Part Two

míra
have you heard from lauren

nomoney no problems 🤑
no have you

míra
i wish

míra
she’s been holed up in her house since dinah left

nomoney no problems 🤑
have you talked to her mom at all

míra
no the whole anxiety thing gets in the way of doing things about my problems

nomoney no problems 🤑
😭💀

nomoney no problems 🤑
i need to get out of the house this is killing me

nomoney no problems 🤑
everything in this stupid house is making me think about dinah

míra
please bring me with you

no money no problems 🤑
i can pick you up in like twenty? i have to find shoes

míra
ok i’ll see you then

-

Normani and Camila decide on McDonalds for food, Camila getting an order of McNuggets, fries and chocolate shake while Normani opted for a burger and fries with a strawberry smoothie. They drive around a little bit until they come upon a random park and just sit in the parking lot with the windows down, eating their food.

“I can’t believe Dinah’s gone,” Camila blurts out, sipping on her milkshake, “Like, I keep thinking about it, and it keeps baffling me.”

“Yeah,” Normani sighs, “She lived in the house and it’s so quiet now that I have to have the TV in my room on all the time to not go crazy. I’ve binged like eight seasons of Friends just because I can’t stand the quiet.”

“How are your mom and Ally?” Camila asks, and Normani shrugs.

“My mom is frustrated, so she’s just cooking a lot. Ally’s been out of the house, I think she and her boyfriend are spending a lot of time together,” she replies, “You want to know something funny?”

“What’s funny?” Camila asks, finishing off her fries.

“Some nights, like two or three times a week, Dinah would climb into bed with me just because sleeping alone was too lonely. Which, kind of makes sense, she shared a bed with Lauren when she slept over there and at her house she shared a room with two of her siblings,” Normani muses before taking another bite of her burger.

“I wish I knew where she was just so I could punch her in the face,” Camila says after a minute of silence, “Like… at least when someone’s dead you know they’re gone. She’s just… somewhere, not a part of our lives anymore.”

Normani nods, “I’m so over being sad about it. I wallowed for two days and I just can’t stand it anymore.”

“I don’t like being sad,” Camila replies, “It’s fine I guess for a short period of time, but I can’t stand being sad for any longer than a couple of days.”

“You know you’re allowed to be, right? You and Dinah were really close,” Normani points out, and Camila sighs.

“Me being sad about it isn’t going to bring her back. I mean, come on, she either blocked us all or deleted all of her socials. People who do that don’t want to be found,” Camila says, and Normani nods.

“We should check on Lauren after this,” Normani says after a while, “They were friends for almost seven years.”

“Yeah,” Camila agrees, scowling when she sees she’s on her last nugget, “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“Should we pick up something for Lauren? Do you know what she likes?” Normani asks, finishing off her burger and throwing the wrapper into the bag along with her empty fries container. Camila does the same and Normani looks around, “Fuck, I don’t see any trash cans anywhere.”

“We could always pick up more McDonald’s,” Camila answers, “and throw it out at Lauren’s.”

Normani sighs and then laughs, “Can you imagine being the people working there? They’ll think we’re crazy, getting more McDonald’s after like an hour.”

Camila snorts, “Well I’m not the one ordering.

Normani rolls her eyes as she starts the car again, “Whatever. What do you think she wants?”

“Food,” Camila replies sarcastically, only to receive an eyeroll from Normani. She follows it up with, “A hamburger and medium fries with a medium Sprite.”

Normani nods, pulling out of the parking lot, “Let’s go then.”

-

Normani and Camila arrive at Lauren’s house roughly ten minutes after getting food and knock at the door, only to be greeted by Lauren’s mother.

“Oh! I was wondering when you two would show up,” Clara says, and Normani can’t tell if it’s her being rude or relieved. She figures it’s a bit of both, “C’mon in, Lauren won’t leave her room.”

Or respond to anyone’s texts, Normani finds herself thinking cynically.

“We brought food, if she’s up for it,” Camila says once they’re inside.

“I don’t know,” Clara admits helplessly, “She’s barely been eating, maybe you guys can convince her.”

“I can go up and talk to her,” Camila offers, and Clara nods, telling her to go upstairs.

Normani bites her lip, something in her gut telling her that Camila’s not exactly what Lauren needs right now.

Truthfully, what Lauren needs is Dinah, but that’s not happening anytime soon.

This draft was the only one of the part two drafts, mainly because part two was very cut and dry. There was no real extra stuff to work on or time to write more than what needed to be said. However, this part was written, and it was supposed to follow Lauren's turmoil of Dinah leaving, but was scrapped in favor of moving to part three.