Broken, Honest, Beautiful

Signs

"Lauren?" "Hm?" Lauren shook herself out of her daze and turned her head to look at her best friend. "Are you okay?" Normani asked, subtly concerned. "Of course. Why?" Lauren replied quickly. "Why aren't you eating?" Camila asked. "I'm full." "Uhm..You haven't touched anything on your plate, babe." Dinah said worriedly. "Jeez, will y'all give it a rest? Can you all stop badgering me for a change?" "We're not, at least we don't mean to. We're just worried about you Lauren." Ally jumped in. "You needn't be. I'm fine." Lauren stood up hastily. "No, you're not." Normani dared to say. Lauren simply scoffed at the accusation and slapped down some dollar bills on the table. "I'm leaving." Ally and Dinah opened their mouths to object but the Latina was already making their way out the door. Camila sighed. "Someone should go after her." Normani shuffled her way out of the booth and released a breath she'd been holding in as she did. "I'll go, bill me later." "Alright, will do." Ally agreed. "Good luck babe." Camila smiled sadly. "Thanks Mila, I reckon I'll need it today." Normani mumbled, casting a look Dinah's way. "Not gonna say to take care of Lauren?" Dinah shook her head. "No, cause I know you will." Normani nodded before she collected herself, if she didn't hurry up, she would never find Lauren. "See you back at the bus later." Normani left and the girls returned to their meals. The atmosphere even more solemn now. "Hopefully with Lauren." Camila added quietly after she left. Dinah wrapped an arm around her best friend and rested the Cuban's head on her shoulder. "I'm sure everything will be fine. Lauren will be fine." Ally reassured weakly. But even she knew tension was high, and something wasn't right. - Actually, a lot wasn't right. But of course, no one wanted to admit it. Normani looked around and searched for her best friend worriedly, asking passers by if they had seen the green eyed girl. Everyone she asked was either uninterested, walked straight past her, or said no. "For God's sake. Where the hell are you Jauregui.." She grumbled to herself. As if the Lord had heard her, she saw a raven haired girl in a park to the left of her, sat by a tree with her head in her knees. She hoped it was Lauren, but she was pretty damn sure it was. She didn't announce her presence, just in case she ran away again. Instead, she just walked over to her bandmate and sat next to her on the grass. Lauren knew she was there, but she didn't have the energy to tell her to leave her alone. And she wasn't sure it was what she even wanted. "Are you going to tell me what's the matter?" Normani asked simply. "Cause I've just searched a fair amount of time for you, and also come to know that there are some very rude people here." Lauren sighed and leant her body against the dark skinned girl. "You know I'm here for you. Dinah's not the only one you can rely on, we've been through a lot. You should know you can trust me Lo." Lauren knew what she was referring to, it was terribly obvious. It was a night that haunted her, like a dark cloud that never seemed to go away. Lauren was starting to wonder if she, herself, was a dark cloud. "I know." She whispered. "So tell me what the problem is. We're all worried about you." "About me, or about what could happen?" Lauren said bitterly. "What do you mean by that?" Normani asked curiously, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Lauren ran her hands up and down her legs, an old nervous habit. "It's obvious, isn't it." "Not to me, no. And not to the girls, or we would have said something on the subject. Which we all would, if we knew what it was." Lauren moved out of her best friend's hold and leant back against the peeling brown bark of the tree. "I mean, you're all scared I'll cut, or worse, kill myself. You're like owls, owls watching me like fucking hawks. And before you say it, I know I named two different birds, but it's what's going on and you know it, you all know it." "It's a correlation Lauren, it's you that could do and has done those things. And you do/did those things because you're hurting." Lauren looked up to the sky as she said those words, looking at the pinks and yellows painting it like a canvas. "What do I keep saying, I'm fine." "But you're not. You say those words so often, you say that lie so often and we don't believe it." "Your choice." Lauren said simply. "Well you don't ever prove us wrong. I don't think that phrase even has any meaning to you, not anymore." Normani said, trying her best to get through to Lauren in the most careful way. "I just wish, we all wish you'd tell us what's wrong or what you're thinking instead of keeping it to yourself and storing it in your head like a gift wrapped present on Christmas Day you can't open because there's too much tape." "Strange analogy for this time of year." Lauren commented. "You know what I mean Lauren. Talk to me, tell me what you're feeling." "I can't." Normani gulped. "You know it hurts me." Lauren frowned. "What hurts you?" "When you don't talk to me. I'm supposed to be your best friend, but you don't come to me. You don't open up to me. Best friends are meant to do that. I confide in you, but it's always me confiding in you, and not the other way around. Why not? Why did that stop? Did I do something wrong?" Lauren sighed and rubbed her temples. How is she meant to fix this mess? "By telling me the truth and confiding in me." Did she say that out loud? "Come on. It's all I'm asking Lauren. Alright. Maybe it's too much, maybe. But it'll help you the long run, us in the long run. If you could actually talk to me it'd be a great help. Because right now I'm going on literally nothing, and I could be saying the wrong thing. But I wouldn't know that would I, because you're not saying anything to indicate where your head is at." Lauren knew damn well Normani had valid points and arguments, and that was another reason she couldn't dare to look at her. "I'm not going to beg you Lauren. This can't be one sided and I'm just not that person..Not yet at least. If that's what it'll take God knows I'd do it. I'll get on my knees and plead if it'll help you. I'll do anything. I would do anything for you Lauren. You must know that." "You're always tip toeing around me. Walking on egg shells