Love itself is just as innocent as roses in May

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Her smile vanished. She raised an eyebrow. She couldn't tell if she was concerned, confused, both maybe probably.

But she wasn't confused. Camilla knew him. It was like she expected- at least what she should have expected.

"You... still want to make it to the end?"

[Maraoone]

"Yeah."

He grabbed his arm with his hand, rubbing his elbow this time. His eyes stayed stuck to the ground.

If she rejected him, he didn't want to see her face when she did so.

His body swayed slightly. Hunger pangs rang through him.

Everything hurt so much already.

"I... I really don't want to die, Cam."

He left another question unasked, one whose answer scared him.

You don't?

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Camilla tried to breathe in deeply but her chest felt tight, and it didn't help that she reached over and grabbed her arm, but it was fine, it would all be fine, it would all be over soon.

Of course that was Diego's answer, he told her as much. But he didn't understand. Of course it was instinct to live. Maybe when she stared down death she'd fight it, but she'd be ashamed of herself if she did. But winning?

Winning was...

"Well... if you want me to help you get there, I guess... I won't say you misunderstood me. But going into a bit more depth?"

She started pacing again, all casual like, for no reason at all, soon to finish the circle she starting walking, around Diego.

"I wanted us all to be together again. When Drew died... well, nothing would ever be the same, not when one of us would never come back, you understand?"

Back when she first read 1984, she had trouble wrapping her head around the concept of doublethink. On a conceptual level, she eventually grasped it. But now?

She took a few steps closer to the shovel now, but kept her focus on Diego, took a step closer to the shovel.

Because she was pacing, of course. For no reason at all. Blame it on the nerves.

"I wanted Theo to be with Declyn and Drew, and I guess... no, I know I wanted to be with them."

She stopped, and looked up to the sky. Away from the shovel, that she had been approaching, but only as a coincidence, of course.

"At the lighthouse, I was so tempted to do just that- join them. Jump off the edge. But..."

For a moment, Camilla froze. Her breath shook, as she exhaled slowly. Her voice shook, too.

"Understand two things- home for me, is where my heart is, my heart is with the people I consider family."

She finally turned her head away from the sky that she could barely register and back to Diego, her voice taking on a tone of desperation. "Second- winning is a trap."

Quickly, she turned, leaned down and grabbed the shovel, and spun back around to face Diego.

It was lighter, of course. She grasped the handle tightly, even as her hands shook.

"I won't let you fall to it."

[Maraoone]

The answer came anyways. It had hurt as much as he expected, at first.

His last friend, his last hope, wanted to die. She didn't even want to help him. His nails dug into his elbow.

He'd been so focused on every word she said, every movement, that he didn't notice where she was heading.

Not until her voice changed.

"Wh-"

Diego's eyes widened. His blood ran cold.

He lunged for Cam, arms grabbing onto the shovel handle.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

She was about to swing the shovel at Diego's neck, but he grabbed on before Camilla could do that. Her heart leapt into her throat, and instinctively, she pulled at it, but his grip was stronger than anticipated.

"It's a trap- it's..."

In attempt to loosen his grip, she suddenly shoved the weapon forward, before pulling back at it again.

He had to know it was empty, whatever came after this, if he won. Because everyone else was gone. How could it not be hollow, empty?

"It's not living!"

[Maraoone]

Diego was shoved, yanked forward a few steps by Cam. But he held his footing, held onto the shovel.

"Then what is?"

He pulled back on the shovel and reared back his leg, kicked Cam in the gut.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Diego's answer caught Camilla off guard, though she kept pulling at the shovel. She didn't foresee getting kicked in the gut though. She stumbled, and a gasp escaped her lips as her foot landed back on the ground, and she steadied herself again- a few steps involuntarily gone forward notwithstanding.

Camilla forced herself to look Diego in the eye.

"Do you want to go back, where people know and miss only the you who went on the trip?"

She tightened her grip on the shovel, once more.

"Where everyone who could have loved and understood you is gone?!"

Camilla strongly tugged, once more.

[Maraoone]

The last pull toppled him. He didn't, couldn't let go of the shovel, however. He fell forward towards the shovel, towards Cam, and brought them both down, Diego falling on top of her.

They were both on the ground now, shovel still held horizontal between them, tight. The blade was inches away from both their throats.

He gulped. His muscles burned.

"Wh-what does it matter?"

He felt sweaty again. His hands were losing friction.

"I was moving. You guys would've been gone anyways."


