It's very probable, in fact a little too probable, that this will be the last party that both Lauren and Camila will attend.
Lauren's had ten years and a trillion more opportunities to stop it, to make it end differently, and this is all she gets when it's all said and done: Camila in a white dress and a shining ring on her second-to-last left hand finger, like a dagger to the spot in Lauren's chest where the knife always falls.
It's fine.
She's the maid of honor (well, co-maid-of-honor, Sofi shares the title with her), and Camila promises to toss the bouquet at her when the time comes, or at least try her best, because she has no aim even when she's throwing something in front of her, and Lauren is telling herself that this is enough.
It's all she gets, so it sort of has to be.
1.
They go bridesmaid dress shopping and Camila decides that she wants the color to be green. The wedding planner nearly has a stroke when he hears that, and Dinah immediately starts moaning about how red would compliment her skin so much better, but Camila has decided and that's that.
Well, Lauren thinks, fuck. And it doesn't really help that the dresses, when Camila shows them to the four of them, are almost the exact color of Lauren's eyes.
Lauren could cry but she doesn't.
She tries on the dress and falls in love with it almost immediately, spinning in the dressing room almost violently, almost as if she's desperately trying to dizzy herself so much she forgets why she's in this dress and can't think of anything else besides the fact that Camila wants her to wear it.
It doesn't work. She leaves the dressing room when it stops swooping in on her and Camila doesn't see her at first, she's talking to Normani about how no, she can't turn her bridesmaid dress into a two-piece so she could show off her midriff, when she catches Lauren's reflection in the mirror and her words die in her mouth.
"Oh my God, you look so stunning, babe." Camila says, turning to look at her, hand lifting to her heart. Lauren pretends the flash of diamonds dazzles it all out, dazzled all the ugly, garish wrongness of it all away.
"I love it," Lauren says.
She forgets to say, "I love you." She always forgets to say it.
Camila reaches out for her and Lauren steps forward, letting herself get wrapped in Camila's arms, toned and tattooed, so different and yet entirely the same as when she was fifteen and they hugged for the first time.
In a different universe, universe number two, Lauren is dressed in white and she's mouthing at the Spanish quote curling in ink on Camila's collarbone in a way only a lover could. Camila whispers in her ear, "You're the most beautiful bride. 'M so lucky."
Lauren moves her mouth to slot against Camila's, finding her heart just beyond the taste of her chapstick and her lips, and says into her mouth, "Ditto."
Or maybe the second, perfect universe doesn't exist and all there is is this, is Lauren collapsing into Camila's body, the one that belongs to someone else, all there is is Normani watching in the mirror with sad, knowing eyes and Ally and Dinah silently doing the same in their dressing room doorways, is her heart pounding and bleeding and begging her that she not let anything, anything ever feel this wrong again.
This is it. All she gets.
2.
They go cake testing, just the two of them, because apparently cake testing is exclusive bride-and-maid-of-honor responsibility.
Camila immediately and insistently wants a banana and buttercream cake, and Lauren thinks that she has not changed a bit since they first met. Since Lauren met the stuttering and stumbling girl with the most gorgeous soul she'd ever imagined and the most endearing way of existing. Since she fell irrevocably and astoundingly in love with her and hadn't found a way out.
It's such a nostalgic and wonderful thought that Lauren bops Camila on the nose with icing and licks it off in the same breath.
The baker walks into the room at that very moment and says, smiling, "What a beautiful pair of brides. What can I do for you two?"
In a third universe, Lauren's heart spreads warmth all through her chest and she takes Camila's hand in her own with a sense of completion, of pride. Camila smiles her beautiful, blinding smile and presses three quick taps against Lauren's foot under the table with her own, their old morse code for "I'll get you for that later."
And Lauren will tap her foot back, gently, lovingly, and say, "We'll take a triple-layered banana and buttercream cake, please, with extra bananas," and Camila will be smiling so widely and amazingly that the baker will think, I've never seen two people more in love, and he'll make the most delicious cake for Camila that she's ever tasted and they'll smash it in each other's faces and get it gunked up in their newly-presented rings and kiss all the cake off of each other in front of a room of swooning people.
