Dear Lauren,

It started with a game..

She was eyeing you all night, like she just had to have you and she was so cute and innocent, so when the bottle landed on you?

You couldn't believe you got so lucky to be her very first kiss.

A few weeks later and you got her number off a friend, it was amazing.

The two of you talked every single night, sometimes way into the morning because it was Summer and you were seventeen, so who freaking cared?

Until you did..

You started to care alot, like more than alot, you started to like this girl as more than just a friend that you kissed at a party, you started to like like her, like how you liked boys.. Or were supposed to at least.

School started and you went to different places but you didn't live that far away, so you'd make plans every weekend, but never really followed through.

You started to look at the girls at school, and really look at them, not just jealousy, suddenly you were aware of them and their bodies and faces, it was all you did, thinking about these girls, but none of them were the same as she was.

It was Spring time when it happened.

You made plans to hang out and completely forgot to cancel them so some random Tuesday over Spring break, she came bounding up your driveway with her little sister and parents in tow, and suddenly they were part of the family.

She started coming over constantly, and by Summer she had her own drawer in your dresser, but it wasn't like you cared about the loss of space, you were just nervous everytime she tried cuddling you at night.

You enjoyed it, but you stopped liking her a long time ago and whatever you started to feel after that felt like what other people call love, but you tended to call a stomach ache.

It was something you couldn't describe so when your best friend Normani found out, you didn't try to explain it, you just told the truth.

There was a party toward the middle of summer and you planned on telling her then, Normani helped you plan the whole situation and when the day came to execute the plan, you only threw up twice.

You ended up kissing her while playing spin the bottle and you totally blanked on the plan, instead finding yourself making out with her in a bedroom for fourteen minutes at the end of the night.

A week later you told her your feelings by accident really, but she didn't hate you, she actually kind of liked you.

It wasn't really a relationship at the time, but it was something and after six months of being something she was your everything.

You asked her to be your girlfriend and she said yes, so nothing could have made you happier.

It was perfect, everything was, but sometimes people start to change.

Little things here and there, like she started wearing makeup, and then tight clothes, and heels, and before you knew it she stopped wearing bows.

You went off to college and things were going so smoothly until they weren't..

People kept telling you to watch out, that she was different now, and you didn't want to believe them, so you ignored them.. Every warning, or sign, you ignored because you loved her now, without a doubt or complaint, you were in love with her.

She ended up going to a different college, but it was near yours, and when distance started getting in the way, you put a down payment on a studio apartment, right in the middle of the two schools.

You had to get a part time job to keep the bills up, but the extra work was completely worth it to spend more time with her.

Your new friends started to warn you as well, saying that she wasn't good for you, and that she wasn't how you thought she was, but they didn't know her the way you did, so you brushed them off, because you were so damn in love with her.

Somewhere along the line, you began to believe them..

It wasn't much, just little things, here and there that didn't add up, didn't make sense the way she said them.

The excuses started to get under your skin and it was like an itch you couldn't scratch it just bothered you, but you stayed, because you needed her.

She started coming home late, swearing she was at the library, her grades started to slip, her attitude changed, suddenly she wasn't that little girl you kissed all those years ago when you were seventeen.. You were twenty-one now and you cared, you freaking cared.

It got better, or so you thought, another six months went by and things looked brighter so you did something crazy and bought a ring.

It was expensive and it took you forever to save enough but you made it, so you took off from work early, picked it up from the ring shop, and went home..

She didn't know you were going to be home early and you're guessing whoever the boy was that ran naked out of your apartment didn't either.

You left the ring and went home.

You transferred to a college closer to your parents house and they were glad to have their little girl back, though the circumstances were horrible for everyone.

Her little sister kept trying to call you but you couldn't pick up the phone, not for a while at least.

She finally got you around your birthday texting you birthday hopes and wishes for the entire day so you called her first, hoping for a friendly talk but that's not what you got.

You weren't expecting her voice to come through the phone but it's not like you could hang up, well you could have but you didn't.

She begged for you and pleaded and so you went back..

Things were perfect again, she made you feel more in love than ever and after graduation you got straight to work.

A music technician in the right business could do wonders and by the first year you were cashing bonus checks left and right.

