Camp Hansen (Chapter 10)
“Lauren, wait up!”
The older girl stopped and waited for Camila to catch up before turning back around. “We’re heading to the creek, but we’ll take a different way. It takes longer, but it’ll keep them from following us.”
“Okay,” Camila said, but her eyes darted from tree to tree. “You know what you’re doing, right? Because I kind of don’t want to get lost in this forest. And I don’t think you want it either. Just think about the theories our fans will have when it becomes known that you and I have gotten lost in the woods. Together. They’d probably say we ran away and eloped and they’re gonna write hundreds of fanfics about it or something and we’ll be stuck here until we die while they trend something about Camren.”
“Ha, ha,” the green-eyed girl said dryly and trudged forward. “Don’t worry, I have it all planned out. It’s pure logic. If we keep going straight ahead and then take a sharp right, we’re going to find the creek with no trouble at all.”
“Except that creeks don’t flow in a straight line. Or that it’s nearly impossible to walk a straight line on your own.”
Almost unnoticeable, Lauren paused. “I knew that. Nevertheless, we’ll find it. One way or the other.”
The unconvincing answer didn’t assure Camila in the slightest. She glanced over her shoulder, only to be met with more trees and bushes. They were already too far away to see or hear the others. They were completely alone. She crossed her arms and looked back to Lauren who kept marching forward, unbothered by the possible danger they could find themselves in.
“One way or the other…” Camila scoffed quietly. “Lauren, you know I love you, but sometimes you do rash things without thinking them through. We’re in the middle of an unknown forest with no paths or maps or even a GPS signal or a compass to help us. If we get lost, our only chance for survival is screaming for help and hoping that the girls will somehow find us without getting lost themselves. We can’t just aimlessly walk around and hope for the best. Or do you want to ask a squirrel for directions? Or a bear?”
Stopping suddenly, Lauren swiftly turned around. The glare that she gave the younger girl was bone-chilling. “I didn’t ask you to follow me and I certainly didn’t force you either. If you’re that scared about getting lost in the woods or getting eaten by a bear, how about you turn around and leave me the fuck alone?!”
Not intimidated in the slightest, Camila crossed her arms and evenly met the furious eyes of her once best friend. “I’m sorry for worrying about our lives. I’ll try to be as reckless as you from now on.”
“You are so full of yourself, it’s astounding! Have you ever worried about anyone else in your life? Because I kinda see a pattern here.”
Confused, Camila furrowed her brow. “What are you talking about? I worry for the both of us. We have no idea what kind of animals live in these woods –”
“This is not about some stupid animals!”
“It’s…” Camila blinked. “it’s not?”
“Fucking hell,” Lauren cursed, “I can’t believe you! You can’t be that daft, Camila! I’m talking about you constantly brushing off the concerns of others because they don’t seem important to you until it’s suddenly about yourself!”
“If this is about Camren –”
“OF COURSE THIS IS ABOUT FUCKING CAMREN!” The younger girl winced at the volume. Above them dozens of birds fled from the treetops, screeching in fear. Lauren glared at them and grudgingly lowered her voice a few notches. “When have you ever tried to see it from my point of view?! ‘It’s what fans do, Lauren. Don’t be so mean to them, Lauren. They don’t do it to hurt you, Lauren. It’s just all in good fun, Lauren.’ But they do hurt me and it’s not fun for me, Camila! Don’t my feelings matter at all in this? If I tell you that I can’t go on like this – that I can’t live with them sexualizing our friendship, with them harassing people I love – shouldn’t my opinion matter too? Shouldn’t my feelings be considered too?!”
Wide-eyed, Camila took a step back. “Of… of course… but –”
“Even my friends –“ Lauren pointed towards the way they came from, her arm shaking with rage. “Even my friends are now questioning me – are talking about all of these ridiculous rumors…are believing them. My own family asked me if they were true.”
“Lauren…”
“You could have helped me to put a stop to all of this, but you never did. You kept protecting those lunatics that harassed me time and time again –”
“They don’t do it to be mean –”
“See?!” Lauren pointed at her. “You turn the other way. It didn’t matter to you how many times I begged you to deny it. And you know how they take your silence –”
“That’s not fair,” Camila firmly interrupted her. “You can’t just stand there and accuse me of being selfish. You used to loveCamren, Lauren. You were the one who hashtagged all of our pictures with it. You were the one who encouraged our fans to ship us. You were the one who started this whole… this whole flirtatious friendship of ours in the first place. You can’t blame me just because I don’t want to make our fans unhappy over something as trivial as a fictional ship.”
Lauren scoffed. “First of all, we never had a… flirtatious friendship –”
“I beg to differ.” Camila rolled her eyes. “We were always flirting in public with each other and you know it. You heard Dinah and Normani. They didn’t talk about Camren because of those rumors. Theynoticed that our friendship is not strictly platonic – or at least that it hasn’t always been platonic.”
