For Me This is Heaven (Camren)

Chapter 22

It was late autumn when my cousin and her fiancé finally decided to have their wedding. I was relatively close to everyone in my family. And they all knew Lauren very well and they adored her completely. Most of them met her before the lymphoma spread and confined her to her hospital room. My cousin had gotten engaged a few years back and I had almost forgotten about it until the day was finally approaching and I was reading the invitation again.

"Camila, it's not like she knew and did it on purpose to upset you."

My dad was trying to reason with me. Admittedly, I was overreacting. But I was sensitive and in all honesty it never crossed my mind that it would be such a pressing issue at the time. But with my days with Lauren numbered and me holding my breath every waking moment of every hour I was pacing my kitchen and flailing my arms as if I had an actual argument worth defending.

"Did she expect me to dress her up and sneak her out of the hospital for one night?" I asked, a little ridiculously—in hindsight—because I was spewing nonsense at that point. But I was annoyed by the littlest things; as if I could drag Lauren's body, half-conscious and pumped with enough drugs to take down an elephant, to a wedding.

"Obviously not. You know she made these cards like...two years ago, mija," my mom chimed in, not even looking up from the dishes she was washing. I sighed unnecessarily loudly. "It's just a plus one on the invite. Why don't you bring Dinah? She loves to have an excuse to wear fancy dresses!" she tried again, enthusiastically. And I strangely appreciated the effort. "Or you know, you don't actually have to bring a date to this wedding, Camila."

"I know I don't but...I don't know, seeing that was just really weird for me. Like is this some kind of joke? Everyone in the universe knows my plus one is sick and wouldn't be able to make it."

"Of course it's not a joke," my dad said. "The invitation is old."

He wasn't wrong. They were engaged forever. My cousin would have been married already if it wasn't for her fiancé leaving for business trips every once in a while for long periods at a time. They felt it wouldn't be right to start off their marriage being separated all the time. Once he transferred and was settled they finally decided to do it.

"You know I'm gonna get bombarded with questions."

"No you won't. They know where she is."

"Exactly."

"You can't avoid your family. If it's really going to upset you though, your father and I can ask everyone to lay off the subject."

"It won't make a difference and you know it. But thank you, mom, really."

"Of course, mija."

It was also late autumn when Lauren was diagnosed with anorexia, on top of everything else. I knew she wasn't actively starving herself but that was what it boiled down to, more or less. She was aware of everything. She just couldn't help herself. And her body rejected most of what she put in there anyway, as grossly ironic as that will always sound to me.

I was dreading it, as much as I loved weddings, seeing my extended family, and open bars. I had been complaining to Lauren the entire week leading up to it which, when I look back on it now, was a little outrageous on my part. She never said anything about it though until I finally gave myself a minute to stop and look at her.

Her arms were so thin I could almost wrap my whole hand around it and her cheek and collar bones were more prominent. She had dropped to eighty eight pounds at such a rapid pace I barely got a chance to witness the regression. Had I not seen her the entire time I wouldn't have been sure I was even looking at the same girl.