Both Lauren and Camila pulled back as quick as the wind before their lips touched and opened their deer in headlight eyes to see who the voice belonged to. Behind them stood a yawning Dinah.
"Well?" Dinah asked as she eyed both girls who had had been caught red-handed. She rubbed her eyes for stretching her arms. "What are you guys doing?"
"N-nothing," Camila stuttered nervously. "Lauren had an eyelash on her eyelid and I was trying to remove it." She looked over at Lauren for support or even an agreement, but the green eyed girl had backed away as far from her on the table and was sitting mute and motionless.
"Really? But why so close then?" Dinah asked with a suspicious look on her face.
"Well I couldn't find it, so I needed to get closer." Camila explained quickly. She tried to give another reason, but her mind fell blank. Lauren wasn't helping either. She gave Dinah a nervous smile, but the taller girl stood watching both girls with a curious look on her face.
"Alright then," she said shrugging her shoulders. She looked at Lauren unconvinced. "Well did she at-least get the eyelash?"
Lauren nodded her head looking a bit sick. She gave Dinah a twitchy smile before staring back off into distance. Dinah glanced at Camila questioning, but changed her mind and left the room quickly to go into the bathroom.
Camila exhaled in relief and turned to Lauren, "that was so close! She almost-"
"Please don't do that ever again." Lauren said softly.
"What?" Camila said confused. "But Lauren-"
"Just stop Camila. I don't know what you're trying to pull, but this needs to end now." Lauren said beginning to raise her voice. "I feel as if you have no regard of what you're doing to the people around you. Just stay away from me, please?"
Camila shook her head furiously. "No, I'm not going to stay away over something so stupid," she argued.
"For once, just think about other people besides yourself!"
Camila's eyes widened in surprise. "What brought this on?" She asked angrily. "Because if I can recall correctly, just a few seconds ago, you were leaning in too. It wasn't just me."
"Well what did you expect? You were practically forcing it on me."
Camila raised her eyebrows and scoffed in disbelief. "You know what, I don't need to hear this bullshit. I'm out of here!"
She wanted to get as far away as possible from the green eyed girl, but Lauren was sitting on the exit of the table. Out of anger, and mainly because of too much pride to ask her to move, Camila tried to jump off the table. She jumped wrong, causing her to land smack down on the ground and bang her head. Lauren quickly rushed towards her when she saw the smaller girl hit the floor.
"Fuck!" Camila squealed in pain. She lifted her hand from the ground and touched her forehead. It was wet she felt. She was bleeding, really bad.
"Don't move." Lauren coaxed. "We don't know how bad it is. You could get a concussion and standing up could make it worse." She kneeled down, and tried to brush Camila's hair out of her face to see the wound, but Camila slapped her hand away.
"Don't touch me," Camila ordered coldly.
Lauren ignored the slight jab of pain from Camila's tone, but she figured she deserved it. She was the one that made her angry anyways.
"May I please look at the cut?" She asked softly. Camila pretended not to hear, but nodded her head after a few seconds. She tried not to focus on the pain and watched as Lauren examined her forehead.
"It's not so bad," Lauren said scanning the cut on Camila's head. "Not so deep either, so you won't need stitches. We should still take you to the hospital though. Just in case." She looked back down at Camila's face.
"Fine."
Lauren grabbed a napkin from a counter and pressed it softly against Camila's wound. "Let it soak up some of the blood. I'll get an uber for us."
"No need," Camila said dramatically. "For once I'm taking someone else's feelings in regard besides mine, so you got what you wanted. I'm leaving you alone. You don't have to worry about me. Better yet you don't even have to think about me ever again."
Lauren gulped. How could she had been so dumb? This was Camila. One of her closet friends, her band mate, her bus mate... She wished she could go back and shut her stupid mouth and take everything she said back.
"How are you going to get to the hospital then?" She asked with a slight quiver in her voice.
"I'm pretty capable of taking care of myself." Camila answered, rising from the ground slowly. "Don't want to burden you or anyone else."
Camila left the kitchen in a rush before she got a chance to respond. Lauren paced around the room nervously upon hearing the bathroom door shut. She heard slight sobbing, but she figured it was just her imagination playing games on her. Maybe she could wait for Camila to get out of the bathroom. She needed to talk to her, she needed to apologize. They couldn't leave things off like this.
A few minutes had passed and Camila still hadn't exited. Lauren contemplated on knocking, but she knew that would aggravate the other girl ever more. She had already done enough. She felt her heart speed up when the door finally opened, revealing a puffy eyed Camila with a big bandage on her head.
"What are you still doing here?" Camila asked flatly.
"I shouldn't have said what I said, I-"
Camila waved her hand away interrupting her. "My uber is outside. I have to go," she said walking towards the tour bus's door. Lauren grabbed her purse and followed right behind. Camila looked at her in surprise when she heard the door close loudly.
"I'm not letting you go by yourself," she explained.
