Imaginary Lover // Camren Fanfiction

Chapter 10

A/N: IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE SONG IM GONNA CUT YOU GO STREAM SOFTB, THX

A few hours later, Lauren shut down her computer, tidied her desk for the twentieth time, and left her office for the day. Vero and Keana stood together staring into space. Lauren turned to see what kept their attention.

"It's doing it again," Keana sang nervously.
They all watched the chair spinning around unaided.
"You think it's Mr. Bracken?" Vero asked quietly.
Keana imitated Mrs. Bracken's voice. "Chair-spinning isn't what Mr.Bracken would have wanted."

"Don't worry, girls," Lauren said, trying not to laugh. "I'll get Harry around tomorrow to fix it. You two head off home."

After saying good-bye, Lauren continued to stare at the chair spinning in silence. She neared it slowly, inch by inch. As she got very close to it, it stopped spinning.

"Chicken," Lauren muttered.

She looked around the room to ensure she was alone and slowly she grabbed the handles of the chair and lowered herself into it. Nothing happened. She bounced up and down a few times, looked around and under the seat, and still nothing happened. Just as she was about to get up and leave, the chair began to move. Slowly at first, until gradually it began to pick up speed. Feeling nervous, she contemplated leaping off, but as it spun faster and faster she began to giggle.

The louder and louder she laughed, the faster it went. Her sides ached. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt so young, legs up, feet out, hair blowing in the breeze. After a few moments, it slowed to a stop and Lauren caught her breath.

Her smile slowly faded and the childish laughing began to die down. All she was left with was complete silence in the abandoned office. She began to hum and her eye scanned across Keana's disorganized desk full of books of material, paint sample tubs, sketches, and house interior magazines. Her eye fell upon a gold photo frame before her. In it was a photograph of Keana, her two sisters, three brothers, and parents all squeezed together onto a couch like a football team. The resemblance between them all was obvious; all had little button noses and eyes that narrowed to slits when they laughed. In the corner of the frame was a strip of passport photos of Keana and her boyfriend, both of them making faces to the camera in the first three of them. But the fourth was of them staring lovingly into each other's eyes. A moment between them eternally caught on camera.

Lauren stopped humming and swallowed. She had known that look once before.

She continued to stare at the frame, trying not to remember those times, but she once again lost the battle, drowning in the sea of memories that flooded her mind.

She began to sob, quiet whimpers at first that soon exited her mouth as pain-filled wails that had worked their way from the depths of her heart. She could hear her own hurt. Each tear was a call for help that had never been answered before and that she didn't expect to be answered now. And that made her cry even more.

At nine years of age, Lauren marked off another day on her calendar with a red pen. Her mother had been gone for exactly three weeks this time. Not the longest amount of time so far, but long enough for Lauren. She hid the calendar under her bed and got into it. She had been sent to her room by her father three hours ago, as he had grown tired of her nervous pacing in front of the living room window. Since then she had been battling to keep her eyes open. She needed to fight sleep so that she wouldn't miss her mother returning. Those were the best times because her mother would be in one of her happy moods, delighted to be home, telling Lauren how much she'd missed her, smothering her with hugs and kisses so much that Lauren couldn't remember ever feeling sad.