Mistakenly Fallen

10. “This one is going to be on my bedroom’s wall.”

8 Months Later…

“Camila, can you tell Fess, to bring in some refreshments on our side.”

Camila heard Jessica calling her out from behind the podium, standing inside the auditorium.

She sighed in agitation and rolled her eyes, grabbing her forms from Professor Frazier and went outside the auditorium, making her way behind the large halls walls and found Fess and his peers, sitting on the staircase, right behind the hall, smoking thick puffs from the rolled up filter papers filled with crushed and dried c******s.

Camila waved her hands around her face, trying to clear out the smoke in front of her and held her breath in, not willing to inhale anything that would get her tested positive for drugs.

She could hear the faint sound of a eighties hippie music being played in to Fess's earphones, as she tapped on his shoulder and pulled out one of the plugs out of his ears, making him look up at her with reddened eyes.

“They are asking for you to bring some refreshments.”

Camila told the young boy, who was already tired, as he rested his head against the walls of the auditorium.

Looking over at his right, he passed down a bottle of water to Camila, that was also half empty.

“Go and give them and tell them to shove it up their ass.”

Camila grunted and turned back when Fess called her.

“Why are you taking this so seriously? Just relax, we will get those extra credit.”

Camila shook her head at that boy’s words.

“You are an arts student who gets credit for smoking weed. Doesn’t go around for me.”

She threw a smile at him and moved back in, greeted by Jessica, right at the entrance of the hall.

“What took you so long?”

She questioned Camila, her tone carrying authority and conjunction, “…and where is Fess?”

“Oh! That is exactly what took me so long! You see, Fess gave me this empty bottle and asked me to ask you, to shove it up your ass.”

With that she moved towards the first row of the seats and helped set the table next to professor Frazier who would be overlooking the debate.

Feeling a tap on her shoulder, Camila turned around and found Jeremy holding out his camera, as he quickly clicked her picture, taking her by surprise once again.

“You have to stop doing that! It stopped being amusing after the first two times you did that.” She warned him, whilst he simply chuckled at her response.

“So, it was amusing to you, the first two times.” He knocked on her annoying tips once again.

Somehow, he was able to realize that Camila got annoyed pretty quickly and it had become a hobby of his to annoy her and get on to her nerves. Because what he liked about her the most, as a friend was the fact that no matter how much angry she got, she would never offensively attack him back in any way that would offend him.

“Just take pictures around the event and give me credit in the newspaper for informing you about the event.” Camila told him and walked ahead towards the gate.

She paused for once, when she saw Charlie coming in through the door with the rest of her debate team.

She held back her urge to disappear right at the very moment when she saw Charlie but refrained herself from doing so.

She simply stepped aside and let her troop walk by and noticed that Charlie along with the rest simply ignored Camila and walked towards the side of the stage where Jessica was standing.

A sting of pain surged through Camila’s heart as she smirked to her own self but ignored the pain and made her way out of the auditorium, in order to grab more forms, as requested by professor Frazier.

It had been the same for Camila and Charlie, as the one so called friend of hers, turned her back on her around six months ago, after winter vacations, when Charlie finally revealed it to Camila, why she was so nice to Camila all along.

Right before Camila left to spend her winter break at home, Charlie gave her resume to Camila and asked her to pass it down to her father and request him for Charlie to be able to do her internship at his research facility.

Camila felt a knot of anxiety tied up in her guts.

She wasn’t an i***t to not to realize that Charlie’s favors and her sweetness towards her, came with a price.

She was always that good to her only because of Camila’s status and her family’s influence.

She thought that she had left her family’s influence way behind her but it didn’t leave.

The Santiago name followed her and created an impact, making her realize that Charlie, was rude towards the other girls not because of who they were but in fact, they couldn’t be as influential as Camila in Charlie’s life.

She decided to go against her better self and didn’t put in the request to her father and when she came back to sorority after the break and Jessica had helped Charlie secure a good internship opportunity at one of her family friend’s research institute, where Charlie practiced for the next three months, before leaving everything in Jessica’s hands, who made the sorority days for Camila a living hell.

