If I lose myself

Chapter 3. "Please! Aunty Mila!" ✔️

After collecting their bags from the trunk of the car, Lauren and Dinah carefully made their way along the treacherously uneven garden path towards the front door of the apartment that the green-eyed girl shared with Camila.

The term 'apartment' could only really be loosely used to describe the small, single- level, Spanish-style building which stood, looking more than a little dishevelled, before them. However, regardless of how downtrodden it might appear from the outside, Camila and Lauren had made it into a home which was warm and inviting inside.

The property was one of four semi-detached units which were joined to one another in a quad; two at the rear of the plot and two at the front. Each unit had the benefit of its own access and garden, which meant that Lauren very rarely had to make awkward conversation with any of the other residents that lived there besides Mrs Gillman; their elderly, narrow-minded next-door neighbour who took every opportunity to voice her unwanted opinion regarding her and Camila's 'sinful' relationship.

Over the year and a half that they'd live there, Camila had grown to resent Mrs Gillman's unwarranted prejudice so much that every morning when the older woman was standing outside her front door, puffing on her stale smelling cigarettes, she would make a point of purposely letting Jasper out to run around their small overgrown garden just for an excuse to run in to her. Camila would stand, watching the Springer Spaniel as he bound energetically around the unkempt lawn, and attempt to make friendly small talk with the other woman (which was almost always rudely ignored) until Lauren eventually came in search of her. Whenever Lauren found Camila loitering in their front doorway, waiting for Jasper, she'd automatically step up behind the smaller girl; wrap her arms loosely around her waist and plant a soft delicate kiss against the side of her neck in greeting. Camila enjoyed taking advantage of that knowledge in order to irritate her neighbour, but it was almost two months before Lauren finally realised that her girlfriend was intentionally disappearing outside every morning as a way to set up the less than well-received PDA. Rather than be upset at the discovery of Camila's underhanded tactics however, Lauren found that it only made her love her girlfriend even more.

"Ok, so let's go over a few ground rules before we go inside," Lauren said, turning to face Dinah as she came to a stop on the porch of the building that Camila had bought the summer before her freshman year of college.

Camila had used the compensation that she'd received following the accident to make thepurchase and although she'd always kept the total sum of her reparation a secret from the group, Lauren and the rest of the girls were in no way ignorant to the fact that it had been extensive.

"Firstly," Lauren started, lowering her shopping bags to rest on the concrete step at her feet in order to free up her hands for a minute. "You're not allowed to say anything to Camz about weddings."

"Fine," Dinah agreed, shifting the weight of her own bags in her hands to stop them from cutting off the circulation to her fingertips.

"Secondly..." Lauren continued, meeting Dinah's gaze squarely. "You're not allowed to say anything to her about proposals."

"Alright," Dinah returned, shrugging her shoulders indifferently.

"Or engagements," Lauren added after a second of consideration, her face scrunching up in thought. "Or rings..."

"So...basically anything even remotely related to weddings," Dinah laughed. "I've got it."

Lauren leant forward to pick up her bags from the floor. "Good, because if you say anything that makes Camz even the slightest bit suspicious I'm going to kill you." She threatened, meeting Dinah's dark eyes as she stood back up.