Dinah, Ally, and Normani all sat frozen, staring at Camila, who's face was crumpled, heavy breaths emitting from her lips as the four of them listened to the sounds coming from the other side of the door that was now cracked wide open. The sounds of Sinu speaking with soothing words to Lauren, respira profundo, todo está bien, estoy contigo, barely heard over every horrifying, convulsing cry that Lauren was choking out.
"She almost died because of me," Lauren screamed, fighting against Sinu's hold. "Casi la maté, I love her and I almost killed her."
As the cries floated into the room, Camila thought she was hearing things, had Lauren just-
"Did she just say she loved me?"
Normani nodded her head. Dinah hummed. Ally let out a shaky breath.
"I'm so sorry," Lauren sobbed, hiccuping each time her voice broke. "I'm so sorry I did this to her, I never meant to break her."
I never meant to break her.
Camila broke, a hand coming up to cover her mouth, one hand on her heart as she let out a quiet sob, choking on her tears.
It took Ally, Dinah, and Normani almost twenty minutes to calm down Camila, hearing Lauren still screaming in the hallway. Eventually the screaming and crying from both girls coming to an end. Time standing still and when Sinu and Alejandro walked back into the room, Camila's eyes were glued to the hallway behind them.
"She ran," Sofi whimpered from her spot behind her Mom, causing Camila's crying to start all over.
Normani placed a soft hand on Camila's head, leaning down to drop a kiss to her crown before she walked out of the room in search of Lauren, while Camila just became more frantic.
It took Normani almost forty minutes to find Lauren, she was leaning against the wall out the backside of the hospital with a smoke propped between her lips, her head tilted back against the brick and tears mixing with the Miami rain on her face. Normani said nothing, if she was being honest, she knew nothing she could have thought to say would calm the thoughts stirring in a black cloud in Lauren's mind. So instead she settled with leaning up against the wall next to her and waiting.
"I ruined her."
"Lauren-"
"I almost killed her."
"Laur, please-"
"I need to get out of here."
"You can't leave," Normani whispered, shaking her head. "She needs you now more than ever, you want to feel guilty for this? Go for it, I know I can't change the way you think or feel, but I do know you can't fix it by leaving." Pulling her phone from her back pocket, Normani opened the newest message and sighed, "Camila had to be sedated, she thinks you left and she lost it."
Normani stepped in front of Lauren and plucked the cigarette from her mouth, throwing it to the ground and stubbing it out with the toe of her shoe before turning and walking back inside without another word. She had said enough, she just hoped Lauren would hear her.
She did and Lauren returned a short while later, Alejandro and Sinu standing with Normani and Ally and with Dinah who was holding Sofi, rocking the crying girl back and forth the way she did with her own siblings when they were upset. Six sets of eyes turned to look at her, but Lauren refused to make eye contact as she brushed by them and walked straight into Camila's room. There was another IV stuck in the hand that had nothing prior and Camila was knocked out. the breathing tubes had been removed, but the wires remained, monitoring her heart. Lauren studied Camila, she had dark circles around her eyes and her lips were slightly parted and pale, just as her skin was. She wanted to touch her, feel Camila's skin under fingertips, but Lauren had never felt more scared, afraid that if she touched Camila the girl would turn to ash and crumble right there in front of her, so instead she carefully and slowly climbed onto the end of the bed, her back pushed against the foot board and her knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped protectively around her legs trying to hold herself together, afraid she was going to fall apart, limb by limb. Small whimpers escaped her mouth, her forehead on the top of her knees as she tried to calm herself down, but the strength for that was not something she could find within herself as she listened to Camila's soft breaths.
