The Soulmates Series Camren

2.4

Lauren returned to Florida four days before Christmas to an empty house, and a note that read,

We're spending Christmas in Madrid. We hope you can forgive us.

With love,

Mom and Dad.

Lauren wasn't entirely sure to what extent she could forgive them anymore. Her parents didn't feel like parents anymore and she wondered if that was part of the reason why her two storey white palace was empty and silent with the exception of Cara's shallow breathing. It was as though the gorgeous blonde was making her best attempt at being as silent as possible, as though her breathing would disrupt the sense of emptiness. As if Lauren was enjoying it. The house remained empty for hours and Lauren remained so too. Cara lay next to her on her bed and played with her hair, soothing the girl that was absent from the moment, dwelling in every moment she'd left here when she walked away. Every moment from the first time Camila sang to her, to their first kiss, to their countless days spent in bed watching animated movies between breathless kisses and hands under sheets. Cara was trying. Cara was really trying. But Lauren was giving her nothing but blank eyes and hollow wrists and she wondered if there was even a girl in there anymore. It wasn't until Taylor stumbled through the door, off her face drunk at 2AM without her shoes and donning a nasty cut under the warmth of the left of her liquid brown eyes. She'd intended to sleep in her sister's room, desperate for some sort of inner peace. She didn't expect to find it in the form of her sister and her new.... Cara. Taylor fell into the bed next to Lauren, burrowing her head in her chest and letting out a choked sob, her arms locked tightly around the missing link in her family. Cara kissed Lauren's forehead and excused herself to the hallway to shed some tears of her own. Tears for the cool air that had been stolen from Lauren upon returning home. Tears for Camila. And all of the pain. And the blood. And the yearning, grieving beauty that lay in the floorboards and hung on the walls of his forsaken white and glass palace.

Camila liked to wander the halls of her apartment building around the hours of 4.30AM on occasion, when everyone was fast asleep and she could be alone outside of the four walls she constantly dwelled within. Sometimes she thought that maybe if she walked far enough she might actually leave. Sometimes she thought if she walked far enough she could make it across the city to Lauren's house and sometimes she thought that maybe Lauren would have come back. Sometimes she listened to the last voicemail Lauren had left for her before she left her for good, and sometimes she envisioned that she could still turn up at the airport and stop her getting on that metal death machine. The metal death machine that in theory brought about the ruin of her heart. In reality it had not been the aeroplane, but the brown eyed girl herself that had brought about the ruin of her own heart. Of both of their hearts. Sometimes she stood at the edge of the roof of the apartment building and rocked back and forward, just far enough that she could imagine what it would feel like to hit the ground. A moment later she'd sit and drink herself stupid and call Vero and ask for her drugs. Vero didn't pick up anymore, she'd realigned her priorities with what was best for Lauren. Sometimes Camila wished she'd done that herself, that she too had prioritised what was best for Lauren, rather than what was best for her. It occurred to her that at that time, even if she'd wanted to, she probably wouldn't have been able to put Lauren first. She was too young and too stupid and too heartless to put the love of her life before herself. Sometimes she thought that if their love had begun on this day, that perhaps she'd have made Lauren happy.

Sometimes she thought that if their love had begun on this day, that maybe she could have made her stay.

Sometimes she remembered that she was wrong.

Lauren awoke at 5.30AM and Cara was asleep on the landing, with tear stained cheeks and a shivering body. The green eyed girl shook her awake and greeted her with a careful smile.