Anatomy Of Love (Camren Fanfiction)

Chapter 8

Lauren and Camila were still glassy-eyed as they lined up in the cafeteria the next morning. The  lack of sleep wore on their faces. Neither of them had addressed their fight from the night before although Lauren’s mind raced with endless questions regarding Camila’s odd behavior.  Lauren pushed those thoughts aside once again knowing that there were far more important issues at hand. They both tried to mentally steel themselves. For in less than thirty minutes they would begin the first of four hundred and fifty-five required hours of gross anatomy. Lauren, who had taken Comparative Anatomy in college and had dissected frogs and sharks, tried to pretend that the human species would be a similar exercise. Camila, who worked part-time at a hospital over the summer, had seen a glimpse of corpse while organizing patient charts. But neither of them ever put a knife into the real flesh and sliced open a human body. Until today.

The first thing they noticed was the smell. Camila edged closer to Lauren’s side and lodged her nose against Lauren’s shoulder, attempting to block the awful stench.

“Laur, I can’t breath,” Camila sputtered out, coughing in between each word.

“We’ll get used to it, Camz,” Lauren murmured back. “That’s just the stuff that keeps the bodies from decaying. It’s almost like a paradox. We become doctors to save the living but we first have to preserve the dead.”

“Okay, Miss Philosopher,” Camila said mockingly, watching Lauren with a smirk. 

Lauren kinked her eyebrow and winked at Camila as she licked the corners of her lips and lifted them into a slight smile.  When Camila looked at Lauren, there was no way to describe what she felt except the word collision. It was incredibly sexy. Lauren’s eyes were an indefinable shade of green-gray that Camila wanted so much to name but that eluded her even as she looked directly at them. A fiber of heat snaked through the Camila with longing that was entirely unexpected and entirely sexual. Her muscles tightened, her skin flushed.

“Camz, are you okay?” Lauren said as she took a step closer to Camila, while she stroked the younger ones cheek with the pad of her thumb. “Is the smell  getting to you? You should get some fresh air.” Lauren’s eyes were full of concern and locked with the chestnut orbs. 

“Uh… no… I’m f-fine,” Camila stuttered while pushing Lauren’s hand away. Her voice was a full octave lower, her tone almost reverent. She just doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand what those looks do to me, Camila thought, it’s like holding on to a live electric wire, or standing in a wind tunnel. The heat that had coursed throughout her body hardened into ice, and her heart did a slow roll that made her touch her chest. She took a slow deep breath, attempting to calm herself down.

“You’re not feeling panicky, are you?” Lauren questioned, her voice low.

“No, I said I’m fine,” Camila replied, more curtly than she meant to. Camila was surprised when Lauren took her hand- not to hold it, but to press the tips of her fingers to inside of her wrist. Curiosity compelled her to stand still.

“Your pulse is racing,” Lauren said, her emerald eyes piercing through the younger one. She stared at Camila with intense focus, searching her face for any clues to explain her sudden change in demeanor. “Babe, tell me what’s wrong.”

Camila’s eyes fell to the ground. She gnawed on her bottom lip. “I can’t,” she muttered under her breath. “Just drop it, Lauren.” Camila grabbed her arm away and crossed them in front of her chest. Great! Another opportunity missed. 

“I wonder which one of us it will be.” A light-haired, short Latina interrupted their conversation. Camila was inwardly grateful.

“What?” Lauren replied, clearly annoyed.

“You know, in every class there is always someone who can’t take this part- you know, the dissections. Some of them throw up or even faint,” the girl said with a huge grin on her face, her head bobbing continuously. “I’ve even heard of one or two who walked out of the room and quit Med School all together. By the way, my name is Ally.”

“Yeah, we saw you at the orientation. I’m Camila and this is Lauren,” the younger one pointed to Lauren who barely acknowledged the new girl. Lauren wasn’t one to make friends, especially when they were as peppy and cheesy as Ally.

“Oh joy! New friends!” Ally began to giggle as she forced Camila and Lauren into a three-way hug.

“Woah…” Lauren said as she pulled away. “What the hell. Calm your shit before…”

“Lauren!” Camila interrupted, “she’s innocent. Let it go,” she whispered under her breath. 

Ally appeared a bit flustered as she walked away. “I’ll be praying for your soul,” she muttered towards Lauren.

“Good afternoon class,” called a balding, white-coated figure as he scurried through he double doors in the far corner. It was Professor Charles Lubar, their guide through the human labyrinth.

