These were the days that changed everything, yet they all started just like any other day.
"Camz, I'm home!" Lauren called out as she closed the door behind her. She shrugged off her coat, hung it by the door and then quickly discarded her boots. She tossed her bag on the foyer's table as she eyed the mails set on the table. She picked up the stack of envelopes, going through them one by one, making sure that she wouldn't miss important bills.
She started to walk towards the living room, her eyes still focused on the mails. From her peripheral vision, she could see Camila coming out of the kitchen, making her way to Lauren. "Hey babe..." Lauren began to say, but she didn't look up just yet, one more envelope to examine. When she was finally done with the task, her eyes flitted up, meeting her wife's.
"How are..." She couldn't finish her question, taken aback by the look on Camila's face. Her wife wasn't saying anything, she just smiled contentedly, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. But her expression said everything that Lauren needed to know. Her whole body conveyed all the happiness building inside her.
Lauren exhaled slowly, gathering her thoughts, calming her nerves. She took a step forward cautiously; seeing that Camila seemed to lose the ability to move. Their eyes locked at each other, everything else seemed to disappear. "Are you...?" Lauren trailed off, her emotions took over and she was lost for words.
Camila nodded vehemently, tears starting to fall down her cheeks. "Yeah..." She breathed out.
"It finally took?" Lauren needed the reassurance; she needed to know that she wasn't dreaming.
"It did..." Camila gasped as her smile widen, her tears running more freely. She gazed at her wife's emerald orbs, those eyes she fell for each and every day they had been together.
Lauren rushed toward the love of her life and then quickly wrapped her tight in her arms. She lifted Camila up and spun her around, overjoyed with the news. The couple started to giggle uncontrollably, fully taking in the moment they had been waiting for a long time.
"Lauren, stop... You're making me dizzy..." Camia said cheerfully after a while, giggling like a child, her smile seemed to take a permanent place on her face.
"Right, sorry, oh gosh, I should've not done that..." Lauren put her wife down gently, slightly panicking. "Are you okay? Are you feeling nauseous? Do you need me to...?"
"Lauren! I'm okay. Relax." Camila chuckled, she could imagine how even more protective Lauren was going to be. She reached up her arms, draping Lauren's neck. She studied Lauren's face, though every little detail had already embedded deep in her mind.
Lauren reached up her hand, cradling Camila's cheek, stroking it with the pad of her thumb. She never though she could be this happy, but she had always known, Camila was her one, being with her meant everything was possible. "I love you with all of my being, Camz."
"I love you..." Words weren't really enough, but for now Camila would settle with those three words. The same words she had said a million times over the years.
"We're gonna have a baby..."
Camila nodded, smiling sweetly, happy tears continued to roll as she reached up on her toes, closing the distance between them. Her eyes fluttered closed as she felt Lauren's breath on her lips and when their lips collided, they knew. Their future would only get brighter.
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It was late, very late. But Camila once again found herself unable to sleep. She had been staring at the ceiling for the past hour, while her wife was blissfully sleeping with her sporadic light snore taunting the raven-haired beauty.
Sometimes she hated being pregnant; the morning sickness, mood swings, unusual cravings and her off the chart sexual urges. Yes, she lay awake at this forsaken hour because she was horny as hell and it frustrated her to no end.
Lauren had been rather eager to accommodate her excessive need for sex lately, but it still wasn't enough. It was like everything Camila wanted to do was to have sex. If they could do it all the time, she would have preferred it. And even then, she wouldn't mind having more sex.
She groaned inwardly, cursing herself for being so needy and clingy and...horny. There was no other way she could get over it. She had been trying to sleep it off, but obviously it wasn't working so it was understandable if she was to wake her wife again, right? Ah, I don't care.
She glanced over to her left, eyeing her wife's back with a deadly stare, her eyes narrowing, as if she was a predator watching her prey in the wilderness, assessing her next course of action. She lowered her body as she moved forward, her hand reaching out to rest on Lauren's bare hip under the sheet. She started to pepper Lauren's shoulder with light kisses as her hand tracing an invisible line on Lauren's thigh. It took a while but then she felt her wife's body slightly jerking up.
