Lauren and Camila

November 28th, 2014

All of Thurberg Hall's 4th floor could hear the crying coming from room F. It had been going on all day and most of the other residents, once they had ascertained that nothing serious was wrong, had left the floor for other pursuits. Tim Fitzgerald, however, had actually been summoned to the room by one of its residents. So, despite the fact that he had a game in a few hours he was trudging to the wailing room, with many shopping bags in hand. He knocked lightly on the door and waited until it was opened by Lauren who stood there, a weary look on her face and still dressed in her pyjamas. Inside the room, kneeling on her bed with her arms around her knees, was Camila, her eyes and cheeks red and puffy, tears still streaming down her face.

"Hey there, Doc." Tim said with concern as he approached the bed "Any better?"

"I just...I mean...I don't get it." She said, each pause choked with a sob "How do you go from being in love with someone and saying you know you'll marry them to just dropping them like they're nothing in a month. It was just a month ago that we...that she..."

Her sentence was cut off by a fresh batch of tears. Tim looked at Lauren as if for advice on what to say but Lauren simply shrugged her shoulders with a slightly exasperated look trying to indicate that she'd tried just about everything. Tim put his hand on Camila's shoulder gently and ran his mind back through all the advice that he'd gotten over the years about hardship. Being a tall, blonde, handsome, fawned over athlete who was a national celebrity before he could drive, however, left him with little to choose from.

"C'mon there Champ, sometimes things look bad but, well, that's when you stick to your gameplan and ignore the scoreboard and just never give up until the clock runs ou.....ow!" Tim reacted as Lauren slapped him upside his head in order to interrupt his advice.

"Alright Fitzy, enough help, get to your game now" Lauren pulled him to his feet and took his place on the bed, beginning to leaf through the bags that Tim had brought. "C'mon Camz, brighten a little. Tim has brought us all manner of terribly unhealthy things to eat. There's ice cream here and pizza and fried chicken and fried somethings..."

Lauren was currently looking at a styrofoam box filled with french fries and what sort of looked like fried clams.

"Those are actually rocky mountain oysters." Tim said helpfully.

Lauren looked from him to Camila quizzically.

"They're...sniff...fried bull testicles." Camila choked out.

"Oh sweet lord." Lauren said quickly and sternly holding them out to her side, refusing to even look at them. "Get them out of my hand, Fitz"

Tim did, grabbing the box quickly, with an apologetic look on his face.

"You said get comfort food."

"Food to comfort people, Tim. Not Satan's minions." Lauren shook her head "Now, go on, git. It's girl time."

Tim nodded and made his way back to the door, turning to look back at Camila as he did with concern.

"I've got to go to my game, doll. Feel better, huh?"

"Bye Tim...you're, like, the best friend...ever." Camila said, with just a bit of a smile.

"Bye Tim." Lauren admonished, shooing him out of the door even as she leaned up to whisper in his ear. "And you can totally post up their power-forward all night. He's awful in the blocks."

And then, as he left, it was just the two of them in the room, alone with their supplies. Lauren looked at her friend and her heart just ached. Sobbing, broken hearted, it hurt Lauren that someone she cared about so much was in so much pain. She walked back to the bed and put her arm around Camila's slender shoulders.

"Now, come on, honey. We're just about through with the crying part of this experience." Lauren said warmly but sternly

"But...she....

"No buts, Camz. We had our cry, now we do the rest of it. Now, I am new to this in terms of the lesbian factor which means I can't really rely on my usual 'Boys suck' advice and saying 'Girls suck' would just confuse but I'm going to assume the rest of it is the same. Ice cream, bad food, vodka drinks, cheesy movies and then we go on and get better and remember how great we are and how good things are just around the corner even though it hurts now."

Camila smiled at this speech. That did sound good right about now. She still felt so sad and angry and hurt, especially after some of the things that Abby had said, but she knew, deep down, that Lauren was right. And having Lauren around did make it seem better. She did blow her nose on the tissue in her hand and manage to stop crying, for a bit as Lauren pulled the Laptop onto the bed with them and put one of the discs into it.

"Thanks, Lo." Camila said.

"Any time, sweetie." Lauren winked back at her, as she grabbed a few highly alcoholic bottled daquiris from one of the bags and twisting the cap off.

"But you know, lesbian or not, boys still do suck." Camila said, still somewhat raggedly because of her crying but far more lucent than she'd been.

"God, they do, don't they." Lauren laughed as she took a sip.

"Those testicles are still in our room." Camila said, looking at the box on the dresser.

"Yeah, yeah, they are." Lauren nodded, taking another swig. "But don't you worry, I'm going to drink a few of these and then I'll go next door and stick 'em in Fitzy's shoes."

That did bring a little laugh from Camila. Her first in days.