The nightmares never went away.
Somedays they were the same old events that happened to her, just mere flashbacks like the accident with Alex, and seeing Camila die right in front of her. Somedays they were worse and it brought her to tears, waking up, covered in sweat.
But that didn't matter then.
Lucy would just hold her, looking at her with her dark brown eyes. Her words of reassurance were soft as honey but Lauren knew it was her fight and none of anyone's words, even Lucy's, could change how she deals with it. She hasn't relapsed as worse as she did before, but there were good days and bad days. You get over it, but the scars never really leave you.
They were in their New York apartment, just having moved in recently after graduation. Lauren was planning to take a few months off before answering job applications. She felt like she deserved a break. She had lots of trips right after graduation, stopping in places she never heard before in Africa, Europe and even Asia. Some were educational trips while some were made just for fun. The need to go around and see the world never left her.
She began to enjoy adventure and that made her happy somehow. Somehow her life had turned for the better and though it had a few bumps here and there, she was content with everything.
She was headed back to Miami, to visit her parents and her sister who just graduated high school. It had been a long trip as she had just came from Egypt but she decided that she missed home. The last time she was there was when she was still in college.
As she took a cab back home, she watched the all too familiar suburbia, the concrete streets, the warm breeze, and she knew she was right back where she belonged.
Her parents were doing fine and she couldn't be happier to see them that way. Mike had gotten the VP position in his company and provided well enough for their family while Clara was now the principal in the school she taught at. Taylor had grown up so much already and was college bound already, going to NYU just like Keana did. Chris was away at college.
As Lauren spent her morning at their house, she couldn't help but look across. The Cabello's home which had been so lively and homely, was now foreclosed. Seeing the sign in front of the house unsettled Lauren.
"What happened?" she asked. The last time she was in Miami, more than a year ago, she had been inside that house to greet the Cabellos and they've been well.
"They moved to Orlando." Clara explained as she cleaned up the kitchen. "It was closer to where Alejandro worked and was more convenient for them."
Lauren nodded. It was practical yet it made Lauren sad that their street would never be the same. "How long?"
"It's been almost a year. That house has been empty since. They sold it back to the realtors, got a moving truck and all."
Lauren went up to her old room and looked at how most of her stuff were still where they were, just covered in plastic sheets to keep the dust away. She peeked out the window. The window level hers used to belong to her friend. It was shut and so were the blinds. She sighed. That roomed housed a lot of memories.
"So where are you up to, Lauren?" Clara asked as Lauren found herself watching National Geographic to pass the time. It became a habit, even though it stopped reminding her of someone.
"I'm going to drop by somewhere. Then I'll stay at Keana's. Do some catching up." She explained.
"Do you want me to drop you off?" Clara offered, smiling.
"Mom, I'm 23 I can do it by myself." Lauren said laughing.
When the show finished, she got up and rode her mom's car.
She looked at the map on her phone. She hadn't been there before on her own and the last time she went there, she was merely a passenger, not knowing the directions.
She stopped when she was sure she made the right turn. She got out of the car and looked at the sign.
She was sure it was the right cemetery. It had been so long.
She didn't remember exactly where so she went up to the big tree in the hill and from there she made her way down until she was so sure she found it. The stone was clean as if it were polished every day. Lauren bent down and placed a bouquet of wilted daisies before standing up. The epitaph read: KARLA CAMILA CABELLO. A loving daughter, sister, and friend. Living beyond the monotonous city.
Lauren faintly smiled. She forgot what it felt like. To love her. It happened so long ago and sometimes feelings fade. The memories remained the same. But she knew, it was the girl who taught her how to live and to love after the accident.
Lauren took out the crumpled piece of paper with her writing on it. You should find this camera useful for travel purposes. Use it well, then come back.
