Do As I Say (Camren)

Chapter 3. Cheater

The night before had started with excitement. She wanted to get to know the sassy and incredibly clever woman that would be her business partner, and she was really looking forward to it.

Later on that night, she had a sensation, right in the pit of her stomach, a burning one, even before her eyes landed on her through the glass doors, averting her presence without being noticed.

The next moment, she became an outsider, an intruder in their little world, and even though Liz had tried to convince her otherwise, she could still feel the invisible barrier between her and the two lovers, separating her from their sheer happiness.

After getting home, she was confused.

How did everything go this way? How had she allowed it? The world around her didn't make sense any more. For a quiet, eternal moment, she wasn't sure of anything, and she doubted it all, for it seemed to have started moving, spinning, jumping in all directions, before her wide eyes.

Confused little wide-eyed girl.

Maybe not even herself was real. As she drank and drank away right from the bottle, she seemed to lose substance, depth, meaning.

And then... she felt numb. Gradually, as if the liquor inside her system had somehow seared her emotions, her sadness, her thoughts, eating her conscience away.

She didn't remember smashing the empty -emptyemptyempty- bottle against the opposite wall from her, and she barely recalled a moment, drowsy with alcohol and dread, where her bare feet stepped on the glass covered carpet.

Eventually the expensive wine had worn off, and by the morning she found herself laying on her back on the dirty floor, staring into the white ceiling.

There, miserable, silent and completely alone with her thoughts, or lack thereof, Lauren Jauregui felt empty.

It wasn't self pity, and at that point it wasn't just sadness anymore.

She was falling in this colossal, black abyss, and instead of looking down she was face up, observing the traitorous cliff she had just fallen from, trying to find some logic in her situation and instantly failing, and all that was left for her was to keep glancing that way, to the past, wondering, without words somehow, if she could have done something different to prevent it; maybe, if she didn't like heights so much, and hadn't walked so close to the edge, she could have avoided the fall; or maybe she jumped, too entraced and too brave and too naive, to see it could only end up like this.

And for the briefest of moments, she pondered if maybe there hadn't really been anything to do in the first place.

Maybe, this abyss was her destiny the entire time, and no matter what she did or what she tried to do, it would have clawed at her flesh to devour her in its infinite depths.

Her mind wasn't working as it used to, at least she was sure of that. She didn't come up with bright ideas nor smart solutions. Every course of action ended right where it started, every plan was erased before even meaning something at all.

Meaningless.

A few hours after sunrise, she found herself still immersed in nothingness, hollowness, true melancholy. Albeit growing irritated by the light coming from the little slit between the grey curtains and also by the repetitive sting on her injured feet, but she realized she couldn't bring herself to care enough to move.

Not now.

A humorless, dark chuckle escaped her lips, dry as her constricted throat.

At least that tiny trace of physical pain was keeping her relatively sane. It was just there, palpitating, constant, while the surreal situation kept spiraling downdowndown, and only this piece of realness stopped the dizziness.