Emotion and Color (Continued)

It's Not Your Fault For Something You Didn't Do

No POV
(Time Skip After The Birth Because I’m Not Writing About That)

It had been 14 hours since Camila had gone into labor and 2 hours since she had gone into the delivery ward. Within those 2 hours, all 4 babies were fortunately born perfectly fine and healthy, with no complications, much to everyone’s relief. All the babies were held in Camila’s arms before they were rushed to the Level 2 NICU ward. The babies were born at the end of 31 weeks and were eligible to stay in the Level 2 ward instead of Level 3. Nicole and Y/N rushed in right after the babies were transported to the NICU. John came in after them.

“WHERE ARE THE BABIES?! I NEED TO HOLD ONE!” She shouted. Camila and John shushed her and Y/N rolled her eyes humorously. John took Nicole out of the room to talk to her in the hall, but Y/N walked over to Camila and started a conversation with her.
“How are you holding up?” Y/N asked Camila.

“I’m still in a lot of pain, very hungry and extremely tired, but other than that I’m okay. I just never thought that having four babies would be so much work!” She sighed, exhausted. Y/N looked at her doubtfully.
“You never thought? Of course it’s a lot of work! It’s basically giving birth three more times than usual! You, of all people in this family here should know that!” Y/N exclaimed.

“Well, when I had Nicole, she was born naturally. So, I knew that it would hurt. A lot. But my mother had me via c-section and she told me she was never in any pain, so I figured it wouldn’t be painful at all. Minus the labor prior to the birth of course. She’s going to hear an earful from me when she comes to see the babies in a few hours.” Camila weakly smiled.
“I’m sure she will if I know you.”
“You know it… I just don’t wanna stress her out too much, though. My pregnancy already made her worry enough about me and the babies.” She chuckled to herself.

“Well, anyways, I’m guessing Nicole doesn’t know that preemies usually go the NICU right away.” They both laughed from Nicole’s reaction.
“How’d you know that?” Camila asked.
“It’s common sense honestly, but if you want the truth and please don’t tell anyone this, not even Nicole.” Camila looked at Y/N and smiled.
“Of course. Your secret is safe with me.” Camila promised to her. Over the summer, Camila had become like a mother to Y/N. Someone she could trust and talk to when she needed advice, especially when she knew Nicole wouldn’t be able to give her the kind of answers she needed.

“I actually have a younger brother, his name is Max. He was born premature, because of some health problems my mom had at the time of her pregnancy. I haven’t told anyone about him because I’m afraid that people will use it against me just to make my life a living hell. But somehow, some bullies in my old school found out and used it to their advantage. That caused a lot of problems and one thing led to another and I got expelled. But I had a scholarship that O’Khasis Prep had offered to me a few months prior, so I was and still am, thankful that I had that as a backup.” Camila was shocked. She never would’ve dreamed that her daughter was friends with someone who was only attending O’Khasis Prep on a scholarship because she had been expelled from her previous school. But then again, she’d been expelled because of someone else’s false accusations of her and unfortunately, the school administration had believed the delinquent instead of her. It wasn’t her fault, so Camila couldn’t blame her, but she was quite interested to hear the whole story.
“No, it’s not my place to ask. It seems like something she’d rather not talk about.” She shook the thought out of her head. Y/N would tell her everything when she was ready. Camila looked up at Y/N, who was staring down at the floor in disappointment. Most likely disappointed in herself for what had happened.

Camila looked at her reassuringly.
“I’m not going to blame you for whatever happened before. It’s not your fault and I don’t want you to feel like it is. Those bullies had no right to spread rumors about you or share any of your secrets that you wanted to keep. If you want to talk to me more about the problem that’s bothering you, then we’ll talk about it and see if we can make things right. If you want to wait, then that’s fine, too. Whenever you want to talk about it, I’m open to listen. I just feel bad that you’re only at O’Khasis Prep because nobody there would even listen to your side of the story.” Y/N looked at Camila and couldn’t help but smile. Camila was confused.

“To be honest, when I think back on everything that happened at that school on the days leading up to my expulsion; I feel like it was one of the few times in my life that anything has ever gone the way I wanted it too. My so-called “friends” had pretty much just abandoned me and one even decided it would be okay to prod into my personal life, even though they all knew I hated talking about it. Basically, all the relationships I had developed with the people in that school had turned to shit. I had also accidentally trashed my old place when I was having a mental breakdown and everything that I had broken or destroyed would’ve cost way too much to replace or fix. Transferring to O’Khasis Prep is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I have a new place to live and I get to share it with my best friend. I’ve made new friends who I know I can trust with everything and will stick by me through anything that’s thrown at me, which is more than I can say when I was at Phoenix Drop. I also have new teachers who help me when I don’t understand something and will actually listen to me if I need to tell them something important or if something is bothering me. I feel like I’ve been improving both mentally and physically, much more than I have in the past seven years. I feel so much better about myself compared to around a year ago. I just wanted to say thank you. You, John, Nicole, and now the babies, you’ve given me so much. It’s kind of like I got my family back. Before… everything else…” Tears had started to form in Y/N’s eyes, but she quickly wiped them away. Camila opened her mouth to say something, but closed it. She figured it wasn’t the right time to ask her.

“Which is also something I can talk about when I’m ready, right?” She asked and Camila smiled once again.
“Of course.” Camila answered her. Y/N looked down and thought for a moment. She took in a big breath and nodded her head. She looked back up at Camila, a look of determination on her face.
“I was wondering if I could try giving you a hug. I have a really hard time with physical contact and it usually results in me having a panic attack. I want to see if anything’s changed, so I was wondering if it was alright with you.”

“Of course you can! Just try your best to stay away from my stomach, the scar the doctors closed up from my c-section is very tender and can open easily. I’ll call in Nicole if anything bad happens, okay?” Y/N nodded. She slowly started to touch Camila’s shoulder, but even the slightest touch caused her to start panicking a bit.
“Deep breaths, okay? You can do this, you’re okay. Nothing is going to hurt you.” Camila reassured her. Y/N took a few deep breaths to calm herself down and continued to wrap her arms around Camila’s shoulders. When she was fully hugging Camila, her eyes widened in excitement. She hugged Camila a bit tighter and was grinning ear to ear. Tears of joy started to run down her face.

Nicole and John walked in. When Nicole saw Y/N hugging her mom, her jaw dropped. Her face filled with an expression of glee and excitement. She clapped her hands together excitedly. Her father on the other hand, looked at very confused as to why she so excited.
“OH MY IRENE! Y/N! YOU’RE DOING IT! YOU’RE REALLY DOING IT!” Nicole exclaimed. Y/N looked over her shoulder and slowly started to unwrap her arms from Camila.  She turned around to face Nicole. She ran to her and flung her arms over her shoulders. Nicole hugged her back tightly.

“I’m so proud of you. You’ve come so far... you’re just always full of surprises aren’t you?”

“I guess I am.” Y/N laughed. “You’re one of the people who’s helped me the most to be honest. You, your mom and dad, words couldn’t even begin to describe how grateful I am to you. Thank you so much, for everything.”

“Well, how does it feel to be able to hug someone again?” Nicole asked.

“I’ve forgotten over the years how much I used to love this. It feels absolutely amazing.”