To Follow you or To Lose you

Chapter 14: Destroying the fantasy.

My fantasy of perfect love began to be destroyed a month after Ethan was born.

Camila and I were taking care of the little boy while Normani rested, because the poor man was exhausting her. We weren't in the abandoned house, but in the apartment that Camila had given them.

It wasn't wonderful or luxurious or too spacious, but it worked for all three of them.

My girlfriend had gotten the money with her jobs and selling some of the souvenirs from her travels. I had been moved to know, because with that same money I could have undertaken her very beloved journeys.

"I was talking to him yesterday. He says he admires you" Camila told me as we fed him. She was incredible lifting him up, but terrible feeding him. I was terrible at lifting him up, but good at feeding him.

That's how Ethan ended up in her arms while I took care of giving him his bottle. He didn't care, because he seemed to be enjoying it. His face of pleasure identical to Normani's when he ate his favorite candy gave him away.

"That's impossible, Camz. Babies don't usually admire anything but their mother's breast" I laughed at her, but Camila didn't. Actually, she seemed a little offended by my comment.

"He's a special baby, Lauren. I mean, he's named after you, he should be... He doesn't follow the rule of regular babies. Lauren is better than usual."

And to stop arguing, I just accepted her argument and kissed her forehead. Camila always found a way to win me over, maybe because her answers weren't usually typical and she couldn't cope quickly.

She would never have admitted that she was wrong, for in her little world she was always right.

"Would you like to have children with me?" She proposed without a thought. I was surprised, of course. Nobody expects something like this so suddenly "Calm down. I would see to it that they loved you as much as I did."

In the arms of Camila little Ethan began to cry, because of her question I had taken the bottle away from his mouth. I gave it back to her even a little impressed.

I looked at my girlfriend expecting her to joke, but the honest smile on her face told me she wasn't doing it.

I started to feel dizzy.

"Camz, I... I..." Six times I tried to continue, but I couldn't do it. I didn't know how to react.

"Breathe, Lauren. You need it to live and continue by my side."

"Don't you think it's too soon?" I finally managed to formulate.

My mouth was completely dry, and I had to count to ten six times for my hands to stop shaking. I'm sure Ethan appreciated the annoying movement stopping.

"For me it's too late" She confessed to me with a low voice. I could notice her disappointment "...For me time is nothing. I hate time, because it happens so fast, we don't realize it does."

And she was right again.

Suddenly she froze and looked at me in terror. I thought she had seen some kind of ghost.

"Time passes, Lauren."

"What?"

"Time, Lauren. Pass. Pass. Pass... We're not eternal, Lauren."

But even though I tried to understand her, I didn't make it.

"Are you all right, Camz?"

She denied.

"I begin to feel trapped, Lauren" She seemed to have entered a crisis, but in her sentences, there was still calm "I don't usually live more than two months in a country, and now I've been here for much longer than that... Time passes, Lauren. I'm running out of it."