Chapter Text
They're both six years old when they promise to love each other forever. It happens on the trampoline in Lauren's backyard, while Dinah and Normani are inside to beg Lauren's mom for more cookies.
Camila and Lauren settle down, laying on their backs to look at the clouds in the sky. Well, Camila is. Lauren is looking at Camila. It’s not a conscious decision—Camila is just really pretty. Prettier than the sky. Definitely prettier than the clouds.
It’s quiet for a few moments, but Lauren doesn’t mind. Silences with Camila are never uncomfortable. But talking to Camila is even better, so Lauren’s heart kind of jumps when Camila gasps and grabs her hand, points at the sky, and says, “That one looks like a banana.”
Lauren tears her gaze away from Camila to look at the banana cloud, and she has to admit Camila’s right. Her smile reflects Camila’s. “It does.”
Camila’s face is really close, and the twinkle in her eyes is so happy Lauren can’t really help but lean in. She doesn’t know why she’s so compelled to press her lips against Camila’s, but it’s sort of nice. It’s also sort of gross, but the niceness definitely outweighs the grossness.
For two heartbeats nothing happens. Neither of them moves. Lauren’s eyes flutter closed. She wonders if this is what her parents feel like sometimes when their faces are really close to each other when they’re talking.
Then Camila pulls back, frowning a little. “What was that?”
Lauren needs a moment to get herself together, and her eyes are still closed, but Camila’s voice grounds her a little. She looks into Camila’s eyes—there's a slightly confused expression in them, but also something else that looks a little like the way Lauren's heart is beating against her chest. And Lauren doesn’t know why, but she’s relieved. “I’m not sure.”
Camila doesn't move. “You kissed me.”
“I guess,” Lauren says in a soft voice. “Was that okay?”
Camila’s frown deepens, like she’s deep in thought. Then she shrugs, her lips curling up into a shy smile. “I guess. But why?”
Lauren blinks. She didn’t think that far ahead yet. “I don’t know. My mom and dad kiss all the time, and then they say they love each other.”
“Oh.” Camila pauses for a moment, her frown disappearing. Her eyes flicker down to Lauren’s mouth, and before Lauren realizes what’s happening, Camila pecks her lips and says, “I love you.”
Lauren tries to ignore the butterflies in her stomach, but she smiles and rolls back on her back. Her hand finds Camila’s, and she gives it a soft squeeze. “I love you, too.”
“Forever?” Camila asks, her voice timid and shy in comparison to before.
“Forever.”
And then Dinah and Normani come running outside with an entire pack of cookies between them and half-eaten ones in their hand, and Camila jumps up to grab the cookies before Dinah eats them all.
Things don’t change in the years after that. They still hang out every day after school, usually at Lauren or Camila’s house, because they’re neighbors and they live closest to school.
But then things do start to change. It happens on Lauren’s eleventh birthday, when they’re in the backyard, playing by the trampoline. Their parents are all inside, eating cake and talking about boring adult stuff, and Lauren’s next to Normani, leaning her arms on the trampoline while Camila and Dinah are jumping up and down.
It’s not the most comfortable position, but Lauren doesn’t mind because she likes it when Camila’s happy and Camila looks really happy right now. Lauren could probably watch her for hours.
“I gotta pee,” Normani says, slipping her arms off the trampoline. As if it’s a given, Dinah stops jumping and climbs off the trampoline. They don’t say anything—they just disappear inside.
Lauren watches them leave, and it’s not until she turns back around that she realizes Camila's stopped jumping too.
“Play with me,” she says, holding out her hand. Lauren doesn’t hesitate to grab it, letting Camila help her climb on the trampoline even though she could’ve done it herself just as easily. Camila sits down with her legs crossed, but when Lauren wants to sit down, too, she shakes her head. “You jump. It’s a funny feeling.”
Lauren isn’t sure what’s so funny about being bounced around, but she does what Camila asks anyway. At first she's worried she's going to hit Camila in the face or knock her over somehow, but her worry disappears the second Camila starts laughing almost uncontrollably.
It doesn’t last very long. Jumping is exhausting, especially when your heart was already beating out of your chest before you even started. Lauren lets herself sink down next to Camila, and she smiles.
Camila smiles back. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Lauren says. “Anything to see you smile.”
It happens right then. One moment they’re just smiling at each other, the next Camila leans in and kisses her. A little longer than last time, and with a little less nonchalance. When she pulls back, she’s smiling again. “Happy birthday, Lo. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Lauren breathes, her forehead still pressed against Camila’s. She’s eleven years old, and she has no idea what she’s doing.
But some part of her knows she’s in love with Camila. There’s no fireworks when the words cross her mind—just something that feels a lot like oh, and that’s that.
“Forever?” Camila asks, and their noses brush.