“I’m especially pleased to be leading our expedition into the mysteries of the human body during this semester, since it is precisely a hundred years ago that Henry Gray published the Anatomy which still serves as our basic text. I’ve assigned four of you to each table. There are name cards. Take your instruments and please find your places. Your assigned group will be permanent throughout the remainder of your time here at Harvard. As soon as you’re set up we can begin.”

Lauren was happy to find that Camila was one of the other four students sharing the cadaver although Camila didn’t seem to partake in her excitement. She looked nervous, flustered. She constantly shifted her eyes to the ground and back to the cadaver, sneaking peeks at Lauren in between. Lauren sighed, she felt helpless knowing that Camila refused to divulge any reason for  behavior.

“First, I want all of you to look at the description of the person you are about to dissect. It’s highly unlikely, but if you feel there is any chance it may someone you know, please don’t hesitate to ask to be transferred…”

God, Lauren thought, that never occurred to me. A terrifying, irrational fantasy crossed her mind. What if this is Christopher? Although the likelihood of that happening would be close to zero, her face drained of all color, too terrified to check the body tag. Camila, reading her mind, squeezed Lauren’s hand. “It’s not him,”she whispered under her breath. “I checked already.” Lauren let out a sigh of relief and leaned her body against the lab table.

“All right, students,” Dr. Lubar continued, “now I want to be unequivocal on this next point. The bodies before you were once living, breathing, sentient human beings. They were generous enough to leave their bodies to science so that, even in death, they could serve mankind. I want you to treat these people with respect. If I see any fooling around, I’ll kick the perpetrator right out of this course. Is that understood?”

There were murmurs of assent.

Now in a less cautionary tone, he continued, “Every anatomist has his own idea of where to begin the study of the human body. Some start with the most familiar-the epidermis- and work their way through the skin layers. But I believe in getting to the heart of the  matter.” He then motioned them all to gather around the table in the front row, where the broad, graying chest and abdomen of a male corpse had been undraped. Camila watched, half expected, that the dead man would suddenly cry out in pain- for Lubar was holding the scalpel just above the cadaver’s neck, poised to attack. 

His hand moved swiftly, piercing the body in a jugular notch. He dissected past each layer, rattling off names and functions of each part. And finally the soft tissue outer wall breached. He had run the scalpel downward, a motion that had “unzipped” the skin. For a moment the instructor paused to draw breath. Professor Lubar withdrew a sharp serrated knife and plunged it into the incision he had made on top of the breastbone. The grating sound made Lauren wince as if her own chest was being sawed open. Lauren glanced at Camila to see how she was coping. The younger one seemed so focused and almost enthralled by it all.

Suddenly, with a snap, the rib cage split open like a cracked walnut, laying bare the innermost engine of human life: the heart. There was an eery silence as Camila pressed forward for a better look. The fist-sized hollow organ lay there between the lungs. The flesh seemed tattered as if it had weathered a storm. A thought occurred to Camila as she faded out the voice of Professor Lubar. Every feeling-love, joy, rejection, anger- once existed between the four-chambered organ before her. She wondered what the condition of her own heart looked like. The strain of harboring this secret love for Lauren, the longing that existed for Lauren in the confines of her heart. If Lauren only knew the ache that Camila went through every day to hold this secret that was kept far too long. She wanted to reach out and grab Lauren’s hand and hold  it right over her chest, right where it ached the most. She wanted the older one to know that her smile alone could heal the darkest places inside of her. That the very anatomy of her heart was designed to hold every memory that existed between the both of them. She loved her with such intensity that it hurt to breath. It really hurt…

Camila was pulled back to reality by hearing a body slump to the floor. All eyes turned to the first casualty of their Medical School education. Sprawled on the floor, looking whiter than the cadaver, was Ally Brooke. Lauren bent over to revive the fallen student. Camila noted how ironic it was that Lauren was the first who sprang into action, even though she never took a liking to Ally. But that was the type of person Lauren was. She can come off bitchy at times but she had a heart of gold. 

“Don’t worry, it happens every year,” Professor Lubar said with unruffled assurance. “If she’s still breathing, carry her outside and let her get some fresh air. If she’s not breathing, put her on the table and we’ll dissect her next.”

Ally regained consciousness while Lauren helped her up. Her face reddened with embarrassment but Lauren lied and said that no one noticed her fainting.

After Professor Lubar finished his demonstration, he dismissed the students back to their tables to start work on their own cadavers.

After class, Lauren drove most of the way home in silence. Camila sat in the passenger seat nervously biting her nails as she stared out the window.

