Blame It On Bad Luck (Camren)

Chapter 22

mild trigger warning (but it's implicit)

*    *    *    *

Ally was familiar with the hospital.

She could remember being in there when Lauren was still pregnant. She could remember the fear and the nerves, sitting and waiting while a doctor explained how her baby might not survive. She could remember being there again when the same doctor explained she might not survive either if she decided to carry her to term.

Ally could remember her best friend almost dying on the table after an emergency C-section, losing nearly half the blood in her entire body—how the nurses said if she had waited any longer she would have bled out.

She could remember sitting and sitting and waiting to see if she and Kayla survived when she attempted to take her own life. She could remember watching her brother cry both times she nearly died in front of his eyes.

So when she got a call from an orderly claiming the woman they identified as her best friend was rushed to the hospital in critical condition she thought she would be more prepared, desensitized even. Because Ally was familiar with the hospital. She was familiar with almost losing her best friend.

But she had lost count how many times she cried, how long she cried for. She lost count how long she'd stayed by Lauren's side waiting for her to come back to her, just so she can kill her herself for putting her through this again.

Lauren was also familiar with the hospital. She wished she wasn't. It was something she didn't think she'd have to be used to anymore. She was doing better. She wasn't associating herself with dangerous people. She wasn't getting herself into trouble.

She was clean.

So she didn't really understand what was going on when she opened her eyes—disoriented and exhausted—and found herself in the last place she hoped she would ever be in again.

The thought didn't last too long as a searing pain shot through her body, in her arms and thighs, in her head and her chest and waist. It took a moment for her vision to make any sort of sense but she cleared her throat—with a sharp feeling of gravel scraping along the sides, burning and aching. And she saw the wide eyes of her best friend moving closer to her bedside.

"Lauren, oh my God," she breathed. "Hang on, don't move. The nurse just left but I'll call her back." Her words were rushed and frantic and Lauren's eyes darted around trying to make sense of her surroundings. There was an IV going into both of her arms, multiple wires sprawling out from her hospital gown.

Ally said nothing else as a nurse came into her room in record time, asking her questions and explaining things she only slightly comprehended and adjusting the IV in one of her arms and connecting another to it with something she didn't quite catch the name of and didn't have the strength to ask.

"Lauren..." her best friend started once the nurse left them alone, assuring them she would be back to check on her a little later when she was a little more coherent and to make sure her vitals were still okay. Lauren cleared her throat again in an attempt to talk despite the pain she was in. But Ally stopped her. "Don't. Even if you could talk right now I don't want to hear anything."

She let out a breath as Lauren studied her bloodshot eyes. She felt her own growing heavier, threatening to shut at any moment but she forced herself to stay awake, to focus and listen. Ally took a seat in the chair next to her bed and couldn't seem to look her in the eye when she spoke again.

"Two minutes," she said. "Two minutes and fourteen seconds." She averted her gaze from the floor to Lauren's arm and the machine it was hooked up to. She was grateful that she was at least smart enough to not try to take everything out, knowing how much she hated the hospital. Maybe she was just too weak to, but she didn't bother to ask. "That's how long they said your heart stopped beating in the ambulance. You were dead, Lauren, for two minutes and fourteen seconds."