Keep Me Alive • Camren

Two

Warning: slight violence and drug abuse.

Alarms clocks are annoying.

The entire concept of time is stupid.

These are thoughts that frequent Lauren's mind every morning when her alarm clock goes off, but she always presses snooze on the irritating machine and drifts back to sleep. Her slumber is short lived however, as her mother, Clara, bursts into the room and pulls the covers off of her. "Lauren. Get up now." She demands in Spanish. Lauren groans, searching for the blankets, "five more minutes." Clara shakes her violently, causing Lauren to fall to the floor.

"Maaaaa!"

"Don't 'má' me. Get dressed and come eat breakfast."

Lauren stands up, "ok."

If there was something a Cuban never did, it was disobey their mother. Yeah, there were other traditions that Lauren wondered about, like why they eat pig on Christmas, or why they're always up so god damn early, but she never in a million years would disrespect her parents.

She picks out black skinny jeans, a navy long sleeved crop top with a black bomber jacket, and black platform boots. Finishing off her make up with red lip stick she goes out to greet her family for breakfast.

"You look terrible." Her dad, Mike points out the dark circles under Lauren's eyes. "When did you go to sleep?"

Lauren stiffens a little in her seat, recalling the events of last night. She honestly wondered if it had been a dream. "Late."

"Eat, mija."

"I'm not very hungry."

"Eat."

Lauren sighs, but she picks up a tostada and dunks it into her café con leche. Her parents are great, they support her no matter what, but they are so different from her. Their ideas, at least her mom's are at times close minded.

"I'm gonna go now." Lauren says, but everyone is too busy with their own thing to notice. She slams the door when she leaves, again there is no response. Like always.

On her way to the elevator Lauren takes out her phone and puts in her earphones. She presses play, and her favorite Timber Timbre song comes on, Demon Host. As the elevator door begins to close, a pair of hands pop in from the other side, Lauren quickly tries to keep the door from closing. It opens again, and in walks the angry girl from yesterday. She says something but Lauren is unable to hear. "I'm sorry, what?" She asks, taking out one earbud. "Did you not hear me yelling to hold the door? Are you fucking deaf?"

"I'm sorry, it's just that I was listening to music."

The girl's expression softens, "whatever."

"I'm glad to see you're alive."

"Yeah, well."

By now, the two girls have made it down ten stories and are about to exit the apartment complex.

"You're going to school now, right?"

"Maybe."

"What school do you go to?"

"Sayre."

"Oh, that's not too far from me. I go to CAPA."

"How fancy."

"Sayre is nice too."

"Don't you have to get to school?"

"Yeah, but where are you going?"

"Look, you can stop now, ok? I said I wasn't going to try to kill myself again."

"That's not why I-"