Should Have Known (Camren)

Chapter 2

"Lauren, get up!" Chris shouted as he shook me violently, trying to jar me awake.

I didn't budge.

"Here, let me try," Taylor suggested.

The room was still and eerily quiet until my screams filled the air as Taylor dumped a cup of freezing cold water straight on my head.

"Are you CRAZY?" I shouted as I threw my pillow at her.

"Hey, don't get mad at me. Just the other day you were insisting that everyone wake up at the crack of dawn and now you're the one that refuses to get up. You had it coming," she sassed.

I rolled my eyes. "What time is it anyway?"

Taylor and Chris shared a knowing look and each raised their eyebrow in question.

"It's like 11 A.M. Lauren," Chris chuckled.

"Are you serious? We're going to miss our flight!" I exclaimed as I threw the covers off of me, springing right out of bed and throwing my luggage together.

"Relax Lauren, it's not like it's a big deal if we miss our flight," Chris announced.

I stopped dead in my tracks and glared at him, gripping the shirt that I had intended to pack so tightly that my knuckles turned white. "Not a big deal?" I repeated in a low, serious tone. "Not a big deal, huh? It's not like we're flying across the country to Los Angeles or anything. It's not like tomorrow marks the first day of the rest of my life or anything. I don't know if you're aware or not, but tomorrow is the first day of bootcamp. Tomorrow decides whether I make it or break it, and you want to try to tell me that it's no big deal?"

"Well...with that attitude you won't get very far anyway," he huffed in response.

"Out," I demanded, pointing to my door.

He slumped out of the room, Taylor following behind him, leaving me to pack and think about what the days ahead would hold.

...

"LAX is fucking crazy," Chris whispered so that only I could hear.

Crazy was an understatement. Perhaps my sudden rush of adrenaline upon arrival in California was amplifying my experience, but even if that were the case, LAX was unlike anything I had ever seen. It was bustling with people evidently from all over the world. It was loud and lively, and there were shops and cafés every where I looked. It was breathtakingly overwhelming, but something told me that I should take it all in while I was in good spirits in the event that I was back the next day, only to head home instead of arrive.

"So where are we staying?" Taylor asked, looking down at a complimentary map of Los Angeles, not paying attention to the answer.

"All of the contestants and their families are staying in the same place," my Mom informed her, not really answering the question anyway.

We stepped through the sliding glass doors at the front of the airport to be greeted by dozens of large, black Cadillacs waiting to take us to our hotel.

"Wow, I could get used to this," Chris exclaimed, his mouth hanging open at the sight.

The driver stepped around the car and greeted us with a nod, taking as many of our bags as possible and stuffing them in the trunk while we climbed into the rows of backseats. My mom, seated next to me, took my hand in her own, most likely for her own comfort rather than mine. I didn't need to be comforted. I was content with where life was taking me, and there was nowhere in the world that I would have rather been than in the back of that Cadillac.