Broken Memories

Loved

"Lauurennn.." Dinah drew out the girl's name as she gently tickled her chin in an effort to wake her up. Lauren didn't like this idea, she kept her eyes shut as she grabbed a nearby pillow and put it over Dinah's face. "Go away." Lauren groaned to her girlfriend. Dinah pulled the pillow off and pouted. "Well dang, I was just going to ask if you wanted me to make you some breakfast while I get mine." Lauren shook her head quickly, turning over sleepily. "You have to eat." Dinah reminded her, Lauren groaned, reaching for the pillow again. "What-no okay! I'm gone." Dinah scuttled out the room. Lauren smiled contentedly and went back to sleep. Dinah made herself some cereal and sat down at the table. She ate it and then when she was done, she just stirred the spoon around in the milk aimlessly. She didn't care to notice Normani was coming down the stairs, nor did she notice the girl desperately trying to gauge her attention. "Dinah." Normani tried again, and this time, the Polynesian looked up attentively. "Hi." She mumbled, after thinking, logic and memories, Dinah clearly remembered Normani wasn't a threat to her at all, she was a good friend. "Are you okay? Because you've been playing with that milk now for like 15 minutes." Normani frowned worriedly. "Right." Dinah said uninterestedly, barely listening to what the older girl was saying. "Okay, what's the matter?" Normani slid into a chair next to her. "Nothing," she said before she met Normani's gorgeous knowing eyes, pressing her for a real answer. A true one. "It's Lauren. I think she might be starving herself again." Normani sat up and tilted her head. "Really? What makes you say that?" Dinah huffed. "I don't know, I mean, I haven't seen her eat more than a quarter of a meal in a week, each day. I know she loves Ally's cooking, we all do, so I get the feeling she's holding herself back." Normani hummed, she would be lying if she said it went unnoticed by her as well. "What do you want to do about it?" Normani questioned, "Well she wouldn't listen to me if I tried. I offered to make her food, and she offered to hit me with a pillow again." "Again?" "I woke her up." "Oh." Normani nodded in understanding. "If she doesn't eat much today, I'll talk to her about it. But don't worry okay? You don't have to look after Lauren, she's a big girl." Dinah gave her a pointed look. "Okay so maybe she does need looking after, but what I mean is you don't have to do it alone." Dinah nodded and put a hand over her friend's. "Yeah, thanks for that Mani." Normani smiled at her and got up. "So can I get rid of the milk now? Unless you're going to drink that brown slop." Dinah cringed a little. "It's cool, just drain it. I'm gonna head out." Normani looked over as she washed up the bowl for her. "Where are you going Dinah?" Dinah shrugged. "I don't know Mans..wherever I end up, I suppose." Normani frowned worriedly. "Are you gonna be okay? Do you want me to go with you?" Dinah shook her head. "Nah I need some thinking time to myself. I will be back for lunch though." "Yeah you'd better be honey, you're cooking." Normani reminded her as she put the bowl and spoon away. "Oh and thanks for doing the washing up for me, you didn't have to do that." Dinah smiled appreciatively as she put on her coat. "Sure, aren't you going to say bye to Lauren?" Dinah shrugged and shook her head. "Nah, I doubt she'll miss me. I'll probably be back about the time she wakes up." Normani nodded, that was probably true. "Okay, laters." Normani waved as Dinah left her alone in the kitchen. She had nearly forgotten why she came downstairs, oh right, she had to pee. Lauren reluctantly turned over in the empty bed, she didn't want to do anything today. Pulling the covers over her head, she heard someone come in. But it was too soft footing to be Dinah. "Lauren?" Lauren sighed, she couldn't ignore the younger girl, ever, no matter how hard she could have tried. Without removing the covers, she spoke. "What is it Camila?" Camila sat down on the bed. "Will you cuddle with me?" Her voice sounded heavy, so Lauren lifted her head up to look at her friend. "Sure Camz, come up here." Lauren shivered as she moved a fraction of the duvet up for Camila to get in between the white sheets. "Thank you." Camila mumbled as she limply placed one arm over her friends waist. "Is everything okay?" The older girl asked, watching carefully as Camila closed her eyes. "Mhm, I'm just really sleepy." Camila breathed in such a worn out voice. "I couldn't get back to sleep by myself." Lauren smiled softly and closed her eyes, turning into her body and nuzzling her face in Camila's neck as she did the same. "Okay, night Camila." Camila hummed into Lauren's neck. "It's 7am. But goodnight." Camila humoured her anyway. Lauren fell back to sleep just as soon Camila did. When Ally came upstairs to wake the girls up for lunch, she just got shooed away as soon as she opened her mouth. But the shorter girl just laughed it off, she knew exactly what they were like when they were tired. "Ally, Dinah isn't back yet." Normani sighed as Ally sat at the table waiting for their food to cook. "I know, hence why I'm cooking for the second time this week." Normani smiled at her sympathetically. "Did she say she'd be back for lunch?" Ally asked. "Yeah, she practically promised." Normani sighed, "I'm gonna wake Camren up, will you call Dinah and see where she is?" Ally nodded and got her phone out, while Normani headed upstairs. "Rise and shine losers, time for food." Normani threw the covers off of the girls bodies, earning glares from the girls. "Stop it Normani, seriously!" Lauren whined before she pulled a pillow on top of her head. Normani sat on the bed and held onto her arm to pull her up. It was rare for Lauren to call her Normani instead of Mani. "Who cooked?" Camila asked sheepishly. "Ally." "It's Dinah's turn." "But Ally cooked, so go downstairs and appreciate she did." Normani pressed. Camila knew that was her signal to go downstairs to eat with Ally, and leave them alone. "What?" Lauren glared at Normani icily. Normani let go of her arm when Lauren showed no signs of laying back down. "What's the matter with you?" Normani frowned. "What's the matter with you? I just want to get some sleep Normani, so why can't I just do that?" Normani ran a hand through her hair. "You can't sleep because you need to come down and eat something with the rest of us." Lauren protested as Normani literally dragged out of bed by force. "WHA-NORMANI KORDEI PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN!" Lauren shouted so loud that both Camila and Ally heard and started laughing loudly together. Normani came into view with Lauren slung over her shoulder, Lauren had clearly given up by now and wore a defeated expression on her face. "She's a bit grumpy." Normani smirked as she put Lauren down in a chair next to her own. "You suck." Lauren grumbled as she picked up her fork and delved into