Or there might even be a fourth universe, in which Camila doesn't even acknowledge the baker and covers Lauren's cheek with icing just to kiss it off with loud, obnoxious smacking noises, making both Lauren and the baker blush before announcing with a devilish grin, "My fiancé and I would like a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and bananas on top, pretty please," before turning to Lauren and saying, "Vanilla because you said once that if you were cake you'd be vanilla."
And Lauren would really have no choice but to ignore the baker and kiss her.
Or maybe Lauren just feels her face turn gummy and burn up as Camila giggles and breezily responds, "Oh, no, I'm actually here to get a cake for my own wedding."
Maybe the baker thinks nothing of it and merely says, "Ah, my mistake," and smiles at Camila until Lauren thinks that he must love her too, that everyone must, that she's not special for falling in love.
And maybe Camila takes her hand anyway and feeds her cake anyway and the baker still doesn't blink when Camila kisses the chocolate off of Lauren's fingertips because of course, it was just a mistake, of course they would never be getting married, of course they're just best friends, just maid of honor and bride-to-be, that's all. That's what Lauren gets.
That's all she gets.
3.
It's Camila's bachelorette party, completely planned out by Lauren, obviously, and crashed by a group of people no one really knows. The dance floor is crowded with people Lauren is positive she didn't invite but everyone's too drunk to care.
The neon theme is a smash hit as soon as Dinah shows up with glow-in-the-dark everything. Makeup, glitter, tonic (where the fuck did she find this stuff? How rich is she?). Ally brings those cheap Party City plastic sticks that you bend into jewelry, and Normani supplies the liquor. Or at least pays off the bar.
The lights have been turned off so long Lauren isn't sure she remembers the last time she saw light that wasn't florescent and unnatural.
Camila seems to be having fun, not really drunk but drunk enough to be dancing with people she doesn't know. Pink and green necklaces bounce off her neck and she keeps knocking back more and more glasses of neon liquor. Sweat glows off of her as she sways and grinds and spins with other men and women. Lauren thinks she looks like an angel.
"Stop looking at her like that," Dinah warns over the sound of blaring music, the voices vaguely familiar but not really in Lauren's swimming ears. That might be her singing through the speakers, but who knows, and really, who cares. "If I was crazy, I might think you were in love with her or something."
Yeah, that hurt.
Drunk Dinah, all big dark eyes and jiggling body, tugging on Lauren obliviously and trying to spin her, one hand sloshing a drink, doesn't seem to realize.
But it hurts nonetheless. Like a son of a bitch, actually.
Drinking seems like a good solution. When in pain, medicate in vain. Or something.
"Or something," Lauren says without really thinking about it, pulling the drink out of Dinah's hand and gulping it down in two swigs. Dinah laughs almost mockingly (drunk Dinah is sort of mean; honest, but mean, Lauren has realized over time) but just draws Lauren in to dance. They move freely, their bodies syncing up naturally with the beat and each other.
"I don't know how you're doing this," Dinah says after a while, watching as Lauren's eyes continue to crawl back to Camila, stuck on the way her skin looks as she moves and the way the whole world can't seem to get enough of her, as all the light swarms towards her. "If I were you I'd be tearing that guy apart right now. Or tearing Camila apart. You know, getting it on while I had the chance."
"I love her too much to do that," Lauren says instinctually, like Dinah's words knocked a hammer to her kneecap and the response just shot out of her like a jumping leg.
Dinah frowns and lifts a hand up to brush her cheek, then grabs her hand and spins her. "I know."
Lauren thinks Dinah hurts her a little too much. She spins away and keeps spinning until she knocks into the bar, where she order two drinks and knocks them both back almost at once. She's lifting her head to look for Camila again, heart throbbing, when the angel herself falls practically right into her lap with a sigh.
"Ah," Camila says contentedly, breath on Lauren's ear. "I feel good," she says as she slings her knees over Lauren's thighs and leans her head on Lauren's right shoulder. "I am so drunk."
Lauren's heart pounds, pounds, pounds and the blood rushes to her ears but it's nothing she can't handle. She lifts her hands to rest them on Camila's waist and hold her in place. They've done this before. It should feel natural.
It doesn't.
"Thank you for putting this together, Lo," Camila whispers into the shell of Lauren's ear, tracing her fingers up the twisting ink on Lauren's left forearm.
"It's my job, isn't it?" Lauren says, a little loud. "I'm the maid of honor."
