Only You Can Break Me

"It's what we've been waiting for..."

Camila sighed softly as she walked back into the house from grabbing the mail. She thumbed through them before furrowing her brows when she saw one addressed to her and Lauren from the medical center. She already knew what it was as she walked back into the office where she'd already been working on balancing the checkbook.

They had set up payments for the remaining balance of Emma's procedure, after they had already pulled money out of the kids savings accounts just to pay for it. She sat back in the chair and ripped open the envelope to pull out the bill. Just as she had thought. The first of the monthly payments for $450 had arrived. Camila set the paper off to the side and grabbed the pen she'd been using to look at the budget which was always tight during the summer time since her paychecks were always smaller during the summer time unless she was teaching classes.

Lauren had been working a lot the last couple of weeks because she knew that the bill for Emma's hearing aid could be coming any day now. She pulled into the garage and got out of the car. She walked into the house, making sure to shut the door. Lauren didn't see her wife in the living room, but turned the corner and saw the office light on. She smiled to herself and walked in the room, "I'm home." Lauren said as she went to wrap her arms around Camila from behind. She furrowed her brows when she saw what her wife was doing, "What's that?" She asked softly.

Camila smiled softly when she heard her wife come in. "Hey baby..." she turned her head some to look at her. "It's what we've been waiting for..." she whispered and grabbed the paper to show it to Lauren then. "I just opened it up and I was about to sit here and figure out where the money was going to come from at least for the next two months until the semester starts back up again for me."

Lauren kissed the side of Camila's head as she sighed, "Great," she mumbled softly. She had already been putting in overtime the last few weeks and it was starting to take a toll on her. Lauren moved over to sit on the couch as she looked at her wife. "So where is the money coming from?"

"I literally just picked up the pen to crunch some numbers. I haven't figured it out yet." Camila  could sense that Lauren was frustrated and exhausted. "Had I know this was going to all happen over the summer, I would have taken those two classes that were being offered."

Lauren sighed as she shook her head. She didn't want to think about this at all. She hated that they were even having to go through this situation. "Well figure it out. I need to know how many more 80 hour weeks I have to put in before your classes start again." Lauren couldn't help but be frustrated. She was physically and mentally exhausted all the time...and when she came home from work she wasn't able to spend much time with her wife or kids like they wanted because she often just went straight to bed.

Camila shook her head softly. "I'm doing what I can right now. It's not like I can start teaching a class in the middle of the term. I already planned on picking up 2 extra classes in the fall. Art 101 is a requirement for everybody, I can also grab a few of the higher level classes too. So you won't have to work as much. I'm sorry for all of this, but it worked."

 "That's great and all, but it doesn't help the situation right now," Lauren said as she leaned back on the couch. "We've already taken a significant amount of money from the kids' college funds..." Lauren reminded her. She was hesitant about the procedure the entire time...and the money issue had a lot to do with it. Sure, it was nice that Emma could hear them, but there was still a long way to go to catch her up to where she should be. She was still just discovering the world for the first time...and that was something she should have done months ago.

Camila put her pen down and turned to face her wife. "I know we have. But Taylor isn't going to college next year. I'm the one that wanted to do the surgery for Emma. I'll work as much as I can for as long as I can to replace that money and take over adding as much as I can to it. You already know this, you remind me all of the fucking time that it's my fault and how you weren't sure about it. But Emma can hear us. She'll be able to hear us more when she gets her hearing aids in a few days." Camila snapped back at her wife.