Trials & Tribulations

Chapter 10. "You've kissed her?"

For the next few minutes, Lauren repeated the dizzying cycle of informing Camila where she was and what had happened to her. For Camila's part, she continued with the forthright compliments of Lauren's eyes and various other features, attempting on more than one occasion to kiss her again. Apart from the first attempt, which had caught Lauren completely off guard, Camila had only managed to kiss her on one other occasion, when, awkwardly, she was asking Lauren once more, if she were her doctor. Otherwise, Lauren's logic and reason had finally won out over her heart and she had managed to move her face out of the way, with, she'd admit, a great deal of self-control and difficulty.

Soon, the two of them had been joined by Ally and Dinah after Camila's mom had obviously been able to assure the latter that Camila was fine and that she should see her. After they'd entered the room, Dinah had rushed to Camila's bedside, embracing the smaller girl in a massive hug, her eyes moist with tears. Camila's mom watched the interaction from where she'd stood at the door, a sad smile on her face.

"What did we literally just talk about last week?" Dinah asked Camila, her arms still enveloped around her body tightly.

"I don't remember," Camila answered truthfully. Dinah kissed her on the head softly and laughed a little at her response.

"I told you I never wanted to sit by your hospital bed again," Dinah replied, finally releasing Camila from her grip and wiping a tear from her cheek with her left hand.

"I'm in the hospital?" Camila asked her.

"Yeah Mila," Dinah told her. "You had a seizure."

"Oh...." Camila replied. "Ok." Dinah looked questioningly at both Lauren and Camila's mom, raising her eyebrow in confusion.

"She's still postictal," Sinu told Dinah in way of an explanation. "She'll be confused for a little bit whilst the irritation to her brain settles down."

"She's been like it the entire time I've been sitting with her," Lauren explained to Dinah. "She asks where she is so I tell her, then, a minute later she'll ask me the exact same question again like it's the first time."

"Oh," Dinah said in response, a mischievous glint in her eye. "So we could tell her anything and she'd not remember it a minute from now?"

"Pretty much," Lauren informed her.

"Interesting," Dinah said a small smile creeping onto her lips. "Very interesting." Dinah gave Lauren a knowing look and she couldn't help the blush that spread across her face as a result. 

For the next twenty minutes, Ally, Dinah, and Lauren continued to sit with Camila and her mom in the small sterile hospital room, Sinu asking Lauren whether Camila had given her any trouble whilst she'd been speaking to Dinah downstairs.

"Nothing that I couldn't handle," Lauren replied smiling at the recollection of how Camila's lips had felt on her own.

"I'd be grateful for that if I were you," Sinu laughed. "She was being a right pain before you arrived. She was trying to clamber out of the bed to get a pizza, of all things. I swear, my daughter is always thinking about her stomach." Lauren glanced down at Camila who had fallen asleep on the bed, her face almost completely obscured by the pillow it was buried into.

The four remaining occupants of the room had continued to talk amongst themselves until Camila had woken up, pushing herself up from the bed slightly to look around at them. She
reached her left hand up to her eyes and rubbed them sleepily before placing it firmly against her forehead, closing her eyes as she did so.

"Where am I?" she asked her eyes opening again to look around the room.

"You're at the hospital Camila," Sinu told her patiently. "You had a seizure." Camila looked at the faces around her once again, her eyes narrowing uncomfortably as though in pain.