trigger warning for mention of sexual abuse

She hated Dinah for telling her. Because all she could think about when Camila asked her to sit in the bathroom with her, while she took a bath, was how her best friend had taken her to the doctor. Suddenly she was nervous to be around the brunette. How was she supposed to react? No different, she knew but acting normal instantaneously felt wrong around the girl. It was difficult. Her arms were folded on the lip of the tub, one of her fingers drawing circles with bubbles onto the brunette's arm as she read out loud from her current book.

And it was so hard to look at her knowing what she knew now. Not that it changed who she was in any way, it had happened and there was nothing she could do to change that, but because the girl sitting in the tub was weaker than she had previously told her. Camila didn't show it at all though and that's what hurt her the most; she was strong and broken all in one. The reading trailed off causing her eyes to look at brown orbs.

"Why'd you stop?" she asks. Camila visibly swallows, closing the book before setting it out of the bath.

"Dinah told you, didn't she?" the girl whispers. There was no way for her to hide it but that didn't stop her from trying.

"Told me what?"

"Don't lie," she scolds. Lauren sighs and that's all she needed to confirm it.

And in the silence, Lauren replayed Dinah's words.

"I had taken her to the... lady... doctor..." she hesitates, biting her fingernail while watching the other girl's reaction. By Dinah's expression, she suddenly knew it was serious.

"What happened?"

Dinah shifts on her feet, biting her lip. "When Camila was thirteen, she was raped." At this point, the blonde-haired girl started crying because goddammit, Camila didn't deserve it. "Sh-she went to a party and she had this crush on this junior I guess... him and, like," she swallows even though her mouth was dry, "three other guys took her back to a room an-"

Lauren cuts her off. She didn't want to hear more. The girl shakes her head while tugging her hair and Dinah places a hand over her mouth to silence her cries.

Camila had been staring at the white-tiled wall in silence, thinking of what to say. But she couldn't think and neither could the girl sitting on the floor, so they both just sat there. Apologizing to her just seemed plain stupid because an apology wouldn't solve anything.

"I had a nightmare that I was at the party again and I woke up and I couldn't breathe," she whispers in a hurried voice. Out of nowhere, she felt as though she couldn't breathe again, because the girl knew too much. "C-can you please get out?"

Lauren starts to stutter a response before deciding against it and leaving the bathroom. She didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve it. She didn't des- the bathroom door unlocks and Camila emerges in her pajamas.

"Camila I-" she grabs hold of the girl's upper arm and the girl gasps, so small under her frame. The words wouldn't leave her mouth because shit, what the hell was she supposed to say.

"I'm uncomfortable," she mumbles, attempting to pull her arm back. She releases her, barely hearing her door close shut.

All she could think about was how bright her smile had been the day before. And how someone could hide so much pain so well. And that Camila freaking Cabello did not deserve this type of life since she was an angel and the earth didn't deserve her. Behind closed doors, Camila didn't cry. She didn't shed a single tear or linger on her past a moment longer, opening her book to where she left off.

-

She didn't know how to act. Two days later she had taken the brunette back to the hidden cavern at the beach but she still didn't know how to act. Lauren sat on the rocks with her little notebook full of words, a thoughtful expression on her face as Camila wandered the shallower sides of the small pool of sea. Eraser shavings filled the crease in her composition book as well as the stone below her, faded words disappear on the page.

"Whatcha writing?" Camila call causing her eyes to lift to where the girl stood with a seashell in hand and chocolate eyes stared back at her. She stutters a few "um's" as she journey's over to the rock where she sat and took a seat, waiting for an answer.

"Just words I guess..." she mumbles with a shrug, looking down at the blank page that was now slightly grey from all the times she'd erased the writing.

"Like a dictionary?" she shrugs again, handing her the journal before hopping into the water as the other girl reads.

"You've got quite the collection," a light laugh escapes her as she snatches the pencil in her hand. Lauren kept her eyes trained on the water, not really searching for anything, just listening to the sounds of pencil scratching against paper. There was nothing to do, nothing to say to her to bring herself at ease. The brunette's coughing interrupted her thoughts and she walks back over to her.

"You okay?" she asks after her fit is over.

With one final cough, she nods. "Yeah, I just think I'm getting sick, that's all."

How could she act so nonchalant when inside, Lauren was dying for her.

-

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ps. sorry for the short chapters

[ edited on july 17, 2019 ]