"I did use the camera." She started. "I went everywhere, and I didn't know I loved adventures until I went out there." She recalled happily, with a smile on her face. "I spent a long time trying to decode this, if there was a simple message. It was only until the plane ride back to Miami that I realized what it could have meant. So now I'm here." She let her arms fall at her sides.
"Thanks for bringing me back here. Knowing me, I probably wouldn't ever visit places like these, for what it's worth." She said, speaking more to herself at times. "I visited Sofi just earlier, she told me she was at Starbucks so I dropped by. She has a lot of friends, she's the star track and field athlete at their school, and she's got straight A's. She looks so much like you, except I think she's less so full of herself. I mean-you would have been proud to see her. " Lauren felt a little weight in her chest. "I heard your parents moved to Orlando. I mean it's pretty there but our street would never be the same without the Cabellos."
She ended up sitting, crossed leg on top of the grave. She shut her eyes and let the breeze roll her by. "I'm seeing someone new now. Her name's Lucy and she's amazing. I have lots of great job opportunities, I have a flat in New York. I mean life is really good now and thank you, really. Without you, I would be nowhere."
"I made you a gallery, but you never got to see them." She went on. "I put them in a gallery of a friend for a while before selling them all. I gave the proceeds to this charity I've been closely working with the past few years, for teens and children with heart disease. You would have loved to meet them."
"I'm sorry for not knowing exactly what happened to you, and for not understanding you enough." She finally said, feeling the lump at her throat.
She just sat there for some more time, thinking of what else to say but sometimes you just run out. Even to the person who used to mean so much to you. She was supposed to stand up when she remembered Sofi mentioned 'treasure hunt' the minute they met again. Treasure hunt. She had mentioned it long ago, not understanding why. It didn't make sense.
She looked at the grave stone. Her eyes landed on the grass beside it.
The memory of her and Sinu digging that hole came to her mind. She got to her knees. Sinu held a package that day that she said had some of her valuable things. Could it be the treasure? She looked next to her until she saw a couple of graves away was a small shovel. She quickly grabbed it and started working on the grass, hoping the caretaker wouldn't get mad.
When she dug deep enough, she used her hands until inside them was the shoe box that was sealed with duct tape. She put in in her lap and ripped off the duct tape. Her hands were covered in soil but she didn't care.
When it opened, she saw it was covered in bubble wrap. She unfolded it until she saw a letter folded and the black leather bound notebook. It was her bucket list.
Lauren's heart was racing. She picked up the letter. It was a page worth full of her handwriting. She read it with hands trembling, as if Camila were the one who was reading the letter aloud.
Dear Lauren,
If you're reading this, then I'm probably dead.
Yeah, I know how harsh that sounds but that's just the way it is. I know it would take you a while to find this, probably never and that's also fine but that would mean that you would never know. And I want you to know.
My hope is that by the time you're reading this, you're alive and well. You probably got a job now and have someone special to come home to and it gives me comfort, in my darkest times to know that I changed one person's life for the better and it was a pleasure that it got to be you.
You told me that one time to write that college essay Ms. Campbell has been telling us about. But the truth was, as pretentious as I was, I did not want to write that essay. What was the point, to have some sentiment for the dying girl before she dies to put things into perspective? I'm not a story Lauren and I don't want to be reduced to one. You know that.
But then enter you coming into my room, telling me about your day, cheering me up when I felt like my chest was about to cave in from the pain. You made me feel a thousand times better. They say words are just words but listening to yours somehow gets me through whatever it is I'm going through. You cried that day, practically begging me to make my essay and at first I don't get the necessity until I get that you just wanted it to have a piece of my mind.
And now this is what this letter is. A piece of my mind for your perusal.
I'll have to start with that fated day we met on top of the night club. You asked me that night before we left why I was there as well. I told you I wanted to live a little. That was a lie. The truth is at that point in my life, I wasn't doing so well.
They told you I had relapsed but that wasn't the full story. I was at cheer practice. It was still summer a week before the start of school and I was doing a routine. I was standing on top of one of my teammates' shoulders when I blacked out.
