Revive (Camila/You AU)

Prologue

Growing up it was always black and white. That’s all I ever saw, and I thought it was always going to be that way. I was seven when I had my first glance at color for the first time, although it had just been a glimmer. When I met my best friend Abby. I never knew what it meant, all I knew was that her eyes, they were different. I eventually went on to learn that they were different because they were colored. And that color was blue. I had kept quiet about it in fear of being different than everyone else. But one day Abby brought it up to me that whenever she looked at my eyes, they were always different than everything else, they were colored for her too. We kept our colored eyes between us, but eventually, as the years went by and I got to know Abby better, I started seeing more color. I saw her olive colored skin, her beautiful blonde hair, and the gorgeous blue eyes I had known for years. When I asked her if she too, had started seeing me in more color she said yes, and had said she didn’t want to talk about it because of how weird it was. I eventually asked my mom about it, when I was thirteen and Abby was fourteen. My mom was shocked at first to learn that this color had come to me after meeting a girl, since I too was a girl. She explained that when one finds love within another, their world begins to appear in color. I was baffled. I was mostly confused at why I had liked another girl. My mom told me that it was okay, and that it happened to some people because they were born that way, they were born gay, or lesbian if you were a female. I immediately visited Abby to tell her all that I had learned and told her that it meant I loved her, and that the fact that she saw colors must’ve meant she loved me too. I was so excited that I loved someone, and that I had a new sense practically. Slowly more things became colorful.. But Abby distanced herself. And I’ll never forget the day that Abby had turned on me, we were at the park, she hadn’t spoken, and I just sat next to her, I asked if everything was okay, and she blew up. She yelled at me, because we loved each other. She said being gay was disgusting and that she never wanted to see me again because I was disgusting in her eyes. I went home crying. As I was going to sleep I had received a text from Abby, saying she was sorry. I texted back to tell her it was okay but I hadn’t gotten a response. I worriedly got on my bike and rode to her house. When I was halfway to her house, everything was black and white again, I was so confused, but I was more focused on getting to Abby. When I got to her house it was surrounded by ambulances.. Abby had killed herself. Because she was gay. Because I was gay. Because we loved each other. It was ten at night and the paramedics called my mom to pick me up.. I remember the conversation in the car on the way home like it was yesterday..

“Mommy.. Why are they gone?” 

“Why are what gone, sweetie?” My mom clenched her jaw, obviously trying to avoid the conversation. 

“The prettiness.. The colors..” I remember barely being able to say. If anything I choked out the words more or less.

“Well honey.. You know Abby is dead now” I offered a nod of my head to show I comprehended while sniffling. 

“And you loved Abby. Abby was the person you loved. You can’t really love her anymore now that she’s dead.. Your body can make you think you still love her, but now you only love the memories of her. Your love for her is what made the colors.. They’re only there when you love someone..” She said, so so cautiously. She knew she was basically walking on broken glass with me at this point. 

“She won’t ever come back.. Will she..?” 

“No, sweetie” My mom choked out. She didn’t want to be having that talk with me. No mother would ever want to have that talk with their kid, I only had one more question.

“Will the colors..?” 

“Maybe someday. When you meet another girl that you love”

“I love you mom” She choked again.

“It doesn’t work like that hun” I nodded. I was silent for the rest of the car ride. For the rest of that week actually. It took years but I met someone my senior year of high school. At a bar I was working at for extra money. I was 17 and she was 19 but we were in love and we didn’t care. She brought the color back for me, finally, and after I graduated, we started a family together. We had a beautiful daughter, we named her Sofia, Sofi, for short. She looked mostly like my wife, Lauren. She had her latina hair, and skin, with my grey/blue/green eyes with that little flicker of gold in them whenever the light hit them.

- 8 years later - 

I sighed walking down the street after another stressful day of work. It wasn’t easy being a counselor. I mean, I loved psychology and I’m happy to help people but.. Sometimes I tend to get attached to a person or situation. One of my patients commit suicide last night.. It was never an easy thing to hear. Even after years of hearing it. Being only 25, it’s hard to hear about death so often, especially the death of someone you know. When one of my patients commits suicide, I always feel that I’m partially to blame. Just like I had when Abby died. October 27th. Today was the anniversary of her death making it an especially hard day for me, I sat down on a bench for a minute to regain my composure, even though the chilly October weather was not very ideal. I was never one to break in public, but something about today felt different. I closed my eyes and rest my head in my hands. When I finally opened them to start walking back home, something was different. I saw the color beginning to fade. I slung my bag around my shoulder and ran to my house as fast as I could. When I got there, I saw that a demolition team was tearing it down. I watched as a wrecking ball came swinging towards the house with a loud bang. But all of a sudden, I was in my bed. 

“Oh my gosh.. It was just a dream” I breathed out a sigh of relieve and turned to Lauren, but to my surprise, she wasn’t there. I heard a bang coming from down stairs. A bang that sounded awfully like a gun shot. 

“Oh no” and suddenly, there was black. I sneakily ran from our room to Sofi’s. It was too late for me to save Lauren. And all I wanted to do was cry, but I knew I had a chance at saving Sofi still. I woke Sofi up gently.

“What’s going on mommy?” 

“Listen baby, there’s a bad man in the house. We’re going to go hide in the crawlspace under your bed, and mommy is going to call the police to get him out of here. But you have to be extremely super quiet for me, okay?” The child that had just turned four nodded her head and began crawling under her bed as I opened the latch for the crawl space. We got down there and it was rather large, basically the area of the house, but as a compartment. Lauren and I had built it in case of an emergency. I was thanking god she nagged me to build it now. I called the police and explained the situation and they said they sent help right away. 

“Mommy?”

“Yes baby girl?” 

“Where’s mama..?” 

“Mama.. Mama isn’t going to be around anymore baby”

“Did the bad man get her?” She asked, tears starting to roll down her face.

“Yes baby, yes. The bad man got her” I said, allowing myself to cry now for the first time since the gunshot woke me up. It had sunk in that I would never see Lauren’s astonishing emerald green eyes again. I pulled Sofi close and hugged her until the police had come upstairs to where I told them we were hiding and said they had shot and killed the guy when he tried running away. 

“We’re afraid, that the female who was down stairs didn’t uh.. She didn’t make it” 

“I know” I uttered, my voice cracking, as I simply nodded my head and held Sofi as she cried.