Camila's POV
"Lauren wait!" I could hear Ally at the end of the hall. From my bedroom door, I saw her block the brunette from leaving.
"Will you please move!" Lauren screamed, but each way that she went, my roommate jumped in front of her. I was stilled; standing at my door. My bare feet frozen to the hardwood. My chest exploding, my breath was hectic, my eyes burning, and my ears were ringing as Matt Healy's voice still filtered throughout the room from my phone, on the nightstand.
It's like my body wouldn't allow me to chase after her; it wouldn't allow me to follow her to the door and beg for her to stay only to have her turn around and see the look in her eyes change from adoration to fear that the girl she had been falling for, she no longer knows.
"No!" Ally shouted back but Lauren shoved past her and practically sprinted away. I wondered, in my muddled mind, how Ally had known to be waiting to stop Lauren's escape the moment she ran out of my room.
Had she heard the screaming? Had she heard the brunette shout in a deep rasp as she was losing faith, who are you? I prefaced the conversation by saying that I'd understand if she wanted nothing to do with me once she knew the truth, but now that we're here, I don't want her to go.
"Don't leave," I whisper but no one hears. Ally's standing in front of the door now, her arms stretched out; a small barricade from allowing Lauren to exit the apartment. She throws her hands on her hips, her long, unruly hair brushing against the top of her jeans, and I still smell Vanilla. I'm drowning in it. I fear that it will forever linger on the sheets now, taunting me with what I'll never have.
I'm such an idiot to have told her.
No. She needed to know.
I'm such an idiot for starting something with her at all.
I'd rather not have anything with Lauren than to have it end badly.
"Why shouldn't I leave?" her voice is loud and it booms, echoing to me. I latch on to it and savor the sound of it, wondering if I'll ever hear it again.
"Because what you know is not everything," Ally's voice is grounded. "You don't know what happened that night."
Lauren shook her head. "I don't need to know anything else! She lied to me!"
"She didn't," Ally defended.
Stop defending me I want to scream from half-an-apartment away. Let her leave if that's what she wants, and it clearly is.
"If she's lying about anything, it's when she says that what has happened to her is her fault. Because it's not Lauren."
It is, I think.
"It's not?" Lauren's voice lowers.
Ally shakes her head.
It is, I say again.
"It's not. I promise," my roommate argues. I watch the rise and fall of the brunette's back as she takes a heavy breath. Ally reaches over placing her hand on the bend of Lauren's arm, comfortingly. "Let her explain. Before you run away and completely write her off, let her tell you the full story, and then you can decide," she searches her gray eyes for a response. "Okay?" she asks when she doesn't get one.
A few seconds later, she nods her head.
"Don't leave," Ally insists walking around her and back toward where I'm still frozen in the doorway of my room. She stops at the end of the hallway, motioning for me but I don't dare move. I don't want to tell her what happened that night. I don't want her to be even more disappointed in me than she already is.
I shake my head, no but Ally steps closer. She lowers her voice until it's almost inaudible over the ringing in my ears and the music. "Tell her Camila," she begs. "It could mean keeping her." Or it could mean losing her for good. "Please?" she cries out as if it's her relationship to lose.
I shake my head again but she insists. "Prove to her that you're not a monster. Prove to her that it wasn't your fault because right now, that's what she thinks. Go!" her voice raises as she tugs on my arm. I stumble against gravity but quickly pull my wrist free from my roommate's hand.
"She'll hate me even more," I say meant only for Ally's ears but Lauren replies.
"I won't."
Tears bite at my eyes and I wire them shut but they're not enough to withhold their escape, like Ally had done Lauren. My roommate reaches up and brushes them away from my cheeks. I hear her voice again say my name. She's standing at the end of the hallway, her head resting on the doorframe. Her arms are folded across her chest and it feels like she's already shutting me out.
"I can't," I say. I hadn't retold that night since the phone call with Ally on the drive home from the hospital. I don't want to relive it because it's only a reminder of the mess that I'm in.