Yeah. It was that bad. I woke up in the hospital and it was as if all the wounds that had closed up had opened again. Literally and figuratively. I was in so much pain. I found out the valve in my heart that my surgery fixed, had stopped working properly. The chances weren't so good this time around. I knew then I was dying and I had so little time left.
Another secret I never told you. I've been clinically depressed since I was 10. So you might probably have an idea by now what I wanted or planned to do that night.
The thing is Lauren, for a person like me who's humanist, who believes so much in people having the power to forge their own destinies, I fall back sometimes on the opposite. When I saw you that night burst out that door, all a mess and crying, I know I had seen that face before. It was not because I know you're my neighbor or the girl who got into the accident, but rather because I've seen myself in a similar situation. We were brought together by fate.
You were helpless and were going to do something dangerous so it wasn't really a choice of whether or not I should help. It became a necessity. And that necessity changed me. Possibly forever even if I'll never get that.
I could never tell you I was going through something similar. Maybe I'm just as human as the next person. Maybe I'm not so different from you. I'm selfish enough to want you to remember me for me, and not for what I'm going through.
I see me in you Lauren. I thought for the longest time I was the only one who felt as such. You went through something more traumatic than I did though I knew what we shared in common: the pain. I became the person I always wanted to be: bright, cheerful and optimistic yet at the same time I was still me. You needed someone to rely on and I became that person for you, a person I never thought I could be while going through the wreck that was my life.
But the thing was Lauren, I enjoyed all those months I was your friend. What first started out as pretend being this person, I felt like I was becoming her. The person I always wanted to be, who I was so scared to be, I got to be that. I went on road trips alone and broke into abandoned buildings. I was alive and I was real. Thanks to you.
With everything that was going on, you somehow inspired me to really go for cheerleading again. I had actually quit and they just let me go on as sort of honorary member. I had pushed for it. I knew the consequences. I was dying anyway.
But there's this other thing. I saw that you were falling for me. I thought myself as incapable of being loved ever since knowing I was different, and that thing with Ariana. But the things you did (yes I do notice), the painting, the flowers, opened my eyes that there are people like you who exist in this world and that they deserve so much for letting me feel that way.
Then that night at the motel came. To be quite honest, I didn't know what came to me. Things just happened. For a girl who loved words, I couldn't use them to ever tell you how I felt. You loved me but I couldn't be the person for you and I mean it. It tore you. But it tore me as much.
You see, I loved you the same Lauren.
But I could never tell you.
It wasn't a matter of loving so we can make each other less broken. We are, but that's normal for all of us humans to feel broken, it's our nature. You loved me but that doesn't change the fact that I'm dying. You can't love people and expect them to become better.
You were headed somewhere I know we both couldn't. No matter how we tried to be. Two sick people, a lot of skeletons, a lot of pain, there's no room for much. It's a recipe for disaster, you know how Romeo and Juliet ended. But if we didn't, one of us could have made it alive. I knew it always was you and I tried my best to steer you that way even when I knew I couldn't keep up and I was falling behind.
You asked me before if I wish I could change the way things are and I wouldn't. But you asked me if I wanted more time. I told you I would think about it. But the truth was, I'd give up a lot of things just to get more time.
Today at the field when we had picnic was one of the best days of my life. I know because I'm still up at 2AM writing about it in this letter.
I actually thought the hardest person to say admit I was dying was to was to my sister. She was the only one who didn't know. It happened easier than expected, we were watching Frozen and during the scene where Anna was frozen, I told her that I was dying. She just nodded like the mature girl she was and said she doesn't want me to hurt anymore. That put out so much weight in my chest, to see her accept and for her to not treat me any differently afterwards.
The truth was, it was hardest to say it to you. It happened at the worst time possible and I wish it could have gone differently but it was out my hands. Seeing how you handled it broke me in the worst way I imagined. But you faced it Lauren, you had grown so much since the night I saw you at the top of the building. And when you're reading this, you've probably grown some more and I'm sorry I can't be there to see you be that person but I'm so proud.
