Or Is It Real?

Chapter 30: Don't Speak

Lauren's PoV

Have you ever craved someone so much that you literally ache?

Her touch, her smell, her presence... her essence. Craved someone so much that all you ever want to do is to get tangled up in them, doing nothing, saying nothing. Just lay there together, where nothing else matters.

Because with her, words aren't needed. Her heart beats to the rhythm of your own. Just listening to her breathing as you lay your head to her chest is like a cooling salve that relieves all your wounds and aches. It's everything you'll ever need, because with her, you're content.

No, words aren't needed if you find that someone you relate to in the deepest level you never knew was possible. Just knowing, understanding, feeling, even without speaking. It's an intensely personal connection that affects every inch of you, piercing your heart, electric currents traveling from your brain and manifesting all over your body. You feel her everywhere. It's a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual connection.

That's why when you found that someone and experienced all of that, once she's gone, every part of you weeps for her. You're defenseless against the intense longing your body and soul will torture you with. There's no difference to what a drug addict in withdrawal goes through, because she has become your drug. You've become dependent on her, and as much as your mind tells you that you need to stop for the sake of your pride and dignity, the rest of you will rebel against the very idea of your separation with your drug.

Emotional pain manifests physically because, in a way, she is you. Your literal half. Without her, you're not complete. Like a missing limb, that even if time comes and you get used to her absence, there will always be that reminder that will trick your mind into thinking that she's still there completing you, and also hurting you. A phantom pain.

Because only with her, you feel the most complete. And yet, with her, memories of her being with another person never stop assaulting you, mocking you relentlessly, reminding you that somebody else has tainted that connection. She has let someone else, other than you, invade that personal space that only the two of you have shared.

And you could never live with that. Despite the longing and the need, you could never be with someone who has consciously destroyed that safe haven you have built together.

So now she's gone, and all you can do is taste her lingering essence that now only exists in your memories. And even if instinct tells you to stop thinking about her because it hurts you to the core, your heart refuses to listen because the memories of her are the only thing that's keeping you intact.

Camila and her goofy smile, her super funny jokes, her fairy wings, her kind heart, her beautiful eyes, her warmth, her soul.

How ironic, isn't it? How she's the only one keeping me intact when she's also the one who broke me, in the first place.

You'd think I'm the stronger one, just because I speak my mind, or talk without censoring myself, or because I'm protective of my loved ones, but you don't know shit at all. Because despite all that, why do I feel so crippled and defenseless?

I don't deserve this.

She's the one who ruined everything, why do I get to suffer too?

Why do I crave her so much, despite everything that has happened?

I know I should fix myself, but that could wait. I'm on a vacation, and I could escape just a few days more before I face reality again. Last night was a blur of shots and drunken dancing and probably a bit of moping, and I don't even remember how the fuck I got back to my hotel bed, with fresh clothes on my body (probably Alexa), and a glass of water on my night table (that was extra thoughtful, it's probably Keana). I'm pretty sure it wasn't Vero, I mean, she would have left me at the club if it was up to her, that bitch.