The Girl Nextdoor

Chapter 37

"Yes and it's sickening." I teased. "It starts to give me all these butterflies in here." I said pointing to my heart. "And sometimes my stomach starts to flutter."

"Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?" Lauren questioned with a smirk.

"Exactly."

She smiled like an idiot at this point.
"You're such a dork."

"I know. I've heard that before."

"You know I didn't mean it like-"

"-I know." I interrupted. "I was just pulling your strings."

She half smiled before she shook her head lightly. We sat in a comfortable silence. My arms wrapped around her fore arms as hers hugged around my stomatch. I closed my eyes briefly to enjoy the moment. I heard her soft breathing below me. It was relaxing, maybe even a bit soothing. It was like my own lullaby. It slowly caused me to drift off into a dreamlike state. And as I was about to fully drown into it, I heard her husky voice.

"Camz?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I...ask you something."

"Of course you can."

"What went through your head when you decided to take your life?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Lauren reiterated.

"Yeah nothing." I reassured her. "It was a very strange time for me." I reveled. "I used to spend all my time thinking. And when I wasn't, I kept replaying certain moments in my life that haunted me. Like I remember quite a few memories that would always find their way into my mind and even sometimes my dreams. And believe me I tried to make it stop. I tried to keep the memories from replaying, but they just... wouldn't stop. I tried to store them away like I always did but it came to the point where that didn't work anymore. And suddenly every little thing reminded me of those memories. It was torture. And on the day I was about to kill myself, I didn't even decide that I wanted to die." I said furrowing my brows,"I just decided that I didn't want to live anymore."

"..."

"Yeah." I assured myself. "That's what happened. And nothing was going through my head to stop me. It wasn't even a thought. I just felt like I didn't want to live anymore. And I didn't even take a second to consider the consequences."

"And do you still feel like that now?"

"No. Not since I met you."

Lauren half smiled before it faded into a frown. She sat there thoughtfully as her eyes stayed glued to the wall in front of us. She just stared at it; Blankly and emotionless. I felt her tense a bit before she shook her head lightly and spoke again," It happens to me too, you know."

"What does?"

"The memories." She clarified, "Sometimes I pretend they never happened and they go away. But other times, I can't make them leave. It's like they have a mind of their own. Like they control me and sometimes I really can't take it." Lauren vaguely but painfully reveled.

"How often do you get them?"

"Before, practically never. But yesterday, something changed. Now I see them almost every time I close my eyes. They're always there; just waiting for me to take my guard down. And when I do... I start to see things that I don't want to see. They're not even memories anymore, I'm starting to hallucinate. It's like the beginning all over again." Her voice almost quivered.

"The beginning?"

"Yeah, just after it happened. A few years ago, things began to get really bad for me. Those memories used to replay themselves in my head every waking second. And most of the time, I slept. It was the only place where everything went away. And after a while it became my escape. But with time and my ignorance, I had eventually forgotten. For a long time. But I'm not going to lie, there were those few days in which they came back but I had gotten very good at ignoring it. And I always thought that I would be able to do that. But now it's not working anymore. And I don't know what to do. I hate even thinking about it and when I see the pictures in my head, it just... messes me up." She explained.