“I’m not –”
“Gay?” Camila finished Lauren’s sentence. She sighed in exhaustion and shook her head. “You really need to stop saying that. It’s just me, Lauren. Look around, we’re alone. It’s just… me.” She glanced back up to the green eyes of her friend. “We used to tell each other everything. I was there through it all. We might not be as close to each other as we used to, but… you’re still one of the most important people to me. I still love you. You know that.”
“You know nothing.” It was supposed to sound angry, even intimidating – but it only came out as a broken whisper. “You hear me? You know nothing, Camila. Nothing. Drop it.”
They fell silent for a while. The unspoken words hung in the air around them. When Lauren finally broke the intense eye-contact, Camila deflated, but her eyes shone with determination as she took in the vulnerable girl in front of her. After a few seconds she nodded to herself, obviously having made a decision.
“I don’t like boys.”
Lauren’s head spun around so quickly that her neck made an audible crack, but the green-eyed girl didn’t seem to notice. Stunned, she stared at the younger girl as if she was seeing her for the first time. “What?!”
Camila helplessly shrugged and her cheeks turned into a pale shade of red. “I don’t like boys. I mean, sometimes I do. Or maybe I just like the idea of them. Of having a boyfriend. Like in the movies and books, you know? But it’s like there’s something missing… I don’t know. I thought a kiss would be this amazing thing that you keep wanting to do again, that it was something magical, but… kissing boys is just… it’s nothing. It doesn’t really do anything to me. I tried to convince myself that I liked it, but it was just… it was boring. And their hands are too big and rough and… I don’t know, I like holding hands with girls much better. Or hugging girls. Or kissing girls…” Glancing away, Camila cleared her throat. “Girls are prettier too. Boys can be good looking, but girls are… they’re really beautiful.”
Lauren opened her mouth, only to close it again. Blinking, she ran her fingers through her hair. Her previous anger was forgotten as she tried to come to terms with this new information. “You… you like girls? You’re… gay? B-but… Austin?”
“Austin was…” Camila trailed off, staring into the distance. “Austin was the first boy who actually wanted to date me. I don’t know, it sounds kind of silly now, but… I really wanted to feel normal for once. Our lives were so busy and everyone kept asking me about my non-existent first kiss – I wanted to be a normal teenage girl for once and have a boyfriend. You had Luis and later Brad –”
“Don’t. Just… don’t,” Lauren muttered, grimacing slightly. “Everything was a lie then? You constantly gushed over him, Camila. You were barely leaving his sight. You were obsessed with that idiot. And you were heartbroken when he ended it. Don’t even dare to deny it, I was there. We all held you when you cried your eyes out.”
Biting her lip, Camila shrugged again. “Of course I was hurt when he left me after we just went public. I wasn’t in love with him, though. I mean, I obviously thought I was, but I wasn’t. Sexuality is a really confusing thing and it takes time to come to terms with your own. You should know that.”
“Yes, I –“ Lauren stopped herself and glared at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Camila sighed. “Oh please, Lauren. Not only does our less than platonic past give me a clue, but you act just like me. You’re just a little more… aggressive in your denial.”
“Stop bringing up the fucking past!” Lauren hissed, looking around as if she was expecting the other girls to eavesdrop. “That didn’t mean anything. We were confused, Camila. That’s what it was. We were lonely and confused. It was… an experiment, okay? It’s totally normal and healthy to try stuff like that, but there were no feelings whatsoever involved. I’m not gay. Stop saying that I am! We agreed to never talk about any of this again. Why do you always have to bring this up?!”
Camila clenched her jaw, but otherwise remained completely calm. “And Lucy? Is she an experiment too?”
“Don’t bring her into this,” Lauren snarled, taking a step closer. “Shut the fuck up.”
The younger girl put her hands up in defense. “I understand that you want the Camren rumors to go away, but even if you and I posted a joined statement online, it wouldn’t help anyone. It would just hurt our fans and draw attention. Tabloids would write about it. It wouldn’t go away, you know that, Lauren. You would only make it worse.”
Lauren took a deep breath and turned away from her. “I hate this. Everything we do or don’t do gets scrutinized. We look at each other? We’re in love. We keep our distance? We’re obviously fighting. Why is our private life so important for everyone? It’s not fucking fair. I don’t know what to do…”
“For one, you could stop fighting the gay label,” Camila mumbled. Lauren snapped her head around to glare at her, but she quickly continued. “Yes, I know, you’re not gay, but you’re not straight either. I’m just saying you could avoid putting any kind of label on you. It worked for me. Like, I use gender neutral pronouns most of the time whenever they ask us something about love. I call them out for assuming we’re straight. I drop hints for the time when I actually do come out.”
Lauren furrowed her brow. “But that would only increase Camren rumors…”
Exasperated, Camila closed her eyes and tilted her head back. A deep sigh escaped her lips. “Right. And being completely furious whenever someone mentions Camren is not suspicious at all. You and your goddamn double standards.” She clenched her jaw and looked back to the girl in front of her. “You could have just ignored it all, you know? You could have acted like you do with the other girls. You could have brushed it off and kept being my friend in public. Fans usually pick two group members and ship them, it’s not unusual. It could have been nothing, Lauren. You made it a big deal. You gave them ammunition with each tweet, with each rant you posted. I’m sick of it.”