Lauren closes her eyes. She takes everything in, from the way Camila’s face feels against her own to the thousands of butterflies in her stomach. She doesn’t know how she’ll ever not love Camila. “Fore—”
“We’re back,” Dinah announces, very loudly, and they jump apart. And then, “Were you kissing?”
“Uh—” Lauren says at the same time Camila says, “No.”
Dinah looks back and forth between them with a look of disbelief and judgment, and Lauren feels Camila inching away from her. She wants to grab her hand and keep her close, but she can’t make herself move under the weight of Dinah’s stare.
“Good,” Dinah says. “Girls are not supposed to kiss other girls. We're supposed to kiss boys.”
Her words feel like a punch to the stomach. Lauren’s mouth goes dry and it feels like someone's shoved a glowing hot iron stick down her throat. She looks at her hands and wonders if her heart chose wrong somehow.
When she looks up, Camila is on the other side of the trampoline, as pale as a ghost. She doesn’t meet Lauren’s eyes—she barely even acknowledges Lauren’s there.
Something has changed. Lauren can feel it in the air, in the way Camila’s body language went from happy and honest to closed and distant.
Something has changed, because girls are not supposed to kiss other girls.
Being friends with Camila is different from being friends with Dinah or Normani. When Lauren is with Dinah and Normani, there is no tension when their hands brush accidentally, and her heart doesn’t flutter every time they smile at her.
Being friends with Camila is different, because Lauren doesn’t want to just be friends. She’s thirteen, and her body is starting to change, and she can’t stop thinking about Camila’s smile and her eyes and her hair and her hands. Mostly she thinks about what it means that somewhere in the back of her mind she’s always thinking about kissing her.
By now she knows what Dinah meant when she said that girls are not supposed to kiss other girls, but that doesn’t mean Lauren doesn’t want to kiss other girls. Well, one girl in particular.
It’s Camila. It's always Camila. She’d choose her over anything, or anyone. She doesn’t remember a time where she wouldn’t choose Camila over anything. Maybe there was just never such a time—they grew up together, after all.
The more time they spend together, the stronger Lauren’s feelings become, until she can’t breathe without wanting to hold Camila’s hand, until her heart beats against the walls of her ribcage, until it doesn’t feel right to say anything but Camila’s name.
She’s pretty sure she’ll burst if she doesn’t tell someone.
So she does, one night when everyone is out and it’s just her and her mom. They’re in the kitchen, and they just finished eating dinner. Lauren’s so nervous she’s chews the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood.
“Mom?”
Her mom looks up from loading the dishwasher. “Yes?”
Lauren doesn’t meet her mother’s eyes, casting her gaze downwards instead. Her hands are trembling. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” Her mom presses a few buttons and closes the dishwasher, sitting back down at the dinner table. “Is something wrong?”
Lauren shakes her head. “Not really. I just—I don’t know.”
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” her mom says, a hint of worry in her voice. “Literally anything.”
And Lauren knows, but it still doesn’t keep her stomach from turning every time she thinks about all the potential reactions that she imagined over and over again at nights she couldn’t sleep. Her tongue feels heavy. “What’s it like to be in love?”
Her mom smiles. “It’s different for everyone, but usually you can’t stop thinking about them and you want to be with them all the time. Sometimes you really want to touch them, even if it’s just your hands brushing, and you think they’re the most beautiful person in the world.” Her eyes turn dreamy like when she looks at Lauren’s father. “But why are you asking? Are you in love with someone?”
“No,” Lauren says, although it’s mostly a reflex. She shrugs, still avoiding eye contact. “Maybe.”
“I’ve learned that usually when it crosses your mind that you might be in love with someone, you usually are,” her mom says in a soft voice. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Lauren thinks about Camila. She's always thinking about Camila, clinging to the memory of their eleven year old selves sharing a kiss that was both meaningless and meaningful at the same time. She thinks about the way Camila used to look at her, before Dinah told them girls are not supposed to kiss each other.
“Promise you won’t be mad,” she almost whispers.
“I promise I won’t be mad.”
She swallows, finally looking up. “I think I’m in love with Camila.”
The silence that follows feels endless, even though it’s probably just a few seconds. She watches the emotions flash over her mother’s face—surprise, confusion, and something she can’t identify.
Somewhere between the first time she ever says those words out loud and the moment her mom pulls her into a hug, Lauren starts crying. Quiet sobs with even quieter tears that melt together with her mother’s blouse.
“Of course I’m not mad,” her mom says. “My love for you is regardless of who you love. I want you to know that. You know that, right?”
Lauren nods, because she’s still crying and her voice sort of stopped working. She clings to her mother like her life depends on it, lets herself be held until her tears stop falling and she finds her tongue.