She continued on her mission, adamant on having her needs fulfilled. God, I feel like a teenage boy all over again, she thought as she remembered back on their college days when she was unquestionably the one who initiated getting intimate more than Lauren ever did. Surprising, isn't it?
Lauren was having a very thick sleep; she was exhausted from work and all those extra 'exercise' Camila made her do. But something pulled her back into consciousness; her skin tingled with an indescribable feeling, it was something pleasant but at the same time annoyance grew in her.
"Ugh, Camz... What are you doing?" She asked, her voice thick with sleep. She knew exactly what her wife was trying to accomplish and for a second she wished she was a succubus like that Bo in Lost Girl, a show she was fascinated by years ago. Maybe then she would be able to maintain her daily life routine that somehow had transformed into a sex fest, thanks to her hormonal pregnant wife.
Camila didn't respond. Am I not being clear enough? Camila thought as she inched her hand upwards, feeling the taut muscles of her wife's stomach. She continued showering Lauren's shoulder with open-mouthed kisses, leaving defined trails of her intend. She latched her lips on Lauren's neck as she sensed her wife growing restless under her ministration. She knew she would win the battle, she almost felt bad for Lauren's devotion toward her.
She always got what she wanted because Lauren had never been able to deny her anything. Feeling that Lauren's reaction was not progressing fast enough, she started to caress her wife's breast as she propped herself on her elbow, slightly hovering over Lauren's side and then the beautiful sound of her wife's soft moan filling the room.
Lauren couldn't escape the biological reaction of her body to the treatment she was getting from her wife; her mind might say one thing, her soon to be heated core however... She turned her body around, catching a slight smirk on Camila's face. Oh how she loved that sexy smirk. But she wouldn't relent that easily, she wanted Camila to beg.
"Camz, it's..." she glanced over to the nightstand, wondering about the time, "...almost 4 am! I have a meeting in the morning..." She huffed irritably, pretending to be annoyed.
"So?" Camila mumbled challengingly, her lips were still eager on giving loving kisses to Lauren's neck.
Lauren reluctantly reached up and held Camila's chin, tilting her head up. "So... I need to sleep if I want to be on top of my game. I'm meeting a new client. I think it's gonna be a big break for me. Seriously Camz, you know I love you but I'm exhausted..." Lauren admitted tiredly.
"But Lolooo... please?" Camila whined. Both of them knew that Camila rarely whined so she was obviously desperate. She even pouted, her eyes filled with unsaid pleads. It was her lethal weapon, her last resort of making Lauren bow down to her wishes. She knew she was being mean but she couldn't care less. She needed her wife to touch her so badly.
Lauren groaned as she pushed the heel of her hand on her eyes, and then brushed them off lightly, wiping sleep out of them. She looked back at her wife who was waiting expectantly. She promised herself that if they ever gonna have a second child, she'd be the one to carry them and then she'd give Camila a taste of her own medicine... or so to speak. She surprised Camila by flipping her over so she would be on top.
Camila yelped involuntarily but smiled widely, she liked it when Lauren took control. She waited for Lauren to begin pleasing her but her wife was just watching her with this expression she couldn't describe. "Lo?" She called out, resting her hands on the back of her wife's head.
"Promise me one thing..." Lauren muttered softly with a serious look on her face.
"Anything..."
"Promise me that there won't be another round for tonight, I think six times in a row would be my limit, love..."
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"Carmelita..."
"That's too... Hispanic..." Lauren argued.
"Well, we're Hispanic. Sort of..." Camila countered, looking up at her wife who was busy with her Sudoku puzzle. "Lauren, can you at least try to focus on this for a bit?"
"I am focused! You know I can multitask..." Lauren reiterated confidently, her mind tracing numbers and probability.
"Marissa..."
"That's too... girly." Lauren said offhandedly.