"You're my best friend." Camila says, like she's deciding something. Her hair falls down Lauren's back, her thighs shift and press down on Lauren's lap, she gently pushes the pad of her thumb into the crook of Lauren's elbow. "You are my human universe."
In a universe that Lauren doesn't know, that Lauren isn't, the fifth one, Camila says this as she's lifting her head off of Lauren's shoulder and she kisses her. She tastes like possibly-toxic neon tonic mix and fruity cocktails and stardust, and Lauren kisses her so hard she sees nebulas blooming behind her eyes and Camila grows angel wings from her shoulder blades, and they're spreading right into Lauren's palms and it's perfect--perfect--perfect.
Maybe, though, Camila doesn't lift her head at all, and instead she begins to nod off on Lauren's shoulder and Lauren wakes her up despite every nerve in her body screaming not to and asks, "Do you want to go home?"
And maybe Camila just wakes up and smiles drunkenly and says, "Yeah, Lo, I think I've done enough damage for one night," and Lauren mentally agrees with a twist of the knife and takes Camila back to Lauren's own apartment.
Camila strips in the dark with her back turned to Lauren, sitting on the edge of Lauren's bed without a shred of shame. They've both seen each other half-naked or completely naked more than once, it's just a thing that happens when you spend the better part of a decade with someone always around, but something about it makes Lauren want to cry. Because even in the dark Camila's ring still shines like a star and still sears into her heart like fire. Burning, burning fire.
Lauren changes anyway and crawls into bed where Camila already lays, naked, wrapped in her sheets and her smell. "You okay?" Lauren asks, voice at least an octave lower, and huskier around the edges. Camila sighs, turning over into the pillow where Lauren's head lies, and goosebumps prickle on her skin.
"I'm with you. Of course I'm okay."
And. It's really hard when Camila says things like that. It's really hard not the imagine a sixth universe where Lauren takes that as an invitation, where she curls into Camila and the air thickens with tension and their bodies fit together in the dark without thinking, just feeling, and Lauren kisses her everywhere, everywhere, everywhere until Camila's skin burns with desire like Lauren's heart does every time it beats, until Camila can't take it and she's squirming and gasping and panting into Lauren's mattress and her mouth and she's Lauren's, completely Lauren's and no one else's, ever, ever.
Or a seventh universe, even, where Camila still wears the ring and still tastes like someone's else mouth but Lauren kisses her and touches her and gets inside her anyway, and she still burns her up like Camila deserves and wants, begging and writhing on the bed like Lauren has imagined for way too fucking long, Camila gripping at her skin with both hands and both thighs and her teeth and her tongue, stupid silver ring digging into Lauren's flesh like a new star burning itself into existence.
Lauren would take it any day.
But in this universe Camila just presses the crown of her head to Lauren's cheek and nuzzles it there, once, twice, before the sound of her breathing evens out and her skin relaxes on Lauren's, shoulder to shoulder, thigh on thigh, soul on burning, desperate soul.
"I'm going to miss sleeping next to you," Camila's voice croaks when Lauren is nearly positive she's fallen asleep. She starts awake. "Won't be the same. A bed without you in it."
Lauren's heart wants to die. Lauren wants to die.
"You'll have your husband," Lauren says, struggling to keep her breathing even, her voice measured.
"I repeat," Camila says, so quietly Lauren isn't sure she wants herself to even hear, "a bed without you in it won't be the same."
Lauren doesn't say anything, and eventually the sound of Camila's snoring fills the room.
She spends hours memorizing it, the way her bare skin feels, the way it prickles at her nerve endings and the way it knots the base of her stomach, the feeling of her hair on her cheek and her breath on her collarbone, the way her tattoos look in the moonlight. Lauren wants the memory of it to last forever.
It's all she gets.
4.
It's the wedding day.
Lauren wakes up wanting to throw up. Her soul wakes up wanting to throw up.
Ally's trying to keep her calm, her small soothing hands rubbing circles into Lauren's back and coaxing sips of water into her mouth. She tells Lauren not to wipe her sweaty hands on her dress and instead wipes them on paper towels. She feels pathetic, but at least she's not crying.
Yet. She hasn't seen Camila in her dress yet.
Camila doesn't want anyone to see until she walks down the aisle, which Lauren thinks is kind of dumb but also very Camila, so not dumb at all. But it sucks, because what if just the sight of her all dressed in white for someone else makes her break down and sob right there? She can't exactly have a panic attack right as the ceremony's beginning. She's the maid of honor, for God's sake. She's Camila's best friend.