She shifted Camila’s room and gave her the one that was made almost in the storage room of the mansion, stating that a senior requested her previous room.

Jessica also made sure to cast out Camila in every single way and when Charlie came back it was even worse.

Everyone tried their best to bully Camila, who began sitting in the dining hall lesser than she already did and didn’t attend even a single movie night in the lounge of the sorority, wasn’t even invited to the sorority’s philanthropic event, where everyone obviously volunteered for a carwash and every fraternity in the area, volunteered to have their car washed.

For Camila it was an extremely embarrassing moment to be a part of a sorority that ones was a legacy and a name to live by.

But she wasn’t much affected by everything that everyone at sorority was doing to her or with her.

She was already used to of being a loner and besides, she was dead inside long ago, by living a college life that she had never imagined to expected herself to live.

Getting inside Mr. Frazier’s office, she grabbed some more forms, when he told her that they ran short on precisely ten forms and she decided to grab two more, just in case.

Getting out of the office room, she made sure to lock it behind her, apparently; Professor Frazier, only trusted her with his office keys, something that even Charlie was annoyed by.

She had served in the debate club, ever since she was a freshman and professor Frazier, never gave the keys to his office to even her.

Charlie’s behavior towards Camila had turned quite aloof and rude as well. She would behave towards Camila as if she was completely and entirely invisible and Camila also didn’t bother to try and patch up a friendship with her that was made up on life and broken without words.

She knew the importance of relationships and their values the most than anyone ever would.

She was someone, who held a high regard of relationships and that was also the reason why she always maintained boundaries with the wrong ones and opened it for the right ones.

So far, she hadn’t been able to make any friends in the college.

In her department, everyone hated her obviously, because she was every teacher’s favorite, answered all the questions right away and at the end of the first semester emerged on top of the entire batch, so yeah! No body liked her.

Except for Dr. Edna, who surely admired Camila for her style and wits. She exchanged numbers with Camila right away and would call her in to her office and sit down and discuss about many papers that Camila had also read on psychology and other related fields. In fact, as spring break approached after two days, Dr. Edna had asked Camila to assist her in the dean’s office where Edna would be serving in a research defense committee and Camila was over the moon to act as her assistant during the time. She was already incredibly impressed with Dr. Edna who was living Camila’s dream.

Young, tall, beautiful, friendly, confident and on top of everything she had a doctorate!

Camila was looking forward to learn a lot from Edna.

Other than that, Selena – remember that girl that Camila ran in to on her orientation? Well, she was surely a girl of her words when she said that she wanted to stay as Camila’s passing buddy she was right.

Each time, Selena and Camila walked past one another, they waved at each other and that was all it about their friendship.

Camila had seen Selena hanging out with some other girls from her own department but never actually tried to read more in to trying to befriend with Selena. The fear that Selena would only want to be with her so that at the end of her junior year, she would wants Camila to put in a special request to her mother to let Selena practice at her clinic, just scared the living lights out of Camila, who didn’t want a Charlie 2.0 to happen to her all over again.

At the debate club, things weren’t pretty great for Camila, where professor Frazier, praised Camila as one of his favorite assistant moderator, called her a responsible kid and handed her the keys to his office right away.

Jessica was obviously annoyed by that, as the club hadn’t been able to win a single debate under her leadership that came in the absence of Charlie and wanting to push Camila down as well, Jessica tried to steal the keys from Camila’s room and stole some documents from professor Frazier’s office room but much to her dumbness, she stole the ones that he wanted to throw away anyways.

Camila confronted Jessica about it but then Jessica went ahead and began physically violating her boundaries, leaving stank fish and rotten food in to Camila’s room, only to make it smell bad.

Camila only once, played the trick back at Jessica and hid tuna fish by stuffing it inside her curtain rods and making sure that Jessica went mad for three days, before she was finally able to tell what was going on with her.