She graduated with good grades and managed to get a good job in advertisement.

People started to talk again but it wasn't like you believed them, because she had changed, she loved you too much to go back.

You had a life, you had a plan, and you had an idea..

You were twenty-seven and it seemed like the time to settle down, with your success and money, so you bought a new ring, more expensive, but tasteful and it didn't dent your budget like the last one did.

You saved it for something big, like a birthday, or anniversary, or holiday, but when the promotion at work came up you thought what better time than the present?

So you went to the free dinner, and that night, under the stars, you got down on one knee and promised her everything.

You asked her to marry you and she said yes, so you couldn't have been happier..

Things got bad again, but you didn't see it this time.

The excuses were better, the pieces fit, it made sense, it added up..

She worked late nights but her work showed, she was getting bonuses and praise and you were so proud of her, so in love with her.. You were blind.

She started taking business trips and you started planning the wedding, calling people, getting things ready because you were almost twenty-nine and you were fucking in love with her.

You caught her with him in your bed the day before the wedding..

You paid everyone for their troubles and sent them home, but you didn't know what to do with yourself.

You couldn't go back to your big empty house, so you let her have it..

Surprisingly it only took you two days to move all of your things, and only your things.

You didn't leave a thing behind except for everything that was hers, even both rings..

You were thirty-one and almost sort of happy, bachelorette of the year, and on America's top 100 as the sixth hottest woman alive.. You were living.

You swear you don't know how it happened but she found you..

She was wearing a wedding dress, carrying heels, and soaked to the bone so you let her in the door of your New York penthouse and before you knew it, she had left her almost husband at the alter for you.

You loved her but you didn't trust her..

You tried but you couldn't.. Until people started talking.

They said she loved you, that she meant it this time and so, you married her.

You were happy, and you loved her, and so at thirty-four you decided to start a family.. By thirty-seven you had two baby girls and a son.

Lilly looked just like you with tan skin and Bella looked exactly like you, period.
Jarrod was your adopted son but he managed to look more like you than you ever thought possible and they all acted like it too.

It was perfect and you couldn't believe your life turned out so well..

Somethings change..

Some endings aren't meant to be happy and so when she got the news.. You couldn't believe it.

You were only forty-five.. Cancer seemed so final, but she made it out better and faster than they thought she could and your little survivor was happy at home, healthy as could be.

You were fifty-eight when you got your news.. Yours wasn't fixable.

You were losing your mind and everything was slipping away so you started writing down everything.. Everything.

Birthdays, Anniversary's, Holidays, memories, good, bad, hopeless.. You wrote down everything.

You wrote down the first thought that went through your head the first time you saw Jarrod, sitting quietly trying to tie his own shoes, waiting for you.. You wrote down how it felt when he asked if you were his new mommy.

You wrote down Lilly's first word, and Bella's favorite colour, and her.. God, you wrote down everything about her.

You had notebooks full of her, pages and pages and moments, and feelings, and memories, good, bad, pregnant, moody.. Everything you ever thought or did.

You might not know it yet, but if you look at page 148 in notebook seventy-two.. She died.

It was peaceful, you were seventy-three.. She loved you.

Your kids turned out perfectly..

Jarrod walked Lilly down the isle at her wedding, sadly you couldn't be there, but you loved the pictures.

Bella graduated from college and became a teacher.

Jarrod and his wife started a family and had two daughters, Karla and Michelle.

Lilly had a daughter and named her Camille, but you called her Cami, saying her brown eyes looked just like your wife's.

Bella got married to the love of her life and sadly, they couldn't have children but they adopted two boys, Michael and Cameron.

You were eighty-two and nobody thought you'd ever make it that far without her, so when you got sick people didn't mind so much.

She probably missed you all those years, and no doubt she was waiting for you.

Karla had suggested it..

She figured a game would be fun, something easy, so she choose the game of life.

The car landed on the church, and the spinner pointed toward you.. Nobody knows how, but you you started talking about her.

You started telling everyone about being her first kiss.

You started telling them about the first time you ever met her.

You started telling them stories that they never read to you.. Somehow, someway?

They knew it was the end.

You were eighty-two and you loved her..



Sometimes I just think, Grandma.. All of that.. And it started with a game.

Love, Cami.