Before he joined the gardening club, Diego hadn't even known how to use a shovel. He had an idea of it, obviously, but he had lived in a second-floor apartment his entire life. They had no garden, or even a balcony. Cam had been the one to teach him to keep his feet apart. To keep his grip on the very end of the handle, for maximum leverage. To plunge the shovel into the soil at a 30-degree angle, for efficiency. He'd been trying to dig wells in the soil to plant corn, if he remembered correctly. It was their first meeting. His feet had been together, and he'd been gripping the middle of the handle. And, she'd seen him slowly digging out the soil, granule by granule, and tapped him on the shoulder, bemused smile on her face. But, she didn't laugh, or even poke fun at him for not knowing something so basic. She taught him, answered his questions patiently. He didn't feel judged when she was around. He felt like himself. He felt safe.

Funny, that.


The shovel wavered in both their grasps.

"Let go, Cam. Please."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

They fell.

All Camilla could do now was focus on keeping the shovel's blade away from her neck, pushing it away, because if she stopped pushing it would-

-it would be over. Just like that. And it couldn't be over, not yet.

She didn't let go. But she laughed nervously, as she registered what Diego had said, in full.

"Funny. I was moving too."

The other three died without her ever telling them, because what did it matter, hm? Any hopes she had about moving out, going to Knoxville, had been dashed when they woke up on the island. Briefly, she wondered where Diego was planning to go.

But it didn't matter anymore.

She kicked at Diego, and tried to push him off by pushing the shovel forward- its blade lurched, slicing across Diego's arm.

[Maraoone]

He hissed through clenched teeth. He almost let go, almost, but he held on.

He looked her in the eye.


Cam had been the first member of the gardening club he'd met. It had been tenth grade, he was desperate to find a club to join, any club. And, he'd walked over to their recruitment stall because why not? Plants looked nice. And, he talked to her, and he asked if they accepted those with no prior gardening knowledge. He'd been nervous about that question. He'd been prepared to walk away, say a quick goodbye, just in case she said no. But, she didn't. She smiled, wide, said they were open to anyone willing to learn. And, he'd smiled back, said his thanks, wrote his name on the sign-up sheet. He'd been willing to do anything, as long as someone would have him.

She had been a safe place for Diego. Guys had always scared him, for some reason. Even Declyn and Drew and Theo scared him, deep down. She understood him, however. Even if Diego had never been fully honest about himself with others, she understood how hard it was to talk to other people. How, sometimes, there wasn't anything left to say in a conversation, and that was OK. And, she'd been his way into the club. She'd been the one to introduce him to the others, to break the ice for him. And, eventually, he started talking to the others of his own accord. For the first time in years, perhaps, he had people he could call friends. Four of them. It had felt nice.


It was just the two of them, now.

They became almost still for a few seconds: Diego leaning onto Cam, the blade between them inching closer and closer to her. He felt her breath, shaky. Blood dripped from his arm, onto her neck. Eyes locked onto each other.

If he let go, if he let her have the shovel, the blade would be in his neck. She'd bring him 'home.' He didn't want to go home. He wanted her with him. He needed someone to protect him, and he needed to protect someone. It didn't matter that she killed Theo, it didn't matter that she was trying to kill him right now. She'd moved past his sins, he could move past hers. He would forgive her like she'd forgiven him, and then she could be Diego's safe place, and he would be hers. It would be OK, they'd be OK, everything would be OK, as long as she just

"Let go. Cam, let go. We can- we don't have to do this, Cam, don't make me do this, Cam, please."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

When she first learned how to sew, Camilla would cry out and whine over every little prick of the needle, and at some point, her mother just stopped indulging her requests for a band-aid. She remembered the day she looked down at the white cloth and saw a tiny red stain on it, and looked to her finger, a bead of blood on it. But the sensation of blood on her neck right now was both familiar and startlingly alien.

Diego stared at her too intently, and her eyes darted away. Demanded so much. Her knuckles were white.

But none of it was unreasonable, not from his perspective, but he didn't understand because the only way to go home that involved seeing his friends again wasn't the one he was going for. Diego had to die, because he had to be happy.

She drew in a deep breath.

She just wanted them all to be happy.

Even though Theo looked so panicked and horrified, and Diego looked so-

It started sounding like a lecture. Like the start of a long, scolding lecture.

"I only wanted..."

But her voice lowered to a whisper, and her eyes wider, as it dawned on her.

"...what I thought was best for you."

Her grasp loosened and she closed her eyes.