I hear her boots against the hardwood. My roommate steps out of the way, allowing her to occupy the narrow space directly in front of me. I shut my eyes tightly again, forcing the stagnant tears down my cheeks in rushes. When she speaks, her warm breath against my lips, I feel them evaporating from my skin. "Please, Camila," she begs now but five minutes ago, she wanted nothing to do with me.
I shake my head. "You don't want to hear," I whisper at first because it's all I can manage. "You're just going to walk away still. What's the point?" I shout now, and she reaches over trailing her fingertips down my forearm.
"I wasn't walking away, Camila."
I open my eyes. Her face is blurry but I can still recognize the emotion so clearly written there. "I'm so scared," she whispers. "Of losing you. Especially now that I know the truth. I'm terrified," she admits honestly. "That wasn't me walking away. That was me fearing losing something that I so desperately need in my life."
She reaches up with the back of her knuckles wiping a tear that has stilled on my lip. Her touch lights a fire that's misplaced in the moment, but it's a reminder of what I've got to lose now. "Please tell me?" she begs again, and I don't know how long I stand there without speaking but it feels like an eternity before I hesitantly nod my head, agreeing to retell that night, the one that haunts me every time I close my eyes.
I leave her standing in the hallway, as I walk back into my room, sitting down on the bed. She quickly follows along and occupies the desk chair, turning it to face me as I drag my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs as a form of comfort.
I watch as Ally closes the door behind us, and I open my mouth to speak and at first it won't even form a sound, but she encourages me to try again as she leans foreword putting her elbows against her knees, looking up at me through a hooded gaze.
So I do and this time the words clearly fall from my lips.
***
"Camila, stop screaming! Tell me what's wrong?" I held the phone shakily to my ear, and each time I breathed, I could smell the bitterness of blood and alcohol laced within the interior of my car, and my white t-shirt. My left knee bounced as the right pressed the gas pedal to the floor, taking the curvy roads back to my apartment. I couldn't form any other sound with my mouth, my tongue, other than screams that were far better than the silence that I feared would be deafening. "Camila!" Ally shouted again. "Where are you? What's going on?" I didn't expect to tell her everything over the phone, I just thought hearing her voice would keep me alert enough until I made it home.
She was standing in the parking garage when I had. She immediately flung open the door. I let the hand holding the device to my ear fall and looking in, her eyes went wide at the sight of red stains covering every inch of the front seat, including me. She reached over my lap, putting the car in park, which I had forgotten to do, and she turned off the ignition.
"Camila?" her voice was shaking and she kept taking overdramatic gulps as she fumbled with the seatbelt. She had to practically pull me out of the car and it was so reminiscent of what I had to do with Ariana, not even twenty minutes earlier. Except I was able to help as much as my numb body would allow.
She propped me up against the side. Holding me upright by my shoulders, her face was pale, and I could tell she was trying to hold it together. I stared off into the emptiness of the garage. "Camila?" she repeated herself. "What happened?" I could smell the blood and taste the salt of my tears that had escaped without me knowing, on my tongue.
I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.
"Come on," she whispered nervously, knowing that she wouldn't get any answers from me now. She dragged me to the back of the apartment building, fearing the scene it would make if she were to practically carry me in, in this state.
We took the elevator instead of the stairs, and peering around the corner into the lobby, we waited until it was clear. Once the doors closed behind us, she asked again. But I shook my head. I was terrified that before long the numbness would dissipate and everything bad that the night had told would come flooding back in, taking me down with it's harsh waves, and rolling me over until I was nothing but sand.
She pulled me out of the elevator, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, she held most of my weight down the hallway and to the apartment. She shut the door behind us and I went to sit down, feeling like my legs were actually betraying me, but she insisted I wait. "We need to get you cleaned up first," she said, tugging at the bottom of my t-shirt until it was up and over my head. She wadded it up and threw it by the door, and fumbled with the button on my jeans. Her hands were shaking and they collided with the hectic movements of my stomach as I tried to catch a breath.