Jessica got the idea that only Camila could pull such a clever trick on her and therefore, stepped back and stopped bullying Camila as well but ever since Charlie’s return and her inclined favoritism towards Jessica, gave Jessi a sense of confidence to try and abuse Camila once again.

That was a little follow up on Camila’s days at the debate club and the sorority but the only place where she was living a small heaven of peace was unexpectedly at the newspaper agency, where nobody actually cared about the other person and Camila became a small time news hunter and event catcher, booking every event under her name that she could get around the college and sent Jeremy and his team mates from the Stanford Daily to cover the event.

She was even able to get the team some events outside of university at Palo Alto, where some business conventions took place.

Jeremy was an annoying person, who got on to Camila’s nerves but at the same time, she considered him as a cool person and therefore, they both shared a give and take relationship, where he got her extra credits from Stanford Daily and she got him events, just like the inter college debate that she had gotten him to cover, before anyone else would get a photographer.

On her way back towards the auditorium, her phone rang up inside her pant’s pockets and she took it out and saw her brother Lucas’s name flashing right through her screen.

She answered it with excitement.

“Hey!”

“Oh Hey! If it isn’t my annoying sister.” Luke cooed in an overly affectionate sweet tone and Camila rolled her eyes right away understanding that Lucas was up to something.

“What do you want?” she jumped right on the topic and he snorted out loud.

“Whoa! You really think, I would call you only if I want something from you.”

“Yes!”

Camila didn’t filter anything up for Lucas, who pretended to be hurt.

“You know some times you get extremely rude.”

“Don’t you think, you kind of deserve it.” She daggered back at him and heard Nicholas over the phone, whisper yelling at Lucas.

“Just, ask her about it damn it!”

She then heard a loud rush of male voice hooting behind Lucas on the phone and began wondering what her brothers were up to.

She then looked ahead at the door of the auditorium and noticed that the delegates and participants from the other universities had began entering the auditorium.

“Lucas make it quick, I don’t have much time.”

“How about Nick and I visit you tonight? You aren’t coming for Spring Break, right? So, how about we both visit you before we leave for home?”

“You guys are going home?” she asked, surprised that Luke and Nick were going home for spring break, while her mother informed her the negative, when she told her that she wanted to work with Dr. Edna and Rachel told her that no kid would be home for spring break, so Alejandro and Rachel planned on going to Bora Bora as well.

“Well, just for two days, before we live for Ibiza.” Lucas screamed in to the phone and Camila pulled the phone away from her ear as she heard every guy behind her brother go berserk.

Camila felt impatient that everyone had began entering the auditorium and she still had forms in her hands that needed to be handed out before the debate began and forms needed to be submitted pre debate.

“So? Nick and I will visit you…?”

“Yes! Yes! I will be at my sorority. Just call me when you get there.”

With that she kept the phone back inside her pocket and held her event card in front of her and entered inside the hall in a rush, only for Jeremy to click another picture of her in a distorted condition and she felt extremely agitated, flipping a bird to him, of which he definitely clicked a picture.

“This one is going to be on my bedroom’s wall.” He showed her the picture and she didn’t have the time to argue with him.

Sprinting towards Professor Frazier, who seemed extremely distorted with his grey hair going everyone in lose curls behind his head with his receding hairline, adding more misery to his looks, sighed in relief that Camila had arrived.

“Where have you been?” he asked through his hoarse and piercing tone, fixing his khaki pants over his bulging belly and placing his glasses back on his freckled face. he took a huge pile of unfilled forms and handed it to Camila and the other assistant moderator.

“Distribute the forms and collect them after ten minutes.”

Camila nodded and began doing her work, going through the steps of the rows of tens and hundreds of the seats by giving out the forms, along with others, who were also working in the debate club only to earn some poor credits on their college profile.

As she walked through the rows, she paused at ones, when she found a familiar face looking back at her and found herself to be completely bewildered as a completely different looking Edward got up from his seat and walked towards Camila.

His hair weren’t resting on his forehead anymore, just like they used to, when Edward acted like that mysertious boy who didn't want to reveal his true self and his behind his glasses, which were also a long lost concept for the young chap.