and it's so, infuriating." Lauren admitted. "I just wish that none of this had ever happened. That that night had never happened, that everything was normal and I wasn't struggling at all, let alone so much. But I am, and I can't stop it. I've tried everything, but I can't-I can't do it. I'm so weak, and I hate myself." "Don't say that." Normani said, tears coming to her eyes. "You wanted to hear the truth Mani, and this is it. Do you know what it's like to wake up every morning, to hate your body and your life, no, the fact you exist. To feel like you don't have a purpose and that you shouldn't even be here. That you shouldn't be on this planet. I can't even look in the mirror anymore because I feel so disgusted with myself and what I see in my reflection." "Lauren-" "No listen to me Mani please, because I know fully well I won't spill this out again, at least not for a very long time." Normani nodded, tears running down her face, though she didn't bother to make a move to wipe them away. "Fine. Tell me then, the truth. What do you see when you look at yourself?" Lauren inhaled deeply and squeezed her eyes shut. "I see, I see nothing. I don't see anything. It's like, I'm not here. It's like a shadow of myself. Most of the time it seems like there's nothing for me to live for, even though there's plenty. And I know," Lauren's voice cracked. "I know it doesn't make any sense, but really nothing makes sense anymore. I don't deserve the life I have, I don't deserve Dinah, You, Ally or Camila. I don't deserve to be able to sing on stage and have people look up to me, and I don't-it's not even real, because they look up to someone else, in a sense, a persona." Normani reached for her hand but Lauren withdrew it to her lap. "Don't touch me, okay? I don't, I don't need to be touched I need-I don't even know!" Lauren hit her head furiously. "Stop it you'll hurt yourself!" Normani pleaded her weakly. "I know! But can't you see that I don't care?!" Lauren shouted, standing up, but she didn't move from her place. Nor did Normani. "I deserve to hurt myself." "You don't." Normani sniffed. "I've done horrible, terrible things and I deserve to be punished for them. No one's going to punish me so I have no choice but to punish myself!" "You have a choice Laur, there's always a choice and deep down you know that. The real you knows that." "The real me is gone! Who is she? Tell me because I don't even know! I don't remember!" Lauren let out a sob. Normani stood up. "I wish so bad I was dead." "Please, don't." Normani let out a cry, memories were resurfacing but she couldn't let her own head interrupt this. It was at this point she remembered she hadn't taken her PTSD medication. But she wasn't important right now, Lauren was important. The most important. Right now, in this moment. She was her priority. "Every night it's like a, it's a darkness, it's black. I don't dream anything anymore, and I imagine that's what death is like. Blissful, peaceful. I love that concept because this," Lauren pointed to her head harshly. "is anything but peaceful. It's loud in here, it's constant and hateful and torturous but of course you wouldn't know what that's like!" Normani gritted her teeth and took a step closer. "Don't I?! PTSD is torturous too Lauren, I relive that night over and over and over and there is nothing that will make it stop! Medication doesn't even make it stop, it just makes it less frequent. Everything comes back, and I mean everything. I'm there, you're there, we're there again on that hotel roof and every single time I feel the shame and the guilt and the fear and the sadness because every, time the same thing happens." Lauren listened with tears in her eyes. "Every time you jump, and there's the smack on the ground and the sirens, and the lights and the girls and the fucking doctors performing CPR on your limp, lifeless body. And I'll tell you something no one knows, when you jumped, I looked over the edge and I so nearly jumped myself because I didn't want to live in a world without you, without my best friend in the whole universe because I needed you, I needed you so much and you will never, ever understand how much you mean to me and how much I love you. You're like my world Lauren, my safe haven." Lauren choked up. "Why didn't you tell me?" Normani exploded. "How the fuck could I?" Lauren's hand went to her mouth as she held back a sob. "This all started with you, not me. It's your sadness and despair, not mine. Nothing is about me, ever. Not here, not at home-" "At home?" "You don't want to know." "Yes I do-" "I'm not getting into this now, alright? It's-it's too much, it's way too much. Just, you need me and I need you and I, Lauren please, please hug me, hold me tight and tell me it's all going to be alright. Even if it isn't because it's all too much!" Normani cried hysterically and Lauren dived over to hold Normani in an instant. "Shh, shh I got you Mans." Lauren's whispered with tears running down her cheeks and Normani's. "I-It's going to be a-alright, okay, it will." She kissed her best friend's temple, keeping her quivering lips there for a good five seconds. Normani clung onto Lauren for dear life, gripping her shoulders and back so tight her nails dug into her flannel shirt and even borderline her skin, but Lauren didn't care, not at all. It showed her how badly her best friend was hurting; how selfish she was being for not noticing. She was so wrapped up in herself she didn't see her best friend in quite honestly, mental agony. And she couldn't help but wonder what Normani had meant about her home life, and nothing being about her. "I love you so so much Normani." Lauren whispered fiercely. Normani couldn't speak, all she could do was cry into her shoulder hysterically until she couldn't do anything and she ran out of energy. Her entire body was shaking wildly, her shoulders shuddered, and her chest heaved as sobs wracked her body to no end. Normani was enduring such turmoil, and it seemed like no one had noticed. Well now it was out, to Lauren, and she vowed to do everything she could do to help her. And that meant helping herself too. Normani said she would do anything for her, and Lauren would do anything for Normani too. So she would have to pull her head out of her ass and pull herself together, now.