She moved them down over my hips and to my ankles. I wasn't bothering to step out of them, so she applied pressure to the bend of each knee, lifting my feet from the ground, until they were off and lying next to the t-shirt. She made a comment, asking if she was cleaning up a crime-scene but I shook my head. There was no crime committed. "It was just an accident," I mumbled out in a whisper that caught her attention immediately.
"What was an accident Mila?" she dragged me from front door back to the bathroom attached to my room but I offered no more details than that. She turned on the shower, and let it warm as I stood shivering against the wall. When it was comfortable, she reached for my hand, helping me in, and she stood there, no worry that she was getting soaked, she washed away every remnant of my night and I watched it circle the drain.
After I was clean, she helped to dry me off, then she dragged me to my room, found a t-shirt and underwear for me to put on and once I was lying in bed, the duvet pulled tightly around my neck, for the sixth time, she pressed for more details. "What did you mean it was just an accident?"
My voice cracked but feeling less numb, I was able to form a coherent thought. "She just fell," I said and Ally insisted that I back up and start from the beginning because she had no clue where I had been or what I was doing, other than knowing that I was with Dinah.
Through a shaky voice, and so many tears that I thought I was sure to dehydrate, I explained that what was meant to be a night out with friends, turned horribly wrong.
How one swig from the bottle led to five and before long, Dinah was stumbling around, shouting obscenties. I had only had one drink, but it hit me hard and even I thought it'd be a fun idea to walk down by the water, when Dinah suggested it.
So the four of us did, and we laughed as they all leaned over the railing, making jokes about clearing the landing at the bottom and diving into the midnight colored water that sat stagnant below us. I stood back, with an arm wrapped around Dinah's waist and we watched as Ariana put both feet on the bottom rail. We laughed because she pretended to be on the Titanic and Alexa walked up behind her, outstretching her arms, reenacting the scene.
And we laughed again when Ariana went to the next step of the railing, and Alexa walked away, saying that she wasn't willing to drown for that crazy bitch.
And then when she went to the last one at the top, we didn't stop her but called her an idiot, and joked about how many drinks she had.
And it was all fun, and light-hearted until her foot slipped. Until she lost her balance. Until she grabbed for the cold of the rail but her hand and eye coordination from the alcohol failed her. It was nothing but friends having a few drinks, until her knees buckled from panic and there was nothing grounding her any longer. It was all fun, until no one made a move to catch her but me as she flipped over the railing and fell.
It was just a night out, when everyone else ran. Not to her but from her body that was lying seven feet down on the cement because she hadn't be able to stop herself from hitting that instead of the water.
It was just a few drinks that separated those who left her from me, the only person who chose to stay. The only person who willingly locked my arms under hers and drug her from the spot in which she fell to my car. The only person who kept talking to her the entire ride to the hospital even though I knew she was already gone. The only person who was willing to carry her cold body into the emergency room, screaming through sobs, Help her. Help her, looking guilty because she was already dead.
I was the only person who stayed that night. The only person who risked taking responsibility for something that wasn't my fault because I couldn't walk away from her.
And I'm losing absolutely everything because I did.
The tears were freely falling as was my heart inside my chest with each word I revealed to Lauren and I watched her gray eyes, turn dark and glass over.
She was gnawing on her lip, and gradually she had moved closer to me and as my body sat there shaking, having to relive that horrible night, she held onto my wrist, rubbing small, comforting circles against my skin, and she whispered, "It was not your fault Camila."
But I didn't believe her. For four months I had convinced myself that it was. It was my idea to go to the park with Dinah. It was my decision to not tell her to get off of the railing. I had the least to drink. I was the most sober. I should have stopped it before it got bad. It was my fault.
"It was my fault," I cry out and she stands, encompassing my entire body with her arms. There's not an inch of space between us as she quietens my cries by swaying back and forth and whispering against my ear, "It wasn't your fault, Camila," she says. "You tried to help her. You've got to stop blaming yourself." And for a split-second, I know she's right.