She can do this.
Lauren twists the rings on her thumb and middle fingers, she goes out for a smoke then brushes her teeth and resprays her perfume, she enters a prayer circle with Dinah, Ally, and Normani and earnestly asks God for strength. And it seems He is giving it to her.
The music starts, the people in the pews stand, and she's okay. A little boy that looks like baby Dinah toddles down the aisle with the rings in his chubby fists, next to a girl that looks exactly like baby Dinah throwing petals at the floor almost angrily. A few people giggle fondly at them. Lauren finds she's one of them. She's okay.
Sofi and Sinuhe and her three girls are all beside her, not holding hands physically but spiritually, if that makes sense, and even though the man Camila is about the marry is standing just across from her with tears in his eyes, she's okay. She's smiling and breathing out a sigh of relief because she's okay when Camila appears at the doorway and finds her eyes.
And then she's not.
Just like that, Lauren is not okay.
Camila locks on to her gaze and stares at her, grappling with the tears swimming in her eyes and desperately holding on. Lauren feels her heart pounding and her blood rushing and she feels a trillion and ten universes tearing themselves holes in her body so that everyone can see straight through her and say to themselves, "Oh my God, she's in love with the bride. The maid of honor is in love with the bride. Lauren is in love with Camila." A million variations of the same, unbearable truth play in Lauren's head, the eighth universe, the infinite eight, the one where Lauren loves Camila and everyone knows it.
Where Camila is walking straight through her waiting, weeping groom and straight to Lauren and saying, "This is the universe I chose."
Or maybe Camila gives up the fight with her tears and lets them fall into her cheek and looks away, averts her eyes to the man at the altar, smiling through the tears on her face and the weight Lauren feels resting on her shoulders as if the burden were on her own.
Maybe Lauren swallows a thousand bullets with each promise made and vow exchanged right beside her and watches from another universe as they slide rings onto each other's fingers and eat banana and buttercream cake and dance to a song Lauren picked specifically for this moment but can't remember why anymore.
Maybe Normani and Dinah sandwich her in a three-way dance the whole night and Camila can't find Lauren when she wants to ask her to dance because Lauren is outside smoking a cigarette and crying into the fucking fabric of her dress, bent at the waist and broken.
Lauren hates it. She wants to go inside and kiss Camila until Camila hates her just as much.
But Ally comes outside with a warm washcloth and wipes all the ruined makeup off her face and holds her until she at least starts breathing again, and she thinks, I am being so selfish. She smokes one last cigarette, takes Ally's hand, then goes back inside.
Camila is looking for her, panicked. "I can't do this without you," she says, as soon as Lauren makes it through the door. She's hurling herself at Lauren's body and wrapping her arms around her so tightly, for a second, Lauren feels alright.
"You don't have to." Lauren says.
Camila touches the side of her face and says, "I made a promise, to myself, a really long time ago," her bottom lip quivers, and in universe nine, this would be the moment she says, "that I would be with you forever. I can't go through with this. Please marry me."
Real Camila, universe one Camila says, "almost immediately after we met." Universe ten Camila says, "that you were the one I would spend the rest of my life with. Marry me."
Real Camila's eyes brim with tears, and Lauren is dying because she looks so beautiful in her dress, with the veil in her hair and the buttons up her back that Lauren realizes she is running her hand over. It doesn't matter. She is running her hand over the buttons that keep Camila's angel wings in, that keep this universe held together. "I promised myself, that no matter what happened, I would tell you everything. That I would be honest with you. And I haven't been."
Universe eleven, twelve, thirteen, a trillion and ten Camila says, "I love you. I want you to marry me."
Real Camila wipes her eyes and smiles, swallowing. "You are the most important person to me, Lauren. Always have been, and always will be. And I need you. I love you. And I want to tell you that in every universe, every other life, I will find you and chose you as my own."
Every Other Universe Camila says, "Marry me."
Real Camila pulls Lauren in and presses a kiss to the inside of her ear. "You're my best friend." She says. "My one and only."
Every Other Universe Lauren says, "I'm in love with you."
Real Lauren kisses Camila on the nose and says, "Ditto, Camz."
She forgets to say, "I'm in love with you."
She always does.