He revealed his face a bit more than he used to do, something telling Camila that he had a more sense of confidence in his entire domineer.

He wore a fitted dress shirt that emphasized on his shoulders that Camila could clearly tell had grown broader and his smile, if Camila could remember well had grown somehow brighter.

“You know when I came here today, I had a feeling I was going to run in to you.”

Edward laughed, pulling Camila in for a hug and she also laughed heartily hugging him back.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you will coming here today and of course you joined the debate club.”

She laughed once again, unable to control her happiness as she met Edward, the only person, whom she can actually call her good friend.

She immediately read his badge resting on his chest.

“Honestly, I wanted to contact you and even thought about messaging you in f*******: after I found out that I will be coming to Stanford for the competition because I kind of lost your number…” he admitted by rubbing the back of his neck.

“Oh! So that’s what you were embarrassed about.” Camila cooed and laughed back.

She didn’t mind the fact that she and Edward had fallen out of contact over the past few years. Meeting him again, felt like a zest of fresh air being brought back in to her life.

“But I don’t get it, how can you be in a debate club?” Edward wondering, noticing that Camila was also going something out of her usual form.

She simply brought ahead her card that read her name and her position.

“They closed the health club on my first day at the college.”

“Oh! Must have sucked! You were good at it back in our school.”

“Camila!”

Camila felt a tap on her shoulder and looked behind her to see Jessica standing in front of her.

Camila rolled her eyes and turned back but Jessica, obviously feeling offended and ignored, stepped ahead.

“Hey! I am trying to call you, you should distribute the forms quickly and collect them back. Professor Frazier has to sort out the qualifications and number the teams and…”

Jessica paused at once, when she realized that someone was standing right next to Camila and looked up at Edward, rendering him surprised as well.

“Oh hi Ed!”

“Hi, Jessi.” He stated back in a plain tone.

Out of all the people who could have been surprised, suddenly it seemed like it was Camila’s turn to be surprised.

“You two know each other?” Camila asked in a fearsome tone, afraid that Jessica might as well ruin one good thing in her life.

“Where is Yara? I have been waiting for her since morning and she told me she would come here by now…?”

“Yara?”

Listening to Edward’s exes name, something anxious settled into Camila’s heart.

“Yeah! Edward’s girlfriend.” Jessica spat back at Camila in a snotty tone.

“Oh! There she is.” Jessica cheered and pointed out towards a tall, lean Black girl with her long hair shining down up till her back, entering inside the hall along with the entire team of students of Yale.

She held a poise and class and Camila was immediately able to recognize her from the pictures that Edward had shown Camila when they were in high school. If anything; Yara had actually grown even more pretty than she was.

As Jessica left Edward and Camila alone for once, Edward noticed the fall of expression on Camila’s face.

“Yara and I got back together and we decided to do the whole long distance thing again and…”

“I am really happy for you.” Camila cut him off, suddenly hating the explanation that she was receiving at the hands of Edward. It somewhat made things awkward and made it look like Edward owed some sort of explanation to her. It felt like, he had at once ignited a hope of a different narrative between them and he did have a realization of the fact that Camila yarned for something serious between them and when he felt guilty of hurting her began explaining things to her, which somehow made Camila inwardly furious.

“If you are happy with it, so am I.” she perched up a smile and pointed towards the forms in her hand, “I have to distribute them and collect them back in ten minutes, don’t you forget to fill yours quickly as well.”

With that she moved away, not wanting to be embarrassed by Edward another single second.

Once she was done giving the forms, she waited for another five minutes, before she began collecting them back and once she reached Edward’s seat, she saw that Yara was sitting next to him and just as she took their forms, Yara held her back at once, making Camila look at her with surprise.

“You are Camila Santiago, right? Edward’s high school friend?”

Camila nodded, as Yara pointed towards her name badge.

“Edward told me how you cared for him so much and helped him reconcile with me at times when he felt lost.”

