Anatomy Of Love (Camren Fanfiction)

Chapter 16 (Part 1)

Lauren winced at this, then bit her lower lip as she looked away. "Dinah, please..." she interrupted.

"Don't be shy, Laur..." Dinah stopped suddenly once she saw the vulnerable look in those green eyes.

Fighting for composure, Lauren tried to take another deep breath but her lungs just would not fill. She felt as though the walls were closing in around her. She needed to get out.

Now.

She slid past Dinah. "I didn't get the residency," Lauren whispered brokenly.

"Are you serious?" Dinah asked, brow furrowed. Her brown eyes were soft with worry.

Lauren nodded. "I just need some space. Please get Saunders to cover my patients." With that, she took off in a hurry toward the elevators.

Dinah's dark eyes widened as the shock settled in. Everyone in the room was following this conversation like they were at Wimbledon in the final match, but all eyes had landed on Dinah now, waiting breathlessly for an explanation.

Dinah awkwardly cleared her throat. "Uh, did anyone try the chicken?"she said with a forced smile. She walked towards the table to grab a plate. "The chicken seems really lovely."

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The fourteenth floor housed the hospital's medical library. With grand cathedral ceilings and sunlit stained-glass windows, the library's grandeur befitted a different era, a time when physicians consulted books for information. In the post-Internet days of online research, however, it was rare to find a living soul amongst the library's elegant two-story mahogany bookshelves.

Nearly four years ago, getting lost while looking for the orthopedic floor, Lauren had stumbled upon the medical library (it wasn't even included in the new student tour) and had been charmed by its quiet calm. It was an oasis of serenity amid the chaos and bustle of the other hospital floors.

Truthfully, it was also pretty much the only place in the entire building to which an employee could escape without being called, emailed, sent for or paged, due to the horrible wireless connection.

Lauren burst into the library, relieved to see that it was empty as always. She hurried past the librarian's desk en route to her favorite "thinking" spot: the Cardiac archives shelves in the far back corner of the medical library.

"Hello, Ms. Agnes," she said politely as she breezed by.

Agnes turned at the sound of Lauren's voice. Eighty years old, the librarian's vision wasn't the greatest. She smiled and waved in the wrong direction, addressing the air.

"Hello, Ms. Jauregui!" Agnes sweetly called out.

Lauren headed to the Archives section, and when she was safely tucked out of sight, she came to a stop. She leaned against the bookshelves and took a deep breath. And another.

Keep it together, she told herself. It wasn't the end of the world.

Before she could stop it, tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. She looked up at the ceiling. No, no, no, she would not do this. Not here, not now. She stood there for almost an hour, picking apart the reasons why she could have lost the residency. Lauren went through every case, every article, even pulled up her application to see if there was any discrepancy that she might have over looked. Things just didn't add up. It didn't make sense.

It was at that moment that Lauren heard Agnes call out in greeting to someone else. She peered through the bookshelves and saw her girlfriend standing at the entrance of the library. She had a frazzled look on her face, as if she rushed across the city searching for Lauren. Dinah must have called her, Lauren thought.