"How can Marissa sound too girly?" Camila challenged.
"Because I bet there's no boy named Marissa." Lauren shrugged, still focusing on her puzzle.
Camila quickly got up of off Lauren's lap and then she snatched the puzzle book from Lauren's hand. "Hey..." Lauren started to protest, soon to be silenced by the death glare her wife was giving her. She threw up her hands in mock surrender.
"Now can we focus?" Camila demanded.
"Yes ma'am..." Lauren complied, giving her wife a playful salute.
"Lillie..." Camila went through the list once more. She once again lay her head down on Lauren's lap.
"Again... Too girly."
"Okay, you do remember that we're having a girl, right?" Camila asked in annoyance, she really didn't get the reasoning behind this 'too girly' comment Lauren was throwing her. The couple found out the baby's sex 18 weeks into the pregnancy and in that exact moment of revelation, Lauren could already imagine having a little girl with a big bow running around their house.
"Well, duh. Of course I do, Camz. What I meant was... I kinda like names that are neutral. Like... Spencer. It can be a boy's name and a girl's name...or Charlie. Or some names that can have cool nicknames, like if we were to name our daughter... Samantha, we can call her Sam. Do you see where I'm going with this?" Lauren elaborated, looking down at her beautiful wife.
"Hmm, yeah..." Camila hummed, pondering on some names that just came up in her head. "What about...Alex?"
"Ah, I like that! Then her first name can be Alexandria!" Lauren exclaimed in excitement, her nerdy self got in the way once more.
"We're not naming our daughter after a ruined city of Egypt." Camila said firmly, shaking her head at her wife's pouting face. "Let's just go with Alexandra..." She proposed.
"Nah... That sounds too arrogant. Our daughter won't be this cold self-righteous woman when she grows up."
"How come Alexandra sound cold and self-righteous, Lo? You're being silly." Camila couldn't believe how hard it was to come up with a baby name, especially when her wife was being extremely picky and unreasonably 'technical'.
"Because it's a very close derivative from Alexander, and when I hear that name all I can think about is Alexander the Great and that makes it sound superior and pompous." Lauren defended her theory.
"I seriously believe you're the only one who still uses the word pompous." Camila chuckled, after all these years of being together, Lauren still amused her in a way that no one could ever pull off. "So what's your suggestion then?"
Lauren quirked her eyebrow, she absentmindedly moved her hand to caress Camila's rather round stomach. She had been right; she loved Camila even more once she started to show. "Hmm, Alexis..." Right after she uttered out the name, she could feel a light flutter on Camila's side stomach.
"Ah! She seems to approve. Surely you can't argue, Camz, it's two to one." Lauren sported her winning smile; she lowered her head, and planted a kiss on the baby bump. "You love the name Alexis, right baby girl?" She cooed, getting a slightly harder movement this time. She glanced over to catch Camila's eyes.
"Okay then. Alexis it is..." Camila finalized, she actually liked the name too.
"Now, middle name..." Lauren trailed off, leaning her back on the headboard once more after giving Camila's belly another kiss.
"Cameron." Camila jumped in with a resolute tone in her voice.
"Now how can you come up with that so fast?" Lauren tilted her head in confusion.
Camila arched her eyebrows challengingly, waiting for realization to hit her wife.
"Right..." Lauren chuckled, once she understood what prompted the name. "Dinah will be so pleased with herself."
"She will be thrilled!" Camila confirmed with a grin. She watched as Lauren bowed her head down once more, her lips were only an inch apart from her stomach. "What do you say, baby girl? Are you Alexis Cameron Jauregui?" Lauren rubbed her wife's belly as she whispered closely.
When the baby gave her own stamp of approval with another light kick, the couple looked at each other with matching grins.
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It was 23 weeks into the pregnancy when Camila felt such an unbearable pain like she had never encountered before. It was hard to breathe and she started to panic. "Laureeeeeennn!!!"
