beyond the monotonous city

thirty five

Lauren spent the remainder of the evening watching TV, her mom missing the fact that she just broke down.

Soon enough she went back up to bed. Her mind was still going back and forth with what happened that afternoon with Camila. Lauren felt her body fall asleep faster than her mind did.

Sleep came lightly to her. Waking up came easy too as she found herself stirring as the phone at her bedside was ringing. She groaned and covered her head with the pillow, hoping whoever that was would knock some sense into themselves. Her body clock pretty much knew it was just a little past 2 AM then. Calling anyone at that hour was crazy.

The ringing stopped and Lauren took a sigh of relief. She buried herself under her sheets once more. That was until the ringing started again.

Annoyed, Lauren groggily sat up, rubbing her eyes. She grabbed for the receiver. "Hello?"

"Lauren?" the voice eased the moody feeling Lauren had at that moment. It removed the frown she had on her face. That's when she realized Camila's voice sounded small, weak and scared. It was an emotion, a sound she never thought she'd hear from the girl.

Lauren used her other hand to cup the receiver on her hand. "Camila? Why, w-what's up?"

"I can't sleep." her voice sounded hoarse and tired.

"Well I just woke up from my sleep actually when you called-" she started, getting a little tense at the other girl's voice.

"Oh did I disturb that?" She sounded dejected.

"Doesn't matter, it's just sleep. How are you?" She knew she could just sleep for an unlimited number of times, while the time she had with Camila was rather limited, as much as she didn't want to admit.

"I have anxiety right now, I can't sleep. I need a distraction before I get an anxiety attack." Camila said. Her tone was sort of begging Lauren to talk her down, and at that moment Lauren didn't mind. She sounded desperate, probably the first and only time she heard Camila like that, and it all the more made Lauren want to be there for her and be that person.

Lauren didn't expect to hear this from Camila as she never imagined her to ever say iit. "I used to get a lot of those, back in the day. Especially after the accident, I couldn't sleep." As always, opening up to her was easy. For her it was easier to open up than to give advice.

"How did you deal with it?"

"I didn't. I ended up not sleeping until I tired out my body. I got sent back to the hospital. I lost a lot of weight, I stopped eating much. That's until they gave me meds." Lauren felt Camila grow silent in the other line.

"That was the worst of it? The anxiety?"

"The anxiety, the PTSD, it was too much at one point. My meds weren't enough. I-umm, I cut myself and almost killed myself in the process. I had to go to rehab for three months for that. That was the worst. I felt like I lost my identity, who I am as a person and just drifted into this void of trying to get back on track." Lauren heard a metaphorical pin drop after her confession. She never told anyone. It was the story about her not much people aside from her family and Shaun and Keana knew about.

"Oh, you never mentioned that part. I'm sorry Lauren. Sorry I can't say anything else other than a sorry." Camila said rather sheepishly.

"Well I'm just glad that phase in my life is over. I mean I'm still struggling but like that was really terrible. I hated myself so much. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I hated every minute. Coping with a loss and with myself was really hard." Lauren admitted, curling her finger in the loop of her telephone. She felt like she just scraped the scab over her metaphorical wound. It hurt but she was going to be okay.