Lauren didn't show up at school for the entire week following. Camila's eyes seemed to be constantly glued to the door, hoping that the familiar dark locks would appear, yet was bitterly disappointed with each class that dragged by in a monotonous blur. Even Dinah, usually bursting with personality, was unusually quiet as her attempts to visit Lauren were of no use and her worries confessed to Camila were returned with only teary eyes.
Camila's concern mounted with every minute that ticked by on the outdated, plastic clock that sat askew in the classroom wall, a dusty object that was so often overlooked by students who were in favour of their smart phones. Camila's mind in those lost hours, drifted to the darkest place possible, it seemed to insist that Lauren had been rushed to hospital and was internally bleeding to death while she sat ignorant to her girlfriend's precarious health. These morbid thoughts haunted her mind and yet she was too afraid to show up at her door after their last confrontation; she wouldn't know what state she would be in if she were refused entry at the front door.
The words that were exchanged between the two girls that night played on a constant torturous loop, that Camila continually overthought upon. The large pit in her stomach was over-brimming with guilt from every word that spilled forth from her lips, for every adamant insistence that Lauren share the truth despite her girlfriend quite obviously communicating her discomfort on the topic. She felt mentally and physically drained as consequence of such daunting thoughts that weighed heavily upon her mind, and she hadn't even yet begun to entertain the suggestion that their short relationship had already come to a sudden end.
By Friday, Camila was a utter anxious wreck. She barely got through the school day, on the verge of mental collapse, and by the end was ready to grab a pint of ice-cream to resume her tear-fest; that is, until the phone rang. A familiar frantic voice cut though to her ears, babbling away faster than Camila could keep up with. Clara Jauregui was beside herself, her palpable concern evident in her phone manner without even taking into account her words. Apparently Lauren was in a similar state to Camila and had been refusing to communicate with anybody for the entire week. Her mother, naturally, was extremely worried as Lauren wouldn't answer any of her questions, leading her to correctly believe that something had transpired between her daughter and the eldest Cabello child.
Clara believed that although her daughter was too stubborn to acknowledge anyone, that seeing Camila would force them to talk out their issues. She was afraid that Lauren would once again lose the strength and will to live, and the last thing that she wanted was her daughter in the hospital once again, or worse. So Camila was her only hope in extracting Lauren from the shell that she had retreated within. So it was with this request that brought Camila Cabello before Lauren Jauregui's bedroom door the next day.
With her eyebrows furrowed and her hand curled into a fist, posed to knock upon the firm oak, she found that her body was frozen as if petrified by a basilisk's indirect stare. Her mind ran amuck with doubts and fears and she tried to exercise some controlled breathing to help reduce the complete anxiety that overwhelmed her entire being. To say that she failed would be a complete understatement.
She rested her forehead against the cool wood, gasping for oxygen as a mini-panic attack began to seize her, latching onto the fears that swelled and multiplying them hundred-fold. She choked back the feeling, forcing it to temporarily abate as she focused on being brave enough to save Lauren from her inner-demons. It took a couple of minutes until she was able to regain enough strength and confidence to softly rap on the door.
She was not surprised when she was met with silence, and yet there was no noise at all; nothing to indicate that there was a living being on the other side of the door. She knocked significantly louder and waited, unnerved when the silence grew and there was no change. She grew increasingly conflicted, deliberating whether to barge in, to call out, or to just keep knocking in hope of a reply. She chose a combination of the three.
With a light persistent knocking she slowly opened the door, calling out to Lauren in a gentle voice that was barely above a whisper. "Lo? Lauren?"
Her eyes settled on the room and she was shocked to discover that the usually tidy bedroom was uncharacteristically left in complete disarray, almost rivaling Camila's own often chaotic bedroom. A figure lay curled in the bed in what appeared to be a foetal position, motionless and unresponsive. With a familiar sense of dread, Camila tentatively approached the figure that she had finally concluded was her girlfriend (or ex, she was quite unsure on the matter), and sucked in a breath at the pitiful sight that greeted her gaze.
Lauren was blankly staring into space, long-sleeves self-consciously pulled over her wrists and her arms tightly wrapped around her legs. Her body seemed to slightly trembled and her eyes were glassed over as if she had no more water left in her body to spill. Her cheeks were sunken in and there was tape across her mouth with black marker scrawled across its surface, illegible from the angle that Camila stood at. There were several untouched plates of cold and stale food littered around her bedside table. It was what sat atop it that really caught her eye, propped up by the bedside lamp was her whiteboard which had written in big clear letters: Go away and leave me alone. I don't deserve your pity, so don't bother.
"Oh, Lauren," She finally responded in a gasped choke and felt her mind surrender to an emotion that could not be described; a world shattering emotion that it made her soul weep and her heart crumble. Without allowing her mind a moment to process her actions, she clambered onto the bed and lay behind the fragile girl and spooned her. As her body settled on the mattress, she sensed an object poking into her sided from underneath and reached down to move it. Her hands clasped around and exercise book and she curiously pulled slightly away from the warmth of Lauren's body to observe it. It only took a second for her to regret the decision.
The lined page was barely recognisable under the thick layers of pen that scrawled across the page overlapping every word, and it chilled Camila to her core. The same two things repeated themselves over and over like mantra, the lines growing darker and angrier on some parts of the page. Completely shaken, Camila flipped to through the previous pages only to find the same thing written over and over again. The words were inscribed on the page like a permanent brand on Lauren's soul; "I am sorry, please forgive me" and "I don't deserve forgiveness". Camila's eyes stung with tears as she tossed the book behind her and gripped onto Lauren as tightly as possible.