You opened up fields of daisies I never knew I had inside me, when I always felt like the most wilted among the bunch. You were the greatest adventure I got that I never knew I desired. For that I am forever thankful. You can't love people back to life, but you've changed a sick, dying girl in ways you'll never understand. You loved her. And somehow it makes all the difference.
You said goodbye to me tonight and I believe we never will know when people will have the final say. So I'll close this chapter for good since I want to have the privilege. I'll have the final say this time.
Goodbye, Lauren.
Lauren folded the paper back and found herself in tears.
Camila had felt the same way about her.
She wiped at her tears with her sleeves. More than once actually. She forgot when she last cried that bad.
She looked down and saw the bucket list Camila prized so much. She picked it up carefully. She flicked the pages and smiled sadly at the photos. Maybe it was time but Camila looked different to her in the photos. She was prettier in her memories because they were beautiful.
She went to the last page she could find with an entry.
It was "Fall in Love".
Lauren clearly remembered that page to have a polaroid that wasn't glued. The photo was of a drunk Camila and Ariana. This time it was different.
There was a glued photo. It was the day Lauren bought her the polaroid camera and Camila took her first snapshot. Lauren had been sitting and used her hand to cover the camera.
The photo was Lauren, eyes closed, her hand blurred as she tried to grab the camera.
She shut the notebook, inserting the letter inside it and putting it back in the box. She looked up at the sky. She thought all this time she let Camila down in some way. That she wasn't the friend to her just the way Camila was to her. But she was so wrong.
And for the first time, she was glad she was.
--
A/N: And this is the end of BTMC officially!!!!! I will make a long ass acknowledgement post so bear with me on this.
First of all, thanks for sticking with this story, going through 50 chapters is insane for anyone. But it honestly didn't feel like work as I grew attached to these characters and to the story, and like I said this journey has been yours as much as it was mine. Thanks for helping bring this story to life.
I really planned to make this my last fic. I had this idea for the longest time. I'm a fan of sick!fics so I always wanted to write the sick fic I never got to read, and that's what I did for BTMC. I wanted to read the angst, the deep conversations, the struggle and pain and of course the character development (which I am the most proud about this fic). I wanted a sick fic that wasn't cliche at all, a sick fic that would be a breath of fresh air, so this is what I did.
I got a comment saying that they forgot the story was about camren in the first place, which to me is a big compliment. I always intended this story to become Lauren's. This isn't a love story with two sick people. This is Lauren's, her journey and struggle, and it remained her story until the end. Whatever she shared with Camila was just a chapter in her story, a shiny silver lining in a time when her world was clouded with gray.
My favorite part of the story is honesty Lauren's growth throughout. You can see how she changed, and it was very slow burning much like how her friendship with Camila progressed. She had a lot of bumps along the way, but she prevailed and it's not all thanks to Camila but also to herself. But if we're talking about a specific moment, I'd say its between the time Lauren bought Camila daisies and when Lauren was driving away from Miami with her realizations about the monotonous city. Tell me here what your favorite part of the story is, and why!
As for favorite characters, I've grown very fond of Camila. I see a lot of myself in her character, despite many people knowing her, they never knew the real her. She was so attached yet detached at the same time. Incredibly pretentious, very self-aware, she was a walking paradox. Let me know who is your favorite character and why!
And lastly, I hear a lot of comments about the lines and quotes in this fic. My favorite is "don't miss me too much", there's something about the simplicity yet melancholy in that phrase that just hits me. Let me know your favorites if you have!
I left the ending a bit detached, I didn't want to go through with what Lauren felt as I want it to be up to you to decide. But it's safe to say, Lauren got her closure. I hope you guys did too!
Not bad for my last fic!
- Sofia
--> find me at (vapormila) on twitter