How Are You True?

Chapter 45: Don't Forget Me

A/N: Ahhh don't you just loooove foreshadowing? Use your brains please for this one and see what you come up with, merci beaucoup.

***

"No...please don't do that. No. No. You can't...you...wait..."

Engulfed in darkness. But through it, an aqua light shining through the crack beneath the door in the distance. Blaire continued down the hall, tip toeing down the glossy marble floor, dreadfully wary and a little hesitant. She tightened her small cobalt blue blanket wrapped around her the closer she got to her mother's room—air conditioning on full blast. She trembled but mainly from fear.

"Nnngh...mmm...mmmnoooo." Moaning, blubbering, sobbing and slurring. "No...no. NO."

Blaire gently pushed open the door not closed entirely and stepped into the aqua lit master bedroom. Hesitation increased. She debated going farther to check on her mom writhing in bed, in agony.

"CAMILA!? Camila!" Lauren shot up and flailed around, screaming, throwing the bedsheets over her with a heaving chest and a pool of sweat covering her spot. She didn't notice Blaire's small figure some feet away, shaking, wide eyed and clutching her blanket. Lauren's shoulders shook as she buried her face in her hands and wailed hysterically, hyperventilating. She kicked and kicked, fell back into her satin pillows clutching her heart as if it were there for her to yank out her chest, unleashing all the merciless pain raining down on her. "Fuck!"

"Mommy?" Blaire softly called to her.

Through a blurry ocean, Lauren made out her four year old shuffling toward her. She wiped her reddened eyes and sniffled, her breathing shallow and through her mouth. Lauren opened her arms and Blaire immediately leaped for the bed, scrambling against the higher up mattress, then threw herself into her mother's arms. Lauren enveloped her in a tight embrace, grasping at the back of her curly hair as she continued to cry through chattering clenched teeth.

This was the fourth time this week.

***

Blaire watched Lauren behave normally as if these last six days didn't consist of her waking up at 2 or 4am screaming herself out of a bad dream, or in hysterics crying at random moments when she and Catalina were still awake playing. She waited for Lauren to acknowledge these strange occurrences and explain herself but she just...didn't. Like right now, the former CEO was standing over a large pot of Cuban chicken soup with a burning CBD cigarette in her mouth, stirring and offering Catalina a taste to see if it was to her liking while also shouting out demands to Winston typing on a tablet. Catalina was sick and looked sick, Lauren was sick (in a way) but didn't look sick—she looked completely sane and in good condition, which confused Blaire. She couldn't tell if her mother was acting or not. The more she observed, the more questions she had.

"December is that little window of opportunity to get her, she doesn't work for a while. The start of the second week of the month up until the next, get an evening flight to Charles de Guelle and book us a stay at a hotel around Champs-Élysées...La Réserve maybe. Yeah, that one as a matter of fact. Check the private booking for Vaux-le-Vicomte, we're renewing our vows there instead—"

"Not Versailles?"

"No. We'll visit with the kids but we want to start over and do things differently. Vaux-le-Vicomte it is. And once the ceremony is over, be sure to have a jet waiting for us to arrive alone together at St. Tropez with the car of my choice that'll take us to the villa I already rented. It's very important that you plan it all with impeccable timing aligning with my wife's preferred hours of the day."

"Sure, that'll be no problem, Mrs. Jauregui. And it'll just be you, Mrs. Cabello-Jauregui, all three kids, Alejandro and his girlfriend Naomi, Miss Sosa and Chris with his fiancée Aya, correct? No friends of yours?"