“I never said that out loud,” she says. “I was scared it would make things more real, but—they already are.”
Her mom cracks a tender smile, still rubbing her back. “If only things worked like that.”
“Dinah said girls aren’t supposed to kiss other girls,” Lauren blurts out, figuring that now she’s started revealing her secrets she might as well continue. “And now Camila won’t look at me the same.”
“When did this happen?”
Lauren shrugs. “A few years ago, on my birthday. Camila kissed me and told me happy birthday and—” She stops herself there, not ready to reveal the most sacred moment in her life so far yet. “When Dinah and Normani came back from the bathroom Dinah caught us and she asked if we’d kissed. Camila said we hadn’t, and then Dinah went like, ‘Good. Girls are not supposed to kiss other girls’.” Her voice catches in her throat when she realizes she’s still got the exact words memorized.
When she looks up, her mom is looking back with sad eyes. “Dinah’s wrong. Sometimes girls kiss other girls and sometimes boys kiss other boys. There may be laws against love, but there aren’t any rules. People can’t help who they fall in love with, and one day everyone will know that.”
“I don’t think Camila knows.”
Her mom tucks a strand of hair behind Lauren’s ear, pressing a kiss against her forehead. “She will, one day. She’s only twelve, and you’re still just thirteen, even though sometimes you don’t sound like it. There’s still plenty of time to figure things out.”
Lauren sighs, leaning into her mother’s embrace. She knows her mom’s right—they’re still young. They’re not even in high school yet. But she’s never been surer about anything than the way she feels about Camila. She doesn’t want to lose her. She really doesn’t.
Here’s the thing: losing Camila is not a fast process. It’s like putting a frog in cold water and heating up the pan until the water boils and the frog is cooked. And Lauren doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.
It starts long before Lauren knows what’s happening, but it becomes apparent one afternoon when they’re walking home from school. Dinah and Normani both live a block or two closer than Lauren and Camila, and the last ten minutes it’s always just the two of them.
Lauren has been wanting to slip her hand into Camila’s for as long as she can remember, but she never actually does it. They’re in public, which means someone could see them—she wants to spare herself the pain of Camila pulling away before their fingers really intertwine.
“Camz?”
Camila looks up, her dark eyes flickering up to Lauren’s face.
“I talked to my mom,” Lauren says, needing to get it out of her system. She hates keeping secrets from Camila. “About what Dinah said.”
Camila frowns. “Dinah says a lot of things every day.”
“You know what I’m talking about.” Lauren looks down at her hands, dries her palms on her jeans. Maybe Camila wants to lie to herself and insist Dinah’s words aren’t burned in her mind forever, but they are for Lauren and she’s not the one who looks away every time their eyes lock.
Camila quickens her pace. “We’re in public, Lo. We can’t talk about that now.”
“There’s no one around. No one will hear us, I promise.”
“We’re not going to talk about it,” Camila says with such finality in her words that Lauren almost doesn’t dare to continue. But she’s about to explode from all the different scenarios she’s made up in her mind that’ll definitely never happen if they don’t have this conversation.
She stops walking. “Camila, please hear me out.”
For a moment she doesn’t think Camila’s just going to keep walking, but then she slows down to a stop, a few feet away from Lauren. “What’s there to talk about? Dinah said some things. We were ten, Lauren.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Not a day has passed where I didn’t think about it. We don’t have to have a full conversation about it, but I do need you to know she was wrong. Sometimes girls kiss girls, and boys kiss boys. It happens, and it’s okay.”
Camila’s jaw clenches. She balls her fists. Her eyes are wide with the same fear Lauren still feels sometimes, deep down between the walls of her heart. “Who told you that?”
“My mom,” Lauren says. “She knows more about this stuff than Dinah. I trust her, Camz.”
“She’s wrong.” Camila’s voice is sharp and seething with anger. “Did you tell her about everything else, too? Gosh, of course you did. I’m so stupid to think—” She moves, and suddenly she’s in front of Lauren, so close she could touch her if she wanted. “Don’t tell anyone else. Promise me you’ll never tell anyone else.”
Lauren blinks. Camila’s eyes are desperate, practically begging her to promise. And they’re only twelve and thirteen. They’re not supposed to think about these things—they’re not supposed to be afraid of themselves. Lauren hates the way Camila hates herself.
“I promise,” she says, just above a whisper. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Camila relaxes, but only a little. She stares into Lauren’s eyes, tears forming in her own. She’s so close Lauren can see herself in the reflection of Camila’s pupils. She’s so close Lauren could kiss her.
“Never,” Camila says, making it sound like a question and a demand at the same time.
And somewhere in the back of her mind, Lauren can still hear that same voice asking for forever. She nods. “Never.”
