Life With You

The day I tasted freedom

"Because you love her the same." Lauren nodded, having accepted this information for a while now. "It's how I know you'll stay. If not for me, then for her."

"I'll stay for both of you," Camila looked to Lauren for only a second. "For my small family, hell, I'll even stay for Ash."

"She's family to you." Lauren spoke it...not so much as a question, but there was a hint of shock in her tone.

"She is," Camila nodded. "She's Lia's mom, she's your ex-wife and she's my...friend...but I feel like it's more than that. I feel like she's supposed to be in my life, you know? We're all supposed to be in each other's lives." Camila found her letting out a soft chuckle. "Plus I've got her blessing."

"What? To have me?" Lauren arched a brow curiously.

"To one day...maybe adopt Lia as mine as well." The brunette spoke with hesitancy, not sure how her love would take that tid bit of information.

"Wow," Lauren kept her eyes settled on the road ahead but her mind was racing. "Would you want that?"

"One day," Camila nodded slowly. "Pending your trust in me and us and my readiness to commit to being a mother."

"You already are," Lauren scoffed, earning a frown from the brunette. "You don't even know it because it happened slowly, but you're an amazing mom, Camz. To that little girl, you are a great mother. She loves you like you are as well."

"You think?" A warmth began to spread throughout the brunette's entire body, a happiness she hadn't allowed herself to believe in until that very moment.

"I'm surprised you agreed to leave the hospital with me."

"Everything in me is telling me to turn the car around so just don't talk about it," Camila smiled over to her girlfriend. "Fuck, I am a mother."

"It's why I was more than a little tempted to accept your proposal, because I know how we all could be. Because I know I've found my perfect in you. Because I know my daughter will have the best mothers."

"I'm still marrying you one day, Jauregui," Camila winked playfully. "It's not a matter of if anymore, it's a matter of when."

"Even if I'm a walking mess?"

"Would you love me less?"

"I never did."

"There's your answer." Camila pulled the car over, confusing the green-eyed woman as she looked to see only trees on either side of the road. "Come on, let's go on the most unconventional date ever."

"We don't even have food," Lauren looked up at the sky as she slipped out of the car. "And I'm pretty sure it's gonna pour down soon."

Camila rounded the car and offered her hand, raising a brow as if challenging Lauren's faith in her. But because the green-eyed woman couldn't for a moment entertain the idea of her love ever wavering for the woman before her, she took her hand. Placing every bit of trust she had in the woman before her and knowing she wouldn't be misled. It was liberating; to know with absolute certainty that her trust wasn't misplaced.

With Ashley she had always been a little hesitant. Worried about the future because of the woman's spontaneity but it was different with Camila. She couldn't hold back her feelings with the woman and she didn't want to.

She knew with absolute certainty that she could live without Camila but never did she ever want to again.

The pair walked through the trees until they came to a clearing that dipped to the edge of a cliff but not before saving room for a small patch of grass.

"After Matthew you took me to the beach because you wanted me to see the world again but you didn't want to force me." Camila watched as Lauren's eyes widened. "I want to show you the world, Lauren, always, but I want to show you to the world when we're all ready. When you're ready to be seen by it and not a second before. So I'll let this small portion of the world see you for now, because it'd be selfish of me not to."

A ray of sunlight beamed through the clouds and glistened onto the water below them, like crystals dancing on the wet surface.

"And I want you to scream." Camila began shrugging her jacket off. "I want you to scream at the world for what it allowed to happen to our little girl, for what it allowed to happen to our father. Because you lost him the same day I did and you are as angry as I am for what our daughter is currently facing."

"Our daughter," Lauren spoke softly, her eyes finding Camila's. "She's yours."

"I want forever with both of you, a forever with just you isn't enough for me anymore." Camila smiled gently. "You are the love of my life, Lauren, but you and Natalia together...you're my soulmates. It's how I know she'll make it. I can't believe in a life that would threaten my soul to be torn twice in one lifetime." Camila watched as Lauren began to tie her hair back. "So yell."

And she did.

Lauren's voice took over every sound that could be heard for miles. Her voice travelled over the sea and through the beam of sunlight and it tore at Camila's heart as she screamed her pain away. As she cursed out the world around her, as she cussed at the red string of fate...as she swore with everything in her that she would find the Fates themselves and tear them apart if anything were to happen to their little girl.

And when she couldn't scream anymore, Camila chimed in and gave Lauren the voice she'd lost. Camila yelled with everything in her. She didn't care of she tore her vocal cords or if she forever ruined her throat, no, she couldn't care. Because in that moment, she felt...free.

And when the rain decided to grace them, she was quick to put her jacket over head and usher Lauren back to the car only to find the green-eyed woman shaking her head and sitting down. She proceeded to lay down and let the rain pelt down on her tired body.

"What are you doing?" Camila called out over the rain.

"Washing it all away." The older woman smiled as she spoke.

And Camila thought that Lauren could not have looked more beautiful than in that moment, washing away all the pain and hurt and loneliness she'd ever felt while she stood on watching.

Lauren had always been the most naturally beautiful creature Camila had ever come to know and in that moment, it served as proof. Lauren was as beautiful as the rain, as striking as that first green sprout of growth after fire had purified a forest.

Lauren was ethereal.

Camila retrieved her phone to capture the moment but her eyes soon found a message that brought her back to their reality.

She's out of surgery.