Chapter 5

unfortunately, you’ll be seeing drew for a well… 

but, this chapter is full of high school cliche for tay tay and cameron 😉

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Somehow the date with Drew didn’t turn out to be a bust, Cameron thought he was a good guy, he just wasn’t really her type. Which was what she found herself complaining to Taylor about the Friday night after her first date… well… ever.

“And then he opened the door for me, which was super sweet, but I don’t know, he’s just not my type, you know?” Cameron laid on top of Taylor’s bed, her head at the edge where Taylor’s leaning against, playing with random chords on the guitar and jotting down words in her notebook every once in a while. Cameron sighed, and turned over so she could look at what Taylor was doing. “How’s your week been?”

“Better,” Taylor admitted. “You don’t have to sneak out of the cafeteria to eat lunch with me everyday.”

Cameron rolled her eyes, pulling herself off the bed and taking a seat besides her best friend. “Like I’ve told you every single day this week, there is nowhere else I would rather be. You’re the only company I want with me at lunch. See, Addison is sweet, everyone else at that table? Really stupid. They are such a high school cliche.”

“Are you not a cliche?” Taylor questioned teasingly, poking Cameron in the arm. “You’re a cheerleader dating a football player, what could be more cliche then that?”

“We’re not really dating, we’re only going on our second date next tuesday.”

“See, basically dating already. Next thing you know, you’ll have your first kiss,” there was a tone of bitterness in Taylor’s voice, and if Cameron didn’t know her best friend so well, she wouldn’t have picked up on it. But the fact about a first kiss made Cameron froze. She tried to picture it, her and Drew, kissing after a date.

“I don’t want Drew to be my first kiss,” Cameron blurted out suddenly, and then blushed when Taylor turned to her with a look she cannot decipher. “I think I want to kiss him, but I don’t want him to be my first kiss.”

Taylor tilted her head in confusion, placing her guitar down beside her and turning to face Cameron. “So who do you want to kiss then? Evan?”

“Ew, you don’t have the right to bring him up,” Cameron protested, trying not to gag at the picture of Evan being her first kiss. There wasn’t anything wrong with him, but he just really wasn’t her type.

“You’re always bringing him up, I thought you’re secretly dating him at the side,” Taylor teased, shifting so her knees touched Cameron’s. The room suddenly felt hotter, and Cameron subconsciously unbuttoned the first button of her buttoned down shirt.

There’s a tension in the air Cameron couldn’t name, but she found herself drawn to Taylor as she uttered the words she knew might change them both forever. “I want my first kiss to be you.”

They both froze, and Cameron wondered if she could invent a time machine to go back in time and eat up her own words before it could come out of her traitorous mouth. Taylor didn’t say a word, and Cameron started to ramble, hoping to salvage what’s left of her dignity. “I mean, I just know you so well, and I know I’m going to be comfortable if you were my first kiss. I feel like Drew is a random guy that I maybe like and he doesn’t deserve to have my first kiss, you know? But you… well you’re amazing but I totally understand if you don’t want me to steal your first kiss cause you want to save it for the special someone or- hmp.”

Cameron couldn’t breathe.

Soft lips pressed tentatively against hers, and Cameron thought that if this is what heaven feels like, she would die over and over again just to feel it again. The kiss was soft, barely a peak, and Taylor pulled away too soon for Cameron to feel much else. Cameron raised her eyebrow challengingly when she noticed Taylor’s flushed cheeks. “You called that a kiss?”

“Shut up,” Taylor blushed, trying to hide her face. But Cameron tilted her chin and pressed her lips against Taylor’s again. This felt like magic, and like all the puzzles fitting into place. If there was a feeling of home, the warmth in her chest was it.

They broke apart breathlessly, both of their cheeks flushed and merely a few inches between them. “That was… wow.”

“Better than Drew?” Taylor tried to come off nonchalantly, but her blushing cheeks betrayed her.

“Definitely,” Cameron grinned, brushing a piece of her hair behind her ears. “Thank you.”

“Anytime. Besides, now you owe me unlimited cuddles for the rest of the week,” Taylor sank into her own bed, making grabby hands. Cameron rolled her eyes, and sank into Taylor’s arms. Usually it was the opposite, and Cameron would tuck Taylor beneath her arms as she was a few inches shorter, but over the summer her best friend seems to hit a growth sprout as she was suddenly three inches taller than Cameron’s 5 ‘4 height.

“I’m holding you next time though,” Cameron argued, before sighing when Taylor ran a soothing hand through her hair. “If you want me to entertain you for the rest of the night, you better stop doing that.”

“I’m watching FRIENDS, so I don’t need your entertainment tonight,” Taylor teased, and Cameron rolled her eyes even though her best friend wouldn’t see it.

“Glad to know that I’m so damn replaceable.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic, go to sleep. I know you had a long day.”