She heard loud steps ascending the stairs and soon after her wife entered their bedroom, concern painted her face. "What's wrong, Camz?" She hurriedly marched toward her wife, kneeling in front of Camila, who was sitting by the edge of the bed.
"I don't know. It hurts too much, Lo..." Camila breathed out, trying to even her breath. Her eyes started to gloss with unshed tears and they only conveyed one emotion, fear.
For the very first time in her life, Lauren felt such strong agony, shaking her down to her bones. But she needed to hold her composure, for her family. She needed to slow down her over-driven mind. "It's gonna be okay, Camz..." She whispered faintly, hoping that she didn't just make a promise she couldn't keep. She stood up, making her way to grab her phone on the nightstand.
She walked back to her wife, sitting down next to Camila, gently pulling her into her awaiting embrace. Camila positioned her body with such difficulty, it seemed like any kind of movement, no matter how small, just intensified her pain. She groaned harshly as she rested her head on Lauren's shoulder.
Lauren held up her phone in her left hand, struggling to punch down their doctor's number while her right hand stroked Camila's back, wishing that she could ease the pain, even though she knew she couldn't.
Camila shut her eyes, wincing every other minute as she listened to Lauren talking to the doctor. Every now and then Lauren would ask her a question and it took everything in her to muster up the strength to answer.
Lauren was trying to explain and describe Camila's symptoms thoroughly, and Camila watched as her wife nodding several times, indicating that the doctor managed to give some kind of explanation over the situation.
Lauren hung up quickly after, easing her wife closer to her, Camila ended up cradled on Lauren's lap. She tossed her phone and with her now free hand she held on Camila's arm. "Dr. Richardson said that we should go for a check up tomorrow. She said maybe you're just stressed out with work and your body is telling you to slow down a bit. She explained that you're young and healthy, so there's no reason to worry. Let's just try to find a way to make you feel a little bit comfortable, okay?" She kissed the top of Camila's head; a gut wrenching feeling stirred in her stomach. But she ignored it, trying to focus on helping her wife.
"It just hurts so badly, Lauren..." Camila sobbed, she couldn't hold her tears much longer.
"I know, I'm sorry you're hurting..." Lauren never felt so helpless before.
"But it will be okay, right?" Camila whispered weakly, her eyes started to feel heavy.
"It will be okay." Lauren confirmed.
They lost the baby the day after.
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Lauren cradled her wife close to her chest, holding her up, physically and emotionally, trying to protect her from everything that might harm her, but she knew it was in vain. She knew nothing she had done would bring back the liveliness in Camila's eyes. There was nothing she could say that would ease the pain and fill the hollow spaces in their life.
Camila was starting to fade away. She cried and cried, she didn't eat for days, and even after weeks had passed, she still got woken up in the middle of the night; her dreams had become a constant reminder of what they had lost.
She apologized over and over to Lauren, thinking that she had done something wrong to cause this, that maybe she could've done something differently to prevent this. She felt like she had failed Lauren, that she had destroyed their dream of starting a family.
She knew it was irrational, she knew that sometimes these things just happened, she knew it was out of her control, but she still blamed herself. No matter how hard Lauren tried to convince her other wise.
"I just want her back..."
"I know, Camz."
"Why can't we just have her back?"
No, there was nothing Lauren could say to make it right.
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They started to fight a lot, over the silliest things. They both put up a wall, separating them from each other, making them felt as if they no longer knew the person they were married to. Lauren wished for Camila to talk, to not shut her out, to just express whatever in her mind.
She even suggested going to therapy but Camila brushed her off, pretending that everything was okay; that she was okay and she just needed time. Lauren knew it was all a lie, but she didn't know what else to do, so she stopped trying.
They were drifting apart, and they both felt like hope was finally lost.
Months after, it had finally come down to this. They sat in front of each other, trying hard not to crumble. The room was filled with empty words, legal terms; their respective lawyers trying to come up with a fair settlement. Lauren couldn't care less, she felt like suffocating and it pained her so much, not being able to look into Camila's eyes anymore; not being able to touch her and assure her that everything would be okay.
