Cameron smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"I get it," she said lightly, voice barely above a whisper. "It's fine, really. I guess it's just time for me to move on to the next mesmerizing beauty, huh?"
It was a joke, of course. One last attempt at levity, one final act of deflection before she fled the scene. Jasmine gave her a small, pitiful smile, reaching out as if she wanted to comfort her. Cameron didn't let her. Instead, she pulled her phone from her pocket, checked the time with feigned disinterest, and took a step back.
"I should head home."
And she did.
The drive was silent. Jasmine had offered to ride with her, but Cameron insisted she wanted to be alone, so Jasmine stayed behind to wait for her boyfriend to come pick her up. The heat from the sun had dissipated into a lukewarm nothingness, and the road stretched on like an endless void before her. The street lights flickered, the soft hum of tires against asphalt the only thing keeping her tethered to reality. Every word, every touch, every look Jasmine had ever given her replayed in her mind on an unrelenting loop, but now, every scene was corrupted with new context.
Cameron let out a bitter laugh as she gripped the wheel tighter.
You thought she could love you. You thought she was different.
She didn't remember getting home. One moment, she was on the road, drowning in her thoughts, and the next, she was standing in the middle of her bedroom, staring blankly at the reflection in her mirror.
She looked like shit. She felt worse.
Jasmine had given her the softest rejection possible, coated in sugar and sorrow, dressed up to make it seem gentle. But it didn't matter how delicate the delivery was—Cameron had still been crushed beneath the weight of it.
She sunk onto the floor, her knees pulled tightly to her chest.
All of it. Every moment. Every touch. Every lingering look. The nights spent lying side by side, the words whispered in dimly lit rooms, the way Jasmine had told her she wanted to be closer—none of it had been real, not in the way Cameron had believed. Jasmine had been careful, calculated. She had wanted to be adored, but she had never wanted to love back.
Cameron had been a fool. A walking, breathing, bleeding fool.
Her heart pounded erratically against her ribcage as she felt the cracks forming. A deep, relentless ache swelled in her chest, filling her with an unbearable sense of hollowness.
"Stupid," she whispered to herself. "You're so fucking stupid."
Her nails dug into the skin of her arms, dragging down with enough force to leave behind angry, red trails. It wasn't enough. The pain inside was bigger than her body, bigger than she could possibly contain. It made her want to scream, to sob, to destroy something just to make the chaos inside her match the world outside.
Jasmine had been the sun, and Cameron had been a fool who dared to look directly at her. Now she was blinded, burned, left to stumble in the dark.
She pulled herself up, moving on instinct more than thought. The bottle of vodka in her kitchen called to her like an old friend, and she was quick to oblige. The burn down her throat was welcome, a distraction, a dulling of the sharp edges cutting her up from the inside. One shot. Two. Three.
She wanted to disappear.
She wanted to be someone else.
She picked up her phone, mind hazy but intent clear. There was always someone. There was always another girl who would let her forget for a night. She scrolled through her contacts, searching for someone to fill the void, to make her feel something—anything other than this.
Jasmine didn't love her. Jasmine never loved her.
But she still wanted to be wanted.
She dialed Rosalie's number, needing her steady voice to pull her back to reality. It rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Straight to voicemail.
That wasn't like her.
Cameron's stomach twisted, but she didn't have the energy to dwell on it. Instead, she scrolled through her contacts aimlessly, her thumb stopping when she landed on a name she hadn't thought about in what felt like years—Caroline.
Before she could second-guess herself, she tapped the call button and pressed the phone to her ear.
The line rang once.
Twice.
Then—
"Cameron?"
Familiar voice. Distant past. New ache.