It becomes worse the day they’re having a sleepover at Lauren’s house. It starts out like any other Wednesday, which means dinner with Lauren’s parents and Taylor and Chris, because Camila’s parents have to work late and because that’s how it’s always been.
It’s the end of the summer between junior high and high school for Lauren, and Labor Day is nearing. Soon Lauren won’t be able to see Camila while they’re walking to school together, or during lunch breaks, or after school when they walk back home.
She tells herself that’s the reason she’s kind of staring—to remember. Because who knows what will happen next year? She’s going to have new experiences, and homework is going to pile up, and there will be house parties that she might get invited to if she surrounds herself with the right people. And it’s not like anyone will notice if she doesn’t take her eyes off Camila for extended periods of time. They’re all too busy eating and talking about mundane things like the weather and politics and food anyway.
But when Lauren and Camila go upstairs to Lauren’s bedroom a to watch a movie on the crappy secondhand TV that was no longer of any use after Lauren’s parents finally got a flat screen a little while later, something's off.
Lauren notices it immediately. She’s tuned in to Camila’s frequency, catching onto everything that’s even remotely different than usual. Camila’s eyes don’t stay focused on the same spot for longer than a few seconds at a time, and she’s twitching her fingers like she does when she’s nervous.
“Is everything okay?” Lauren asks, climbing onto her bed. “You seem a little out of it.”
Camila blinks. Her voice is low and distant. “Yeah, I’m fine. What do you want to watch?”
Lauren studies Camila’s face. She looks into the eyes she’s been falling in love with for as long as she can remember, notices the way Camila’s hair is getting really long, longs for those lips against her own. She knows what it means now, kissing someone. It makes her wish she’d done it again, all those years ago. Now she barely remembers what it’s like to kiss Camila.
She decides it’s not worth the effort. If Camila wants to talk to her about whatever’s bothering her, she will. Pushing Camila never works, Lauren learned. “I don’t know. Mean Girls? To prepare for high school?”
“I’m not going to high school yet,” Camila says so quickly she almost interrupts Lauren. “Can we watch something else?”
Taken aback, Lauren nods. “Sure. Finding Nemo?” It’s an old favorite, one they’ve watched countless of times. One she knows Camila really likes—more than Mean Girls.
But Camila doesn’t seem as eager tonight. She nods, but it’s without the usual joy in her eyes.
Lauren crosses the room to put the DVD into the DVD player, and when she turns around Camila’s still at the edge of her bed. And when she climbs back into bed, Camila doesn’t really move. Not even when Lauren holds her arms open like she always does.
Lauren’s stomach turns. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with Camila, but she doesn’t want to ask again either. Normally she doesn’t mind facing confrontation, but with Camila rules don’t apply. So she leans back against her pillows and watches the movie with her arms wrapped around a stuffed animal instead of her favorite person in the whole wide world.
They’re only at the part where Marlin meets Dory for the first time when Camila turns around abruptly. “You have to stop staring at me.”
Lauren pauses the movie. “Excuse me?"
“It’s weird. You’re always staring at me, and maybe you think I don’t notice, but I do. Maybe you think it’s okay, but it’s not.” Camila’s voice is shaking—her hands are, too. She doesn’t meet Lauren’s eyes.
“Uh—did something happen to make you upset?” Lauren asks, carefully.
Camila rolls her eyes. “I’m just tired of you looking at me like I’m made of gold, or something. You even did it at dinner tonight. It’s like—” She hesitates. “It’s like you’re in love with me.”
The tone in her voice makes Lauren want to throw up. She swallows in an attempt to get rid of the sour taste in her mouth, swallows the words that have been on the tip of her tongue since they were both six years old.
“I’m not in love with you,” she says, but it comes out so weak she doesn’t even believe it herself. “I’ll stop staring.”
“Good,” Camila says. She leans closer to Lauren, and for a moment Lauren’s heart stops beating, but it’s only to grab the remote and continue the movie.
Lauren still can’t really help staring at Camila because even when she’s saying words that make Lauren's chest ache until she can't breathe, she’s still the most beautiful thing Lauren has ever seen. At some point, though, Camila lets out an exaggerated sigh and almost turns around, and Lauren’s eyes are glued to the screen for the rest of the movie.
Later that night Camila goes into the bathroom to get changed, and Lauren changes in her bedroom with the door closed. It’s painful, because they used to take baths together and now they can’t even be in the same room with just their underwear on.
Something has changed. Lauren doesn’t know what or why, but there’s a soft voice in the back of her head that tells her it was only a matter of time.
They don’t talk for hours after Camila comes back and they climb into Lauren’s double bed together. They don’t inch closer to each other until their shoulders are touching and their faces are so close they could kiss if they wanted. Instead they’re on opposite edges of the bed, and they don’t share a good night kiss because girls are not supposed to kiss other girls.