Because nothing was okay, they had given up on each other. She had enough of her lawyer's voice, enough of her racing mind. It was too painful.
"You know what?" She abruptly stood up, slapping both of her palms onto the table. "I don't care. She can have everything. The house, the cars, the money in our joined account... everything!" She snapped, frustrated with the situation, but mostly with herself. How did we end up so wrong? Why couldn't I fix this? She pondered silently.
Camila's eyes widen in shock, she didn't expect Lauren to lose her bearing. Her wife... No, her soon to be ex-wife, had always been level-headed, calm and centered. She wished she could just reach out her hand, she wished she could hold her in her arms once again. But she knew, it was just a little bit too late. "Lauren... Please, let's just talk about this." She pleaded weakly, she wanted to look up so badly, but she didn't. I'm such a coward.
"Talk? Now you want to talk?!" Lauren scoffed, she didn't want to hurt Camila even more but she seemed to lose all control. She had begged Camila too many times to talk, about their loss; about all the emotional pain, but Camila never answered her and they just drifted apart a little further each and every day that had passed by.
She stared at Camila, desperately hoping for her one true love to put up a fight, to speak up her mind; hell, to just look back at her and show Lauren that she was willing to try again. But all she got was nothing.
Everything hurt, her chest constricted, her heart shredded to million pieces and she wasn't sure if it could be mended again. "That's what I thought..." She shook her head in disbelief. She glanced between her lawyer and Camila's, her intention was clear. "Like I said, give her everything." She muttered out dejectedly.
"But I don't want anything..." Camila braced herself to speak out, even though she sounded so small.
"Then what do you want, Camila?" Lauren demanded, silently and desperately wishing that Camila would just put an end to this nightmare. How she wished it really was just a dream and soon she would wake up and see her wife sleeping beside her. But her wish had been for naught as Camila avoided her gaze once more.
"That's it. I'm done with all of this..." Lauren pushed her chair back, hastily making her way out of the office. When she reached the door, she threw a last glance over her shoulder, her lawyer looking at her understandingly while Camila didn't seem to acknowledge her anymore. She turned her head around, sighing as tears finally escaped her eyes. She got out and didn't look back.
"You... I only want you." Camila whispered helplessly as she heard the door closing, her life shattered before her eyes.
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It was eight months later and Camila found herself pacing in her bedroom. She was waiting for something, her heart telling her that Lauren would still remember, that her ex-wife still cared; that like any other year before, Lauren remembered her birthday. It was foolish, she was aware of that. She had reprimanded herself a hundred times, for being so passive, for giving up, for letting her better half walked away.
She sat down on her bed, looking over to her desk; a framed photograph of their wedding day remained to stand tall. She never had the heart to move it. She didn't want to believe that everything was truly over. She was lost in thoughts but then she heard her phone buzzed. She picked it up quickly, gasping in relief as she saw the caller's ID.
"Hi..." She uttered quietly as if she was scared that it was only happening in her mind.
"Hey, Camila... It's Lauren..."
"I know..."
"Right, of course... Um, I just wanted to say happy birthday."
"Thank you..." Yeah, Lauren would never forget. She could hear Lauren's breathing, it soothed her somehow. The green eyed woman stayed silent and Camila knew, this was her last chance, their last chance, and she needed to be brave for once. "Lauren, I..." Her voice broke, tears falling freely now.
"Yeah...?"
"I miss you... so much." Camila confessed, she couldn't take this anymore.
"I miss you too... You have no idea." Camila could hear the sincerity in Lauren's voice. "I want to... Can I see you, Camila? Please?"
"I'd really like that..."
It was the day that changed everything, a start of their last beginning. And maybe, just maybe, they would find their way back to each other once again...
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Author's Note: Well, this is certainly not what some of you have been expecting but I wrote this story a while back (along with many others discontinued/incomplete stories I have found in my external hard disk). There's gonna be an epilogue so please stay tuned and let me know what you think of it. Thank you for all the support you all have given me. I really appreciate it!