POWER TRIP

Chapter Sixteen

    The model sighed again at her fighter's words. It would be so easy to let go of all her inhibitions, but there was an evil voice repeating in her head that everyone eventually leaves. Especially the ones I let in. She wasn't ready for Lauren to know how damaged she was. But by this point she had little choice, as her body started to tremble with emotion. Soon her sobs would consume the air around them if she continued this way. "I want so much to be able to believe that."

    "You don't have to believe it until I can prove it." Lauren's gauze clad fingers tucked a stray hair behind the small girl's ear, taking in just how vulnerable her state was. Over the past while, it had always been about her, that she didn't do feelings, that she didn't do... love. But no one had thought of how Camila had been feeling throughout the whole ordeal. No one had asked if this was something she did.

    "You know that story I told you about the sun and the moon? How no matter how much they loved each other, they could never be?" Camila nodded slightly as the sobs took over her small frame while latching herself onto the professional fighter.

    "I've been thinking about it a lot lately. How when I told you that I believed that you were the sun and I was the moon, and no matter how many nights I craved you, when the morning came you'd be gone again." Easy Lauren, come on. "But then I started to realize that there's something that happens every once in a while; an eclipse. When the sun and the moon can finally touch and there is no longer that unfathomable distance between them." She paused once more to steady her heartbeat and gather the next words she'd say. "And after that I started to think that, if I could have you as close as possible for just a moment, I'd spend an eternity waiting for another."

   "I just, Lo, I don't do this. I don't let people in... Everyone leaves, everyone. And I don't know if I could survive loosing you." Camila looked up into Lauren's eyes and saw a burning love in her emerald irises. It brought her enormous comfort, but also shook her to her very core.

    I'm not good enough for this. As that thought ran through her cloudy mind, the tears finally began to escape from her caramel-chocolate eyes. A heavy and seemingly endless stream ran down her high cheekbones and continued down her chiselled jawline to the base of her neck.

   They were silent tears. Terrifying in their existence because it seemed that all of the young brunette's emotions were pouring from her eyes. That she had been holding in the doubt for so long that it took over her entire being. Her chest caved in with wracking sobs, and her arms started to shiver violently. Her breathing became so laboured that Lauren worried she might pass out if it continued.

   Being so caught up in her state of panic, Camila almost didn't feel the fighter's callused fingertips wipe the tears away as she held the smaller girl's head in her hands. Lauren searched for the brown-eyed girl's eyes and once she found them, she leaned in and pressed their foreheads together softly.

   "Usted es más que suficiente, mi corazón." The fighter whispered softly, debating on closing the small distance between them. Camila's body suddenly stopped shaking as she allowed herself to drown in Lauren's emerald pools. Had the fighter really just spoken her insecurities aloud, and deemed them untrue?

    "Lo," Camila grabbed the fighter's hands and took a good look at them for the first time since they got home. "Your hands are raw, come on, I need to clean them up." The young model went to stand, but the green-eyed woman pulled her back down.

    "Just let me hold you for a minute before we re-enter our reality that's full of cheating assholes, bloody knuckles, and nauseating concussions please." Lauren looked down to the girl and pleaded silently. "I want to be able to revisit this moment when things get shitty." She smirked warmly.