beyond the monotonous city

twenty five

TW: accident

She woke up the next day and it's way past lunch, not realizing how much tired she was the previous day from bowling. She saw Camila's note neatly folded beside her and smiled, her day instantly becoming better.

She didn't have anything planned for the day, possibly to spend the rest of it with Camila to make up for all the time they had lost. She told Clara, who told her to just be home before her curfew. She went over to the Cabello's home a little after lunch. She noticed the black SUV parked on the garage, meaning Alejandro was still home.

She came up to the door and knocked. She waited for Sinu or Sofi to come bursting out the door, greeting her but nobody came. She tried for the knob when no one answered and found the door to be unlocked. She opened it and looked inside.

The house looked empty.

The lights were all out, as if they all left for vacation. Lauren stepped in. It didn't make sense to her. She closed the door behind her. The house which she was so used to see look so alive, with its personality but now with all the lights shut and windows drawn, it looked so different. As if it was a ghost of the once cozy home she knew.

She looked in the kitchen and found a pan still in the stove, various ingredients left alone in the countertop. "Camila?" she called out.

She heard shuffling feet coming from the stairs and Lauren was prepared to see Camila wearing her hoodie and leggings trudging down, with her wide smile making her jaw line looking lopsided. But she didn't. Instead, Lauren saw the oldest Cabello, Alejandro come down, holding a luggage in one hand.

He looked surprised to see Lauren, it was evident against his tired eyes. A scowl was plastered on his face.

"Lauren what are you doing here?" He asked, rather tiredly as if the last thing he needed to do was to entertain her. He put his suitcase on top of the couch and opened it, he started putting some clothes piled on the sofa inside it. He looked horrible from how Lauren saw him yesterday, she was so confused.

"Where's Camila?" she asked. She hoped she wasn't in the middle of some family trouble because this feeling felt all too familiar to her. Her vision started to spin. She felt herself zone out in the midst of confusion.

Lauren saw her father in the living room, throwing all his clothes in his suitcase angrily. She was nine yet she knew what was happening, she had seen too much of her parents fights to know this was the end of it finally. The shouting last night, it came down to this.

"Dad, don't go please." She started crying. Despite everything, the fights, the yelling, he was still her dad and they did have good moments like the time they went to Disneyland. When her dad was around her and her siblings, he was a different person. But when he drank, he turned into someone else.

He looked at her, irritated but his face melt when he saw she was crying. He put a hand on her cheek, wiping away her tear. "Darling don't cry. I won't be gone forever. This is for the best, for you and your mom and your siblings."

"No dad, don't go." she couldn't formulate any other sentence but that. She was lost in her crying.

"This isn't the last time you'll see me. I'll come back, and we'll be a happy family again. I just have to do my own thing for now." He said, his voice softening. She could see how hard it was for her dad as well and she thought her crying was actually working.

"Don't leave," she cried.

His dad put both of his hands on her shoulders, making her look at him. "Lauren I love you so much, okay. I'll come back alright? I promise."