“You’re sick of it?!” Lauren laughed coldly, shaking her head in disbelief. “You are the one benefiting from all of this! You get all the support from Camren shippers because I’m the bad guy in this!”
“Benefiting?” Camila replied stunned. “I lost my best friend because of this bullshit you put me through! I got hurt. I felt alone. How did that benefit me?!”
“I don’t think distancing ourselves in public was too much to ask for!”
“It certainly is when in public suddenly changes to everywhere!”
“You know very well how sneaky our fans are!”
“But I don’t let them dictate my life,” Camila hissed, eyes narrowed in anger. Her hands had curled into fists and shook with barely suppressed raged. “I don’t drop my friends because of something as silly as this. I don’t ask them to stop holding my hand. To stop looking at them. To stop hugging them. Being afraid and in denial of your sexuality is no excuse of how you treated me. I felt like shit, Lauren. I thought I had hurt you in some way! I thought you were disgusted by me. You can’t treat people like that and expect them to be fine with it. It was not my fault that you think liking girls is something bad!”
Lauren opened her mouth, only to close it soon after. She looked as if she had bitten into a lemon.
“Why couldn’t you just act naturally around me, like you’re doing with the other girls?” Camila asked again, sounding slightly dejected. “Who cares if you’re gay or bi or straight? Our fandom doesn’t. Our families won’t. Liking girls is not wrong, Lauren. You should finally start to live by the things you preach.”
Lauren crossed her arms defensively and narrowed her eyes. “It’s none of their business. How can you be so calm about this? They’re telling everyone we’re in love, Camila. They’re telling our families and our friends that we’re lesbians. Don’t you want to come out on your own terms? How can that make you not mad? They are way past the line. They crossed it a long time ago.”
“Our fandom says worse things to me and about me than linking me to you romantically. I don’t know, I’m kind of flattered that they deem me good enough for you,” Camila joked, but the hopeful smile on her lips dimmed as Lauren only continued to glare at her. “You seriously need to let go of that anger. Being gay or bi is not a bad thing.”
Lauren scoffed. “I’m not seeing you out and proud either.”
“Of course not, my family wouldn’t be ready for that yet,” Camila waved off as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. “But I accept myself the way I am. If I like girls, who cares? It’s okay. I am what I am, right? We’re always preaching love and acceptance to our fans. We should follow our own advice. If you tell a fan that it’s okay if she’s gay or bi or whatever, how can you look at yourself in the mirror and think it’s not? Would you say that to your fan? No, of course you wouldn’t. So don’t say that to yourself either.”
“It’s not even about that! It’s about people assuming Camren is real and attacking my friends!”
Barely hiding the roll of her eyes, Camila sighed. “Yes, some of them cross the line in messing with our private life, but… Lauren, what are you going to do with Lucy?”
Lauren furrowed her brow, obviously thrown off by the sudden topic change. “Lucy?”
“I mean that you can’t let it destroy your relationship like it destroyed ours.” She held Lauren’s gaze, waiting for her to start fuming, to start attacking her, to start denying, but the older girl only pressed her lips together to a firm line. “Some fans are starting to ship you guys, some have always been, but it’s growing. I know you’ve seen it. Don’t repeat your mistake and pull away from her. She doesn’t deserve this, Lauren.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I have eyes. And I’ve been there.” Camila gave her a sad smile and shrugged. “It’s okay. I always suspected that you two had history of some sort. If I was the person who made you realize… who made you comfortable enough to pursue it…” She took a deep breath and looked away from the green eyes. “Well, then I’m okay with having been your experiment. It’s obvious that you never felt the same for me with how you acted afterwards. I’m not mad at you for that. I’m disappointed that you destroyed our friendship, but… I’m not mad.”
Lauren clenched her jaw. “I didn’t destroy our friendship, Camila. You became more and more distant. We could have remained friends in private, but you avoided me like the plague.”
“Seriously? You’re blaming me for…” Camila trailed off and shook her head, stunned. “You know what? Fine. Have it your way. When everything I have just said to you doesn’t mean a thing, then continue to bath in self-pity. Just keep thinking you’re the only victim here and that nothing is your fault.”
“It was not my fault. Hey – where are you going?” Lauren frowned as Camila turned around and walked away. “Are you seriously leaving? On your own?”
“There’s obviously nothing I can say or do to help you,” she called over her shoulder and continued in the direction that would hopefully lead her back to camp. “I’m not standing here and let you blame me for things beyond my control.”
“Camila, it’s not safe…” Lauren trailed off as the younger girl kept walking through the bushes and slowly disappeared from her view. “Fuck.”
Groaning, she looked up to the treetops and shook her head in exasperation before looking back to where her group mate had gone. With a roll of her eyes, she started to run as fast as the uneven ground allowed her to, trying to catch up.
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