Yara puckered up a smile at Camila, who could tell right off that Yara hated her with all her guts and as if Yara’s possessiveness towards Edward couldn’t have been a reason, Jessica added another one in the basket by appearing to sit next to Yara.

“Yara, Edward and I went to the same high school, until Edward had to shirt to New York! Isn’t that a great coincidence?”

Camila nodded with a smile.

“And then Edward gets to study with you! I mean, who would’ve thought the four of us together in one room.” Jessica chuckled trying to make it sound like Camila was the guilty one, who was caught in 4K trying to run her hands up someone else’s boyfriend.

“Anyways, thank you for taking care of Edward. He doesn’t study with you anymore, so I guess, your interaction with him wasn’t necessary.”

Yara sent a chilling warning to Camila, who only looked at Edward for once and saw that he had his head perched low, angered and ashamed at the same time.

Camila only smirked, looking at Edward’s miserable condition and snatched the form away from him Yara and continued her job.

She wasn’t going to be the one to fight for a friendship that didn’t exist anymore to begin with. Perhaps, the only person she could call her friend also ended up betraying her one or the other and the most hurtful part was the fact that Jessica was somehow a part of that ruining as well.

The debate began at once and Camila looked up at the audience every once in a while, finding Edward’s eyes stuck on her, with a hurtful expression covering his face.

She couldn’t tell why he was the one pretending to be hurt but she was surely not in the mood to sympathize with him.

She felt like she had lost every good thing in her life and that feeling of hollowness was devouring her with every passing second.

She Jeremy come and stand next to her and sighed in relief that she had a shield from Edward’s gaze.

“Who is that creep in the audience who is looking at you.” Jeremy whispered in to Camila’s ear, making her snicker silently.

They made sure to keep their volumes low so that the debaters don’t get disturbed because of them.

“A guy I knew from high school.” Camila informed.

“Jeez! What kind of creeps did you study with?” Jeremy deliberately clicked a picture of Edward, making sure that he knew whilst standing next to Camila that as a friend of hers, he was well aware of what Edward was doing and his trick worked as he looked away from Camila finally and looked down at his papers, as his turn was coming up next.

“Anyways, what are your plans for spring break?”

“I will be working at the research institute. A professor from my department got to be on the defense committee this year and she asked me to assist her.”

“Jeez! You will be working even in spring break! Damn you are one hell of a nerd.”

“What will you be doing on your spring break?” Camila inquired back from him, wanting to hold him accountable of his words.

“Well, I will be working on a documentary but in Miami!”

Before Camila could’ve said another word, Jeremy cut her off making her shake her head.

“You will still be working.”

“Will you be attending any party tonight? You know, the big spring break parties at fraternities.”

“No! I am not sure.” She shrugged.

“Well my fraternity…”

“Alpha Psi Gamma! I know, which Fraternity you live in. It is the same lane as mine.”

“Whoa! You are a good observer. So, anyways, my fraternity is throwing a party tonight, so why don’t you come?”

“I don’t go to parties.”

“Nerd problems?”

“I don’t like socializing. I don’t know how to socialize.”

“Damn! Come to the party tonight and I will teach you how! You really need to work on your social skills.”

“I will see!”

“No, you have to come…”

As Jeremy tried to convince Camila, Edward noticed how Camila was comfortable with Jeremy, a trait that he thought Camila only possessed with him.

“I guess, she has found her Edward at Stanford.” Yara whispered at Edward, making him look away and at the stage.

“She has a knack for helping lonely guys, I guess.” She further spilled on her theory and Jessica jumped in.

“She doesn’t get along with girls but the way she interacts with boys, one can clearly tell that she is a whore.”

Edward decided to ignore everything that Jessica and Yara had to say about Camila and gave one final look at the girl in question for one final time and suddenly all of his guilt was washed away as Jessica and Yara’s toxic words worked in his mind and he realized that the two were perhaps right about Camila, she seemed quite comfortable with Jeremy.

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Trust me, everything you guys are reading now, is going to become huge and important as the story will proceed.

You guys requested for Camila's story, so I am trying my best to not to disappoint you guys.

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