“You seem panicky again. Is everything okay, Camz?” Lauren finally asked, breaking the silence.

She shrugged. “I’m fine.”

Lauren shot her a puzzled glance. “Really? Because everything about the way you’ve been acting towards me is fine,” she said sarcastically. “You can’t look me in the eye, you’re having panic attacks and you keep telling me that you’re fucking fine when clearly you are not!” she added defensively. Her tone was harsh, irritated. Lauren’s jaw clenched and she stared straight ahead while weaving through Downtown traffic. In the blink of an eye, the mood in the car had shifted and the tension was palpable.

“Pull over,” Camila growled. In their fifteen years of friendship, this was the first thing she’d ever hidden from Lauren and it physically hurt to conceal the truth. Camila jumped out of the car before it even stopped moving, slamming the door behind her. She ran towards a wooded area beside the road and hoped that Lauren would take the hint and not follow her. She didn’t have the slightest idea where she was headed but anything would be better than that awful car ride. After what seemed like an eternity of walking, Camila stopped beside a beautiful lake. She sat on a rock, her feet dabbling with the lake as she finally let out a sob that she held in her chest. Camila found it impossible to put up defenses against the trees and water and the wind moving over the water. In this place of solitude, finally alone with her thoughts, Camila crouched over and just cried. The lines of light on water winking at her, the gray blue sky in the lake looking back up at itself, the way the cold began to feel warm on her toes- it was raw and unflinching and perfect. 

Camila heard some rustling of leaves behind her and didn’t even turn because she recognized the sound of that walk from anywhere. Lauren came walking along the shore, her red wavy hair moved with the gentle breeze as the sun illuminated her emerald eyes. She stood right behind Camila and hesitated before she spoke. “I’m not here to fight with you,” Lauren said, her voice barely above a whisper. Her face looked worn, older.  “I’m just worried about you and I couldn’t leave you here alone.” Her voice cracked as she lowered her head. She sat down in front of the younger one, reaching out for Camila’s trembling hand. The look in her eyes was so devastating that she reached out, put her arms around her small body and drew Camila close. Camila inched her arms around Lauren’s waist as she rested her head against the redhead’s chest. Lauren raked her hand through the knotted curls flowing down her back. Touching her in this moment was a necessity. 

Lauren cupped her hands on each side of the younger ones face, resting her forehead against her person. “You have to say something, love.”

Camila opened her mouth to answer, but exhaled instead. She crawled onto Lauren’s lap and held her tighter. “This is going to ruin us,” she whispered against Lauren’s neck. “This will ruin everything about our friendship but I can’t keep living under the weight of this lie. I’ve felt these words like a weight in my chest for eight years, I’m amazed that my heart can still continue to go on beating under this burden.”

Lauren pulled back to face Camila. “What are you saying?” she whispered, her eyes glued to the younger one.

Camila lifted her hand slowly, almost as if she weren’t quite controlling her own movements, and touched Lauren’s eyelids, tracing their contours with her fingertips. “Shut your eyes,” she said softly while nervously chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I can’t say it with you staring at me.” Lauren batted her eyes shut, her lashes long against her cheek.

Camila took a deep breath. “I love you. I’m in love with you. I love the way you laugh at my stupid jokes even though they aren’t funny. I love the way scrunch your nose and stick your tongue out when you’re concentrating on something. I love that you can always tell what I’m feeling by just looking at me. I love that you have the kindest and most gentle soul but you try to keep that hidden away because you’re scared of people taking advantage of you.” Camila reached out her hands and interlocked their fingers together. Lauren still kept her eyes closed although a tear escaped through, sliding a solitary path down her cheek. Camila tenderly brushed it away. “I’ve always dreamt of telling you how I felt but I never imagined your reaction. I guess I’ve never thought of what you’d say. So… now I’m terrified but loving you is like going to war. I’ll never come back the same anyways.” Camila was surprised by the flurry of nerves that made her fingers tremble and her voice break, but when it was over her heart felt noticeably lighter.

Lauren’s eyes remained shut as she sighed beneath her breath. “Camila, you’re right.”

Camila couldn’t resist the smile that broke out onto her face. “I am?” she replied.

Lauren opened her eyes and Camila flinched at the terrible blankness she saw in them. Her eyes were a dull grey, void of all warmth.

“Yeah, you were right when you said that this would ruin us,” Lauren’s voice cracked as she stood up and walked away.

Didn't expect that, did you? Me neither. </3