Cameron tried to protest but a yawn escaped her lips. Taylor laughed, and Cameron hit her weakly on the stomach. “Shut up. You try getting thrown in the air five thousand times in a day.”

“Just sleep, Camry.”

She fell asleep to the sound of FRIENDS in the background and the absentminded stroke of her hair from Taylor.

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The timid knock on Cameron’s one story window woke her up, and she rubbed her eyes and frowned when she saw the blurry face of Taylor there. She dragged herself out of bed to open the window as quietly as possible, watching in concern as her best friend climbed in right after. Cameron looked around before closing the window once more.

Taylor was crying, silent tears streaming down her face and Cameron started to lead her best friend to her bed, pulling Taylor into her lab as she instinctively buried her face in Cameron’s t-shirt. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“They’re fighting again,” Taylor mumbled, and Cameron held her best friend tighter, wishing everyday that she could shield her from the rest of the world. “I don’t think they want me or Austin to know, but I think it’s getting pretty bad. I don’t want to live in a different house, and not be able to see you everyday, and losing Austin…”

Cameron squeezed Taylor tighter if possible. “Hey, you’re not going to lose any of them, okay? It’s just a fight. All couples fight, it’s basically a tradition for them to fight each other or else they’ll get bored in their relationship.”

“What do you know? Your father left you,” Taylor retorted angrily, and Cameron froze. It wasn’t a topic she liked to talk about, but she still had a blurry face of a man when she was younger, although most of the time she chose to block him out. It was one of the reasons her mother moved them to Nashville, to get away from the person who seems to haunt every street.

“Well yours isn’t going to be with you any longer if you weren’t such a disappointment,” Cameron fought back, regretting her words as soon as it left her mouth, but she had gone too far to go back now, and people had almost told her that she was too stubborn to not get the last word in a fight. “You could have had everything, but you threw it all away to chase a dream that seems impossible.”

Taylor flinched, pulling away from her. “Is that what you really think it is? Just an impossible dream? I seem to recall you telling me that if I put my mind to it, I could do it.”

“Well maybe-” Before their argument can get any more out of hand, Cameron’s mother bursts into the room, flickering on the light and eyeing the two girls on the bed, one with tears streaming down her face and the other who’s arm with anger.

“What is going on here?”

“Nothing, Mom,” Cameron turned away. Taylor turned away as well.

“It was nothing, Madison,” Taylor looked down, getting out of bed. “I should probably go home.”

Cameron didn’t say anything, just watched the silhouette of her best friend walking away, and wondering how a night could have gone so wrong.

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Taylor didn’t talk to her for the rest of the week. Screw that, she didn’t talk to her for the rest of the month, and Cameron was getting desperate. It was almost June and if Cameron didn’t manage to apologize to Taylor before Summer starts, she’s afraid that their friendship might possibly be doomed forever. And she might be getting tired of sitting with the popular kids constantly, they talked about the stupidest things.

Drew provided enough entertainment, they’ve been dating for almost six months, but he wasn’t Taylor.

It was on one of their weekly Tuesday dates in one of the fast food restaurants down the street did Cameron finally bring up her thoughts. “If… hypothetically speaking… you said some words you can’t take back to someone you care a lot about…”

Drew took a sip of his milkshake before giving Cameron a pointed look. “Is this about Taylor?”

Cameron glared, stealing a piece of fries off of his plate, dipping it into his milkshake against his protest. She gritted her teeth, stressing her words. “Hypothetically speaking, you said something that upset someone you really care about.”

“Does this hypothetical person have blue eyes and blonde hair?”

“Whatever floats your boat,” Cameron glared again, passive aggressively stealing another plate off of Drew’s plate. “But you upset this hypothetical person. And you said some things that you know will hit her right in the heart, because you know her so well that you know exactly the right spot to hit. And now this person won’t talk to you or acknowledge you even though you want to apologize. What will you do?”

Drew took another sip of his milkshake and took one of Cameron’s fries. She protested. “I’ll say you should do something that will make it up to them. Not just words, sometimes gestures can go a long way. And hypothetically speaking, maybe that person also misses you a lot.”

“You’ve been talking with Taylor,” Cameron accused, and Drew shrugged in response. He ran a hand through his dark hair, grinning sheepishly. “Do you think she’ll want to talk to me?”

“You need to do something that shows your sincerity in the apology, she’s not going to accept just words,” Drew pointed out, and Cameron found her mind shifting through all of the possibilities. “Okay, I think I know what I’m doing. You better be my wingman.”

“I’m your boyfriend, not a wingman!” Drew protested as Cameron started to stride out of the restaurant. Drew hurriedly placed a few bills on the table before running up to catch up with Cameron.

“Sorry, babe, you’ve been demoted today. We have a friendship to save!”