"I'm here, Lauren. I am so sorry for pressuring you to talk and I am not leaving...not again, you hear?" She gripped onto the tense girl and nuzzled her face into the back of her shoulder, softly whispering a sleepy, yet unapologetic "I love you, Lauren Jauregui", before dosing off into a dreamless slumber.
* * *
Camila's arms were left empty several hours later when she awoke to find herself alone. She shot out of bed as she internally panicked, her eyes scouring the room yet finding it to be empty. It took a few moments to her senses to adjust to her surroundings before she finally recognised the sound of running water from the bathroom. She lightly rapped on the door, her heart in her throat as she waited in anticipation for a response. When there was no other sound than the water drops hitting the porcelain, she knocked louder and called out Lauren's name. Her eyes fell shut as the memories of the last time she had found Lauren in the bathroom flooded her mind. With her eyes squeezed shut and one hand to her head she pounded on the door. "Lauren, if you don't respond I am coming in!!!"
She heard brief scuffling and a sharp knock in response, as Lauren finally answered her request. The relief that immediately overwhelmed Camila was physically crippling, sending her to her knees in boneless pile before the door. Tears of thanks ran down her face as she gulped in breaths of oxygen to sooth her lungs and remove the memories that haunted the depths of her thoughts. She sat there before the door with little motivation left to move, trying desperately to regain her sense of awareness, yet lacking the energy to do so.
That is how Lauren found her; collapsed before the door hyperventilating. The girl's features screwed up in a combination of confusion and concern, and she hastily clambered onto her knees to gather the panicking girl into her shaking arms. Her trembling hand hesitantly brushed across the pale, tan cheek in a soothing yet somewhat reverent action. Camila's breath took several moments to even out as her body began to relax in Lauren's comforting grip. Suddenly those familiar warm orbs were revealed, smothering her distressed mind and reinstating the natural zen within her soul. She had missed the warmth and raw honesty that those mahogany-coloured eyes exuded, the magical protective effect that they had on her mind and soul as they chased away Lauren's inner demons, even if it was only temporary.
After Lauren had commanded Camila to leave during their fight a week ago, she had barely moved from the single spot on her bed the entire week; only leaving to pee. She had eaten next to nothing as her time was spent either sleeping or staring blankly at the wall in front of her, and Camila was literally the first person she had physically seen since the previous week.
As she soothed the shaking girl, she came to the sudden realisation that she needed the younger girl currently curled into her body. After everything that they had been through over these few fleeting months, at some point she had become reliant on those familiar warm brown eyes and that familiar heartwarming smile to get her through each day. As she felt the warm puffs of air slow as they brushed across her collarbone and she felt the other girl lean into her touch, one thought prevailed; she was falling hard for this gentle, exquisite creature folded within the confines of her arms, and that quite frankly scared the hell out of her.
She was disrupted from her rapidly morbid dwellings by a familiar voice, the rasp thick from exhaustion, as it mumbled an apology against her skin. "I'm so sorry Laur."
Silence followed for several moments, with Lauren not able to verbally respond.
"I'm sorry I pressured you into telling me something you weren't ready to..." she continued, pausing to try and find the right words to voice her thoughts. Her eyes were now staring into Lauren's, her small face peering up at her with eye blazing with sincerity. "I mean I was really just worried about you. And I know that is no excuse for being controlling, but I think you deserve to know how deeply I care about you," she took in several gulps of air as she prepared herself for what she was about to say; to reveal. "I-I don't if you heard me last night, but I...I love you, Lauren, and I don't expect you to feel the same way in such a small amount of time, and I know that you still have unresolved feelings for-" she swallowed uncomfortably,"for Jade, but it's how I feel. When I see you in pain, it becomes my own as if my body sharing it with yours, and I would gladly take all of it if it meant that you would be happy. I refuse to lose you because of some stupid fight we had over my stubbornness, so I hope you can forgive me because this past week knowing that I could no longer call you mine or myself yours felt like I was being torn apart from the inside out."
A part of her felt completely thrilled by the words that escaped the younger girl's mouth - the sound of her heart racing throbbed in her ears as her breath caught - yet a larger part of her felt nothing but a sickening sense of disgust and dread that no amount of comforting would relieve. She could understand exactly why Camila had grown frustrated with her a week ago, and it was of her opinion that Camila's apology was sweet but unnecessary as they had both been in the wrong that afternoon. It was exactly that factor that caused the inner turmoil within Lauren; Camila cared so deeply that she would rather trust Lauren than force a confession out of her, deep enough to entrust her own life into the hands of her emerald-eyed girlfriend. It was impossible for Lauren to forget the last time a person she loved trusted her with their life; after all, they had pretty much lost it as a consequence.
"So, that being said, will you be my girlfriend again?" Camila asked softly, her eyes peering up and almost challenging Lauren's soul to lie and deny her, and say no. Yet somehow Lauren found her head nodding in agreement, one half of her heart baited by Camila's reassurance of a safety net the she doesn't deserve while the other attempted to anchor itself as it was yanked from the softly padded enclosure it had elected as penance.
So as easily as that, all was forgiven an they were girlfriends again...or so it seemed on the surface as Camila willingly dove back into the relationship from where they left off, whilst Lauren was left in a strange limbo.
Lauren never admitted it, especially not to Camila, but after that night the nightmares frequented her dreams once again, this time with chestnut coloured-eyes instead of the usual blue.