Tongue Tied (Camren)

19.

Lauren didn't show up at school for the entire week following. Camila's eyes seemed to be constantly glued to the door, hoping that the familiar dark locks would appear, yet was bitterly disappointed with each class that dragged by in a monotonous blur. Even Dinah, usually bursting with personality, was unusually quiet as her attempts to visit Lauren were of no use and her worries confessed to Camila were returned with only teary eyes.

Camila's concern mounted with every minute that ticked by on the outdated, plastic clock that sat askew in the classroom wall, a dusty object that was so often overlooked by students who were in favour of their smart phones. Camila's mind in those lost hours, drifted to the darkest place possible, it seemed to insist that Lauren had been rushed to hospital and was internally bleeding to death while she sat ignorant to her girlfriend's precarious health. These morbid thoughts haunted her mind and yet she was too afraid to show up at her door after their last confrontation; she wouldn't know what state she would be in if she were refused entry at the front door.

The words that were exchanged between the two girls that night played on a constant torturous loop, that Camila continually overthought upon. The large pit in her stomach was over-brimming with guilt from every word that spilled forth from her lips, for every adamant insistence that Lauren share the truth despite her girlfriend quite obviously communicating her discomfort on the topic. She felt mentally and physically drained as consequence of such daunting thoughts that weighed heavily upon her mind, and she hadn't even yet begun to entertain the suggestion that their short relationship had already come to a sudden end.

By Friday, Camila was a utter anxious wreck. She barely got through the school day, on the verge of mental collapse, and by the end was ready to grab a pint of ice-cream to resume her tear-fest; that is, until the phone rang. A familiar frantic voice cut though to her ears, babbling away faster than Camila could keep up with. Clara Jauregui was beside herself, her palpable concern evident in her phone manner without even taking into account her words. Apparently Lauren was in a similar state to Camila and had been refusing to communicate with anybody for the entire week. Her mother, naturally, was extremely worried as Lauren wouldn't answer any of her questions, leading her to correctly believe that something had transpired between her daughter and the eldest Cabello child.

Clara believed that although her daughter was too stubborn to acknowledge anyone, that seeing Camila would force them to talk out their issues. She was afraid that Lauren would once again lose the strength and will to live, and the last thing that she wanted was her daughter in the hospital once again, or worse. So Camila was her only hope in extracting Lauren from the shell that she had retreated within. So it was with this request that brought Camila Cabello before Lauren Jauregui's bedroom door the next day.

With her eyebrows furrowed and her hand curled into a fist, posed to knock upon the firm oak, she found that her body was frozen as if petrified by a basilisk's indirect stare. Her mind ran amuck with doubts and fears and she tried to exercise some controlled breathing to help reduce the complete anxiety that overwhelmed her entire being. To say that she failed would be a complete understatement.

She rested her forehead against the cool wood, gasping for oxygen as a mini-panic attack began to seize her, latching onto the fears that swelled and multiplying them hundred-fold. She choked back the feeling, forcing it to temporarily abate as she focused on being brave enough to save Lauren from her inner-demons. It took a couple of minutes until she was able to regain enough strength and confidence to softly rap on the door.

She was not surprised when she was met with silence, and yet there was no noise at all; nothing to indicate that there was a living being on the other side of the door. She knocked significantly louder and waited, unnerved when the silence grew and there was no change. She grew increasingly conflicted, deliberating whether to barge in, to call out, or to just keep knocking in hope of a reply. She chose a combination of the three.