Camila didn't try fighting it this time. She nodded softly and stepped into the car. They sat as far away from each other as they looked on opposite windows. It was a painful ten minute ride, but luckily the spanish music played by the driver was enough to avoid speaking.
When they arrived, Lauren followed Camila up to the front desk of the emergency room and waited with her patiently as she filled out some forms. The hospital was empty, so she was called in right before they even got a chance to sit in the waiting room. As Camila sat in the bed and was being asked some checkup questions with the doctor, Lauren couldn't help but feel so terrible.
Camila's bandage had gone from white to bloody red and she looked tired and upset. When the doctor excused himself for a second, Lauren leaned forward to finally get a chance to speak to Camila, but a nurse entered the room bringing in some bandages for her forehead. She tried not to groan.
The hospital might've been less occupied than usual, but boy did they take forever. Lauren had memorized the ugly blue walls, how many towels there was in the room and the daily charts by the time Camila was released. They had been able to give her something for her pain, cleaned her wound, and was wearing a new stable bandage.
As they stepped out, she realized more people had arrived, looking at the waiting room. There was many families and wheelchairs spread around. Apparently, more accidents happened at night.
She stood right besides Camila again as the woman from the front desk had her fill out some other forms on a clip board. When she noticed that the woman become engaged in a conversation with someone while printing Camila's papers, she finally turned to the smaller girl.
"Do you need help?" She asked shyly.
"Well let's see, do you know if I'm allergic to any medication or if-"
"Shit, I didn't think it through." Lauren confessed. She was about to add something when she heard Camila laugh.
Lauren exhaled softly in gratitude that the laugh was good news. With rising courage, she placed her hand on Camila's clipboard and gently removed it from her hands.
"Can you look at me, please?"
When she saw Camila place her pen down and look deep into her eyes, she spoke.
"I am so sorry, what happened on the tour bus, I wish I could take it back. I shouldn't have said those things. I don't want you to stay away from me, I don't think any of the things I said to you, and I certainly don't want you out of my life. It kills me that I caused this." Lauren said pointing at Camila's bandage. "Please, I beg you. Forgive me."
Camila looked at Lauren's shaking lips as she waited nervously for her to say something. She smiled in response.
"Lauren, I forgave you before you even started talking. I could never be upset with you, I was more upset at myself. Don't apologize. I'm so thankful you came here with me. It meant so much." She reached up and tangled her arms behind Lauren's neck as if they were slow dancing. She pulled Lauren closer, but still looked into her eyes with kindness.
"Let's just forget what happened, okay? We live and we learn." She said finally earning a response from Lauren.
The green eyed girl smiled widely and placed both her hands on Camila's hips. It took Camila by surprise, she never followed along when she initiated. She was even more surprised when she felt Lauren hook her thumb on Camila's belt loop on the back of her jeans.
Before Camila could add anything else, their little moment of glory passed when she saw a flash of light from the corner of her eyes.
"What was that?" Camila hushed as she removed her arms from Lauren's neck quickly. This already felt far too familiar. She looked up at Lauren in panic, but realized that the dark haired girl hadn't moved an inch.
"I didn't hear anything," Lauren shrugged innocently, "and I don't really care. I'm just really glad we're friends again." She let go of the belt loop and pulled Camila in for a hug.
Camila embraced her tightly but still scanned the room out of the corner of her eye. Everything seemed normal. Maybe she just was just tripping out over nothing. She was glad everything was fine between them too.
As the woman of the front desk came back, she gave Camila back her insurance card and gave her all the information the doctor sent her. She explained how to clean her wound and how often to change the bandage, luckily Lauren had predicted right and it was going to heal very quickly. Wasn't going to scar either, which made Camila a bit sad, would've been cool to have a scar like Harry Potter.
Thanking her, they waited a few minutes outside meanwhile their uber arrived. This time when they sat in the car, they left no room for leg space. On the way, Lauren laid her head on Camila's shoulder as they looked out the window. Camila hummed softly, simply because she enjoyed seeing Lauren laugh at the vibration she was able to feel.
"You can answer that you know." She stopped humming to nod her head towards Lauren's bag. They could hear and feel her phone vibrating for the past few minutes.
Lauren shook her head." It's probably not important."
"If you say so," Camila giggled. She lifted her arm to play with Lauren's hair and continued humming. Suddenly her phone in her own bag started vibrating as soon as Lauren's quieted down.
"That's odd," she said suspiciously. She reached into her purse and noticed a few unread messages.
Dinah Jane Hansen (2 unread messages)
Normani Kordei (3 unread messages)
AllyBrooke Hernandez (4 missed calls, two voicemails, and one text message)
Surprised at how many notifications from them she had, she nudged Lauren whose eyes widened when she saw the amount.
"Open Ally's first, it seems more urgent if she called." She said. Agreeing, she unlocked her phone and quickly opened her message.
AllyBrooke Hernandez:
CHECK YOUR TWITTER!!!