The Friend

Chapter 3

We didn't hear anything from the doctors for hours. All of the cops, except two, ended up leaving after a bit. Shawn and Dinah had to leave because Dinah didn't know how much longer she could deal with being there. After a while, it was just Camila's parents, the two officers who stayed behind, and myself. None of us spoke. Each of us would occasionally break down and we would comfort another, but we didn't speak simply because we didn't know what to say.

Around four in the morning, I lost my battle to sleep and curled up on the floor. I used the jacket Camila insisted on me bringing with me as a pillow. Looks like I needed it after all. I slept for about two hours before the doctors finally came out to speak to us. 

"There were some complications during her surgery do to our lack of knowledge of her previous surgery."

We all glanced at each other before finally, Sinuhue asked the question we all wanted to answer to. "I'm sorry sir, but what surgeries?"

The look of surprise of the doctor's face left just as fast as it came. "It shouldn't surprise me since the surgeries were done poorly. It seems that Camila has recently had an abortion which was done rather poorly. She had gotten an infection in her uterine cavity which was causing her to bleed internally. It was a lucky catch, and if it wasn't for Nurse Hanshaw wanting to run some tests, we would have never caught it. Camila has a long and hard recovery in front of her. The bullet entered through her frontal lobe, and we had to go in and retrieve the bullet. The surgery was a success, but she still may have some issues."

I furrowed my eyebrows and took a small step forward. "What kind of issues are we talking about here?"

He smiled politely at me. "I am assuming you are Lauren?" I nodded at him while eyeing him warily. "Well, Lauren, the issues she may face could be, but not limited to, substantial memory loss due to the lack of ability to hold attention, an increase of impulsivity and risk-taking, and increase in irritability, and a possible inability to control behavior. We are not sure if she will have any of these. We cannot be sure until she wakes up. Camila is a very lucky girl. I know it doesn't seem like it, but she is. We she fired the gun, it seems that in the very last second she pulled upwards as if she changed her mind. Even though the bullet was in her brain, it wasn't very deep nor was it too far down in the frontal lobe." Sinuhue and Alejandro sat down, processing the information that they had just been told. "Now, Lauren, the officers and I would like to talk with you in private if that is okay with you."

I nodded and started following him down the hall. We walked to the end of the hallway and turned into the last room on the left. The room was bigger than expected, but it was filled with a table with chairs, a kids table with various toys, a snack cart, and a coffee table in it which made it seem smaller then what it was. The two officers who had stayed were now sitting at the table. They were probably waiting for the doctor and me. I walked in behind the doctor and took a seat as he shut the door.

The younger cop started talking after a moment. She used a calm and soothing voice to talk to me, almost as if she was talking to a child who had just been told their puppy had just ran away. "Lauren, we understand that the past few hours have been very stressful for you, but we have some questions we would like you to answer if that is okay. Is that okay?"

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, absolutely, anything to help."

She smiled at me before nodding towards the doctor, which he took as his cue to start talking. "Before I continue, I would like to tell you that this conversation is being recorded." He glanced at the officers, which they just nodded in response to. "Lauren, as you know we ran some extra tests on Camila." He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "While running these tests we discovered some unusual bruising and a lot of repeated trauma."

I furrowed my eyebrows in anger and confusion. "What do you mean 'repeated' trauma?"

Once again, the doctor shifted and cleared his throat. "It seems that Camila has been abused repeatedly for quite some time. She has a lot of remodeling on her ribs from past injuries and a lot of bones that were never set correctly. It seems the most recent break was about three weeks ago, so, unfortunately, we had to re-break her bone to set it properly. Do you understand what I am trying to say here, Lauren?"

I shook my head in disbelief. "No, no. Camz would have told me if she was being abused. You're wrong. There is no way."

"Lauren, the trauma seems to have started a year ago. Was Camila seeing anyone in that time, or do you know if there were changes in Camila's household?"

My head shot up to look the doctor in the eyes. "Don't you dare accuse her parents of this. They would not do this to her, and no, there have not been any changes in Camila's household. As for her seeing anybody, yes she was but they broke up about four weeks ago-" I trailed off when I realized the timeline. "I know who did this."