced in pain. She was surprised to see her schoolwork neatly stacked and set off to the side. The girl faintly remembered Camila picking up her head to move her things aside and maybe she had stayed a minute to examine her features but she couldn't be one hundred percent sure.

Maybe she'd just been dreaming.

-

"You drink coffee?"

"I do now."

Mr. Jauregui chuckles at Camila's response to his question.

"Late night?" he asks to which she gives an "eh" meaning so-so. Just at that moment, heavy and quick footsteps sound from above, traveling down the stairs before arriving in the kitchen. The two sleepier people of the household staring at an energetic Lauren.

"You," she points to Camila, still out of breath, "Me. Beach. Today."

Finishing her choppy sentence, she falls to the floor making a mental note to work out more cause those stairs winded her.

"Why?" Camila asks, accepting the mug of coffee Mr. Jauregui handed her.

"Eleutheromania, heliophilia, and we shall murr-ma because I want to be gerful." Lauren sighs in bliss and Camila laughs while her father remains completely confused.

"An intense and irresistible desire for freedom, desire to stay in the sun, and we shall walk along the water and search for stuff with our feet," Camila laughs at that one, "because she wants to be wild and wayward."

By this time, both of the teens are cackling with some form of joy that makes Mr. Jauregui's heart warm.

"Logolepsy."

The laughter dies down gradually at the mans speaking and they both think for a moment.

"I don't know that one," Lauren mumbles admittedly.

"An obsession with words." Mr. Jauregui grins before grabbing his morning paper and coffee off the counter and traveling to the living room.

The ride to the beach was forty-five minutes, a comfortable silence filling the jeep. The windows were rolled down the entire trip, Camila's hand hanging out of the window with her head resting on the upper arm, eyes closed in complete and absolute silence. The jeep had barely slowed to a stop before Camila leaped from her seat and to the edge of the hill that lead down to the sand. Her stomach knotted at the number of people near the shore and she immediately started to back away, bumping into Lauren. She chuckles, grabbing a hold of the scared girl's wrist before leading her down the road.

All the while Camila looked over her shoulder at the slowly disappearing crowd as they headed towards a large group of black boulders. She wanted to ask where the other girl was taking her but her mind wouldn't focus on anything but the beach behind them and that the girl's fingers were curled around her skin. Lauren led her to a cavern, the entrance concealed between two tall thin stones and illuminated by the cracks in the ceiling. There was a pool of shallow water in the middle, seashells and lost things seemingly glowing in the dim lighting.

It was another secret place she had shared with the girl.

Without hesitation, Lauren peeled off her clothing off, leaving her in only a bikini, and slipped into the water with laughter and giddy yelps. She motioned Camila to join her but she simply chuckled in reply, taking a seat on a rock near the edge of the water. The next couple of hours consisted of watching Lauren amuse herself, Camila carving things into boulders with a sharp stone she'd found, and now watching Lauren search the sand for shells with her feet, just as promised. Rich brown eyes danced over her relaxed expression as Lauren picked up things from the ocean, examined them with interest before tossing them back into the salty waters. She smiles to herself before beginning to etch her initials into the stone below her.

"Look at this!" She calls out before wading over to where she was busy carving. Lauren holds out her hand for her to see the tiny starfish resting in her palm and the brunette gasps silently. Her fingertips brush the creature softly in amusement. Lauren's emerald eyes travel from her hand to her face, watching her with a soft half-smile. They didn't know it, but there was a word to describe both of their emotions at that moment.

Forelsket: the euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.

-

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[ edited on july 17, 2019 ]