She stopped trying to push the blade away from her neck.

[Maraoone]

Diego's weight, and nothing else, pushed onto the shovel. His eyes stayed locked on hers as the blade pushed diagonally into her throat, sliding its way in deeper and deeper. Her face went blurry, his eyes felt wet.

Except for the gurgling, it was silent.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Auntie told her to breathe, when she was scared.

But she couldn't breathe. Whenever she tried to, whenever instinct tried to make her breathe, more blood sputtered onto her neck.

Her eyes flew open in shock, but only for a fleeting moment could she see Diego's face, before her vision started to fade.

She remembered meeting Diego at a club fair, the tinge of nervousness in his voice when he asked if the gardening club was open to beginners. And in a strange way, she felt a kinship towards that then-stranger. In the end, was she able to say she was happy Diego joined? Of course she was.

Because she loved him.

She'd thrown that word around so much in the past few days, when just a month before the trip she agonized over what she meant by it. On the island, there wasn't time for that. Camilla felt what she felt, and that had to be proof enough. Though in those days she wished she could look into other people's minds, and feel what they feel, so she could compare what they called love to her own perception.

It'd been a... not a dark day when she found out Julien had a crush on Wyatt's girlfriend, the red haired one who was obsessed with guns, though she wasn't exactly proud of him then. But she accepted it, because who was she to interfere in his life? And maybe that attitude was the reason she didn't know about Sierra whatsit earlier, if that was even the truth. It didn't matter, though. Even if Julien loved them, it changed nothing about their friendship. And Camilla liked to think, even if red-hair-gun-girl or anyone loved him romantically, they didn't love him the way Camilla did.

Camilla was friends with Declyn, and knew that his love life... existed. And that was the extent of it, though she heard him and Cecil were an official thing, actually boyfriend and boyfriend, towards the end of the school year. She was more fine with all of that regarding Declyn, or maybe she just didn't have as much proof that Declyn had abjectly terrible taste. After all, it was fine for the same reasons. No matter who flitted into and out of Declyn's life, they didn't love him the way Camilla did.

The concept of there being different types of love was a relieving and fascinating one, and she remembered thinking about the four loves, where the love she felt for her friends would fit into it- logically, under philia. But storge made more sense to her on an intuitive level. Camilla supposed the truth, like most things in life, was something of a mix of the two. One concept caught her attention the most though- unconditional love, agape. She'd never dare describe anything she felt as agape, she wasn't about to pretend she was that pure. It was a nice idea to strive to, though.

And she failed. She failed horribly.

Because ultimately, what she did wouldn't make anyone happy. Even if she was able to join the gardening club again like she so desperately wanted, what would they think of her? There was no way Theo would want to be around her anymore. She had a hard time believing Declyn or Drew would forgive it either. But it was fine, for them anyway. Why? Because Camilla wouldn't join them.

She was going to hell.

She was going to hell and she'd be all alone there. Camilla had no one but herself to blame. This was the last time she'd see Diego, and the last time she saw Theo, would ever see Theo, was when she killed him and damned herself.

One last time-

Through the sting of air and metal overwhelming the senses, Camilla mouthed the words-

"I love you."

It wasn't a pure love. It was a selfish one, and she selfishly wanted someone to say I love you too and mean it the way she meant it. But she wouldn't get that.

Everything slipped away, like raindrops off her fingers, and she didn't hear or see anything resembling a response before it did.

But it was okay. She didn't deserve it anyway.

G010 - DEAD

[Camilla Bell loved to death. 50 students remain.]

[Maraoone]

Long after Cam had stopped pushing, wriggling, breathing, Diego stayed straddled on top of her, leaning onto the shovel, frozen. Saltwater dripped from his face onto hers, mingling with and sinking into the river of blood that had formed.

He fell off her, to her side away from the blade, only because his muscles had nothing left to give. There was a stickiness against his back, different from the sweat that had coated him for so long.

He turned his face towards Cam, there was a squelching as he did so; her eyes were fixed towards the sky, wide in shock, but she was still looking at him, somehow.

She'd been waiting for an answer, before she died. He was supposed to answer her. Either say he loved her too, or he didn't. The former felt like a lie, the latter felt like a knife.

"I–"


"I'm so– I'm sorry."

His arms wrapped around her limp body. He buried his head in her shoulder, his body wracked with sobs.

"I'm so sorry, Cam."

There was no reply.

He'd never felt so alone.

((Diego Larrosa continues in Will All Be Forgiven?))