Me Without You

"But you love her more."

So with one last glance, one last lingering of eyes, Camila started for Lucy's front door and slipped through it knowing very well that Lauren wasn't going to stop her.

You sort of just know when something in your life is broken without so much as showing a single sign of a crack. It's like...picking up a vase and watching it shatter in your hands and just...predicting it will but without any physical signs of pre-warning. No cracks, no chips...just the imminent shattering of a flawless vase.

Lauren walked through the door of her girlfriend's house and she'd never felt so heavy.

And Keana saw her walk in from the lounge and sort of knew she had to speak up for Lauren to know where she was but she couldn't.

Because Lauren had walked into the house and she'd just stopped in the entry and her eyes were focused directly in front of her and Keana didn't know how to talk to the person she'd fallen in love with for the past year and a half.

And it was confronting and painful.

Because Keana knew.

She knew without knowing how or why.

But she knew the second Lauren walked through her front door...that the life she'd pictured for them was over.

And then she physically saw it happening as Lauren just stood there, still unaware of Keana's eyes watching her every move...or lack thereof.

Keana saw how she lost Lauren as the green-eyed girl's shoulders slumped and her fists clenched and unclenched and how there was a tension in Lauren's body that had never been there before.

Keana sort of knew that Camila's entrance would bring about the end of her relationship. Part of her kind of accepted that the second she saw Lauren lock eyes with the ex-love of her life.

And then, as if finally sensing the heavy gaze that had fallen on her, Lauren turned to her side and caught Keana's golden brown eyes with her own and she saw the look of betrayal cross her girlfriend's eyes.

And Lauren knew that Keana knew.

"I kissed Camila." Lauren confessed anyways, because lies had abandoned her and she felt she owed Keana that at the very least. "And I promised you that I wouldn't let her change us but she did."

"It was always her." Keana nodded slowly, not quite understanding...but not completely struck by the knowledge either.

"I do love you."

"But you love her more."

And there was no point in denying it really, Lauren knew that. Keana would see straight through her lies and it wouldn't really save either one of them the hurt.

"What do I do?" Lauren took a step towards the woman who had shown her more love and commitment than anyone had her entire life.

"I don't know," Keana felt the sting of a tear leave her eye and slowly drip down her cheek. "But I know what I have to do."

"Fight for me." It was halfhearted, Lauren knew it.

"It's a losing battle." Keana shook her head. "I knew it from the moment I met you. I saw it the day you told me you wanted more than friendship. I was always going to be second to her."

"Then why?"

"I never indulged the idea that she'd come back." Keana managed a small shrug. "I figured...as long as she stayed away, I would be enough for you."

"You were...are."

"We don't lie to each other, Lauren," Keana sighed. "Let's not start now, okay?"