A/N: When you suck at updating.
ALSO quick disclaimer that I'm not a doctor, just a 19 year old gay that watches way too much Grey's Anatomy, so all the medical stuff in here might not accurate, maybe not even possible.
Lauren lies awake, staring out into the spacious room. Her mind is still reeling from what the drugs did to her earlier, not fully sober yet. She can't even fully process what happened tonight. Her mind played that horrible trick on her, where she hallucinated, imagined, whatever it was, kissing Tori. She thought she was over her, no she is over her, but a quick mix of her subconscious and some weed pulled it right out of her again. It's not even like she really liked Tori when she was "with" her, she was really just a body there willing to fulfill her needs. Wow that's probably the most fuckboyish thing she's ever thought.
Lauren closes her eyes again in hope that she can sleep her problems away. And she can wake up with Camila not mad at her, and Tori not having any feelings for her anymore. She slowly drifts into a deep sleep in hope that the next day won't be as shitty.
* * *
Tori groans when she is helped back into her wheelchair.
"I can get into the chair myself. I'm not incompetent."
"No but you do have a broken wrist which would typically warrant help. Most people would just take the assistance without any protest." Dr. Edwards rolls her eyes as she rolls the girl's wheelchair to a room. Thankfully Tori has calmed down from the hysterics she was in earlier, and Alessia is the one to thank for that.
"Well, obviously, I'm not like most people." the blonde grimaces at the sharp pain in her head once she stands up from the seat.
"Jesus Christ, my head hurts like a mother fucker." She mumbles to herself grabbing her head in her hands.
She slowly walks over to the window to assess the view but rolls her eyes when she sees nothing but the other side of the hospital. She walks over to the hospital bed and gets in it, while Stephanie waits patiently.
"In just a minute our on call Neuro specialist will come in for a consult as well as Dr. Hamilton to talk about your x-rays. Can I get anything for you?"
"Just Alessia." She says simply.
Dr. Edwards gives a small smile and nods. She sees the feelings the two girls have for each other so clearly but it seems that Tori has no idea. She can tell Tori can be a difficult girl but Alessia seems like she can handle her. Stephanie leaves her patient to tend to her own while she goes to get her best friend.
Once she makes it to the waiting room she sees the brunette sitting in a chair with her leg bounces nervously.
"Alessia?" she asks as she approaches the concerned girl.
"Hmm, yup? Can I go see her?" the teenager shoots up and looks at the young doctor eagerly. She feels like she's been waiting forever and she just wants to be by her friend's side again.
"Yeah you can. You know she didn't have surgery yet right? It was just x-rays." Alessia rolls her eyes and nods. "I'm just concerned. She doesn't like hospitals, and she doesn't deal with things well."
"Understandable. They're not—" Stephanie is cut off by a few nurses rushing in the direction of Tori's room. Her eyebrows furrow when she sees them running into Tori's room.
"What the hell . . ." The doctor and Alessia rush to the room and Alessia freezes at the sight of her friend so helpless. Everything seems to move in slow motion as Alessia watches Tori's body shake uncontrollably. She watches the nurses and Dr. Edwards hold her shoulders down as she seizes. The poor girl feels so helpless in this situation she feels herself start to feel overwhelmed. It was the moment she heard the heart monitor start to beep faster and more nurses come in with a crash cart that she had to leave the room. Another doctor went into the room and Alessia heard them spew words she didn't have the capability at the moment to understand, along with the word "clear!".
Everything went downhill so fast. One minute Tori's being Tori and is making dirty jokes and the next she's fighting for her life. Tears finally spring free and the brunette just starts to cry. Everything around her just moves in slow motion as she slides onto the floor outside of her best friend's hospital room and cries into her hands. She doesn't know what she would do without the blonde in her life. Feelings aside, the girl who is currently on the brink between life and death in that room is her absolute best friend in the world. She knows Tori's done some questionable things, but never did she do anything that led to her deserving a fate like this. There are very few things worth losing your life over.
Alessia's head is still in her hands when Dr. Edwards comes over and rubs the younger girl's shoulder. "She's okay." She whispers. The brunette just closes her eyes and silently lets the tears fall from them.
"Can I see her?" she breathes out.
"There are a few doctors doing exams right now, so I would give it a half hour or so. . . How about you go back to the waiting room and I'll come by again to get you?"
The younger girl nods and stands up. She turns around to peer through the door windows at the girl on the bed. She looks so small and vulnerable in the bed, which are two qualities that Tori would fucking riot if she heard Alessia call her that.
"Call someone, Alessia. You can't do this alone." The doctor suggests before going back into the room. The eighteen year-old nods her head as she tears her eyes away from the sleeping girl in the hospital room. She takes out her phone and calls the first person that she thought of.
* * *
Camila is the first to wake up, which is something that rarely happens. She supposes it has something to deal with the fact that her anxiety is already through the roof today and it's barely seven in the morning. She swears can feel her nerves tingling and her heart doing that weird flutter thing it does when she's about to have an anxiety attack.
Wow today is already going to be GREAT.
She sits up in bed and drowsily walks to her bathroom where her anxiety medicine is sitting in the cabinet. She doesn't use it unless she really needs to, which she guesses is an improvement from a few years ago when she had a different prescription for pills that she had to take three a day. She takes a pill dry and walks back to her bed where she'll wait for it to take effect. Her failed conversation with Lauren last night must have unknowingly caused this episode, and its not like her girlfriend is to blame, but, come on. You can't refuse to tell someone with anxiety something that important and expect for everything to be fine?
Ok, yes, this isn't Lauren's fault, and the rational side of Camila's brain knows this. But, with anxiety rational typically doesn't win, and the illness side tends to spew thoughts like "She doesnt want to tell you because she doesn't trust you" or "She still has feelings for the person she lost her virginity to". She knows it's an insane, but something just doesn't feel right.
"HIS CHEESEBURGER, HIS PRECIOUS CHEESEBURGER, HE'LL BE BACK FOR YOU" Camila's phone wails from its spot on her bedside table. Goddammit, she thinks, she must've forgotten to turn the sound off in her rush to go to sleep last night. She sighs and rushes to answer the phone before Lauren wakes up.
"Alessia, what do you need and why the hell do you need it so early in the morning?" The brunette answers with as little attitude that she can muster. She loves Alessia, she really does, but seriously why the fuck is she calling at the ass crack of dawn?
"Um, can you guys come to Miami Grace? There's a situation." The girl rasps on the other line, sounding defeated.
Camila frowns and can immediately feel her heart constricting in shock. "Who's hurt? Are you okay?! What's going on?"
"Tori's hurt." Alessia cries on the other line. "I need you guys here. I know you're all not crazy about her but if you need a reason to come, do it for me. I can't be alone right now."
Camila nods her head frantically. "Of course, Alessia. I'm waking up Lauren right now." Camila grabs a pillow and whacks her girlfriend in the head with it, causing her to shoot up with a glare. "What the fuck, Camila?!"
Camila covers the speaker of her iPhone. "Shut up, get dressed, we need to go to the hospital" she mutters to Lauren, whose bright eyes go wide in the dim morning light. She takes a breath before saying "Tori's hurt", knowing the affect it'll have on her girlfriend.
"She's what? What happened?!" Lauren gasps, frowning. She just saw her, and she was healthy! Besides being high and a little withdrawn, she was her normal self. Her heart drops at the thought of Tori harming herself to the point that she was in the hospital. She hated that her mind automatically went to that but with Tori it honestly wasn't a terribly far-fetched situation. The girl goes through so much and hasn't properly been in a healthy state of mind for years now.
The green eyed girl braces for what her girlfriend has to say about the blonde. "Car accident." Camila mumbles to the now frantically moving girl as she flies around the room pulling on the first articles of clothing that she can find.
"Alessia did you call Mani, Dinah, or Ally yet?" Camila asks into the phone that is now wedged between her shoulder and her ear as she puts on her converse. Thankfully her "pajamas" last night was just a black t-shirt and some joggers, so it's an acceptable outfit to wear in public. She can just throw on a baseball cap to cover her massive bedhead.
"No. Do you think they would even come?" she sniffles.
"Yes, without a doubt. Nobody deserves to be alone in a hospital."
"Camz, let's go!" Lauren exclaims, walking out of the bathroom. Camila looks up and sees poorly hidden tear tracks on her girlfriend's rosy cheeks. The brunette frowns and opens her arms for the skinny girl to come into them. "It's gonna be alright, baby." Camila whispers, still holding the phone, where Alessia is sniffling on the other side. This whole situation is so bizarre because despite knowing the Canadian-born girl for almost a year, she has never seen her to the point of tears. As someone who cries almost on a daily basis, Camila finds this very troubling and wants nothing but to just hold her friend during this time.
"Let's just go, please." The green eyed girl just looks at the shorter girl with wet pleading eyes. "Okay." Camila nods, getting up from the bed and grabbing her phone back from the grip between her shoulder and ear.
"Do you think you could call them? Our friends? I don't think I can handle telling them what happened again." The curly haired brunette sighs on the other line.
"Yeah, I'll call them when we're on the way. Do you need anything? Need me or Lo to bring you any clothes or anything?"
"No, just get here." Camila frowns at how defeated her friend sounds. She promises that they will be there as soon as they can, and they end the phone call.
Lauren makes another gesture to leave so Camila nods and grabs the younger girl's hand as they quietly leave the confines of her room. Camila is still not completely okay with Lauren and how she handled things last night, but she knows when it's appropriate to be a petty girlfriend and when not to. At a time like this, when Lauren's best friend is in the hospital, she has to put her own personal feelings aside and just be there for her. It kind of puts things in perspective as well. Life is so short, so why waste the little time we have on being caught up on stupid shit like who Lauren lost her virginity to? Obviously this is the rational side of her brain talking at this point, which is typically the side that gets overpowered by her anxiety. But thanks to her lovely "Crazy pills" (she's named them), the rational has a say in her thoughts today.
The girls make their way outside the house, where Dave is already waiting for them. Camila guesses Lauren texted him that they needed a quick ride to the hospital this morning.
"Thanks Dave, I know it's early." The brunette says empathetically, when her and Lauren climb into the backseat of the Range Rover. She tries to run a hand through her hair and mentally curses when she realizes she forgot the baseball cap she was planning on grabbing.
"It is fine, Miss Camila, I was up anyways. Will we be picking anyone up?" Dave looks at the girls through the rear view mirror.
"No, we just need to get there as soon as possible. Legally, of course."
"Sounds good." Lauren snuggles up to her girlfriend and puts her head on her shoulder. "Did Alessia say how hurt she was?"
"No. She's going to be okay, though. She's Tori. She's . . . tough." She doesn't want to offend Lauren by calling her best friend a bitch especially at a moment like this, so she opts for the most positive adjective she could think of to describe the girl. Tori hates her literal guts so you can't really blame her.
"She has to be okay." The green eyed girl whispers. Camila can do nothing but stroke her girlfriend's wavy hair as Dave drives them to the hospital.
The ride is very long for the two women. But thankfully they finally make their way to the hospital about thirty minutes later. It would've been faster if they hadn't drove through the same intersection that Tori's now totaled car was still in the street, along with the other car with police surrounding the areas. Lauren almost broke down completely at the sight of the state that Tori's car is in. If that's any indication of her actual injuries, then she doesn't know how she's going to handle this.
Tori has to be okay. And if she's not, it's Lauren's fault. It's all her fault and she swears if something happens to the blonde she will blame herself for the rest of her life. Tori was dropping her off when she got into the accident. If Lauren hadn't agreed to come smoke with her, then she wouldn't have even been on this side of town, and nowhere near the damn intersection where she was hit. That's why Tori has to be okay. There's no other options here.
"Would you like me to stay with you Miss Camila and Lauren?" Dave asks the teenagers.
"That's okay, Dave. We'll be here for quite a while so you can just leave. Our friends are also coming so we'll hitch a ride with them when we eventually leave." When Camila called Ally, knowing that she was with Dinah and Mani, all three girls immediately sprang into action to get themselves ready to go to the hospital. Even though she's not fond of Tori herself, it's not a secret, Camila can't help but feel a little proud of her friends for being the caring human beings that they are. Not everyone would do this.
"Sounds good. I do hope that your friends are okay. Call me if you need anything." The man says through the open window.
"Thank you, we will." Camila speaks for her quiet girlfriend and herself before the man drives away. The brown eyed girl turns to the withdrawn girl and strokes her cheek, swiping under her wet eyes.
"Camz, I know you were mad at me last night, and I just have to tell you that---" Lauren starts to say quietly.
"Babe, shush. None of that matters right now, okay? Let's just forget it for now?"
Lauren hesitates but nods. She guesses her whereabouts from earlier in the morning can stay between her and Tori until another time.
"Good. Now, are you ready?" Lauren nods again, trying to keep it together. She's so scared of what she'll see when she goes in there. She has no idea how bad Tori is injured and not knowing is fucking killing her.
The brunette presses her lips against her girlfriend's in a soft kiss, not too sensual but firm enough to make a point.
The green eyed girl takes Camila's hand and together they walk into the spacious hospital. Alessia had given them the room number that the blonde was admitted to so Camila leads the way.
The couple gets off the third floor elevator to see their Canadian friend sitting in the waiting room with her head in her hands. Lauren can immediately spot her friend's trembling legs, which was a telltale sign of her nervousness.
"Alessia!" Lauren calls. The brunette's head shoots up in the direction that she heard her name and she jogs to the two girls, wrapping her arms around both of them. She really tried her best not to cry anymore today but she just can't help it. She guesses all those times of pretending not to have negative emotions is really biting her in the ass right now. She can't help but let the tears fall from her eyes as her friends embrace her. It seems that image of Tori so helpless is stuck in her head. And that is pretty much a position she never wanted to see the usually strong girl in.
Alessia finally pulls away from the two and looks at them with red eyes and trembling lips. Camila leads her girlfriend and her friend to the bank of seats and the trio sits down. She places a light hand on Lauren's back, rubbing it softly.
"How is she?" Camila asks softly, for the both of them.
"I'm not really sure. She wasn't bad earlier, her wrist was broken and she was kind of distraught, but she was still herself. She was admitted and then I was about to go see her and then, she, she had a seizure and . . . then she just crashed. I was pushed out the room so I don't know what's happening right now. The doctor hasn't been back in a while."
"Fuck." Is all Lauren can say. She can barely process this. It's not fair. The girl's are sitting in a rather solemn silence when Dr. Edwards comes out of the room. Alessia shoots up at the sight of the dark skinned doctor and wrings her hands nervously. Camila and Lauren stand up as well, catching on to who she is.
"She's okay. She's stable. Dr. Hamilton and Dr. Shepherd, our attending neurosurgeon, thought it would be best to get her into surgery now that she is stable once again. She assessed that Tori's hit to her head in the crash caused a small brain bleed, which in turn is what caused the seizure. She is repairing it in a minimally invasive procedure while Dr. Hamilton is working on her wrist."
"Will her wrist be okay? She's a musician and playing her guitar is a huge part of her life." Lauren asks, timidly.
"We hope so, sweetie. We are doing the best we can. But I have to go back in there. I'll keep you updated." Stephanie nods at the girls and she turns on her heels to go back in the direction of the OR.
"Fuck, this is all my fault." Lauren runs a hand through her messy hair as she continues to mentally berate herself for the situation. Camila frowns, and looks at Alessia who looks just as confused.
"Dude, what are you talking about?" The curly haired girl asks.
"Yeah, babe, this isn't your fault at all?" Camila tries to comfort her but she can tell Lauren isn't hearing it. She can see her girlfriend starting to get worked up and she reaches out her hand to take it. Lauren pulls her hand back and moves her hands to her neck, nervously, not letting her girlfriend touch her. Camila swallows down the pang of guilt she feels at the rejection but she doesn't say anything about it.
The green eyed girl stands up and starts pacing. "No, this, this is my fault. She wouldn't even be in this fucking situation if it wasn't for me. I should've never had said yes."
"Lolo, you're literally not making any sense right now? Just come sit, babe." Camila pats her lap and looks at the younger girl, who pretty much ignores her. She looks at Alessia and the girl just shrugs. She is so drained she really doesn't have the time for Lauren's antics right now. Camila continues to watch her girlfriend in concern until Lauren just stops and spews out everything that was on her mind.
"This morning when you went to sleep Tori asked me if I wanted to get high with her so I snuck out and did. I did that and I knew I shouldn't have because you were upset with me and I left you alone, and you were sleeping but still, it was fucking bad." All of her thoughts are coming out as verbal diarrhea right now and she can do absolutely nothing to control it. "And I knew I should've stayed because leaving you to be with someone that I had a very close sexual relationship with, while you were in bed sleeping alone and sad is such a terrible thing to do."
Somewhere along the rant, a sleepy Dinah, Normani and Ally stroll up to the girls but neither of them notice because their eyes are focused on Lauren's rant. Alessia just closes her eyes and sighs quietly. Right now is probably the worst time for Lauren to have this mental breakdown and tell Camila about her past relationship with Tori. Alessia has had conversations with Camila about her virginity and she knows that her sexual experience or lack thereof is a huge sensitive spot for the brunette. This isn't going to be good.
"And I realized this, so I made her take me home. But then she was upset and never even got home because some asshole hit her. She wouldn't have been out on that road if it wasn't for me. And now she's fighting for her life and it's all my fault."
There's silence between all six girls until Camila breaks out of the trance she's in to process all of the information that was just spilled to her.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" she demands. She shakes her head and storms off down a hallway.
"Oh shit." Dinah mumbles to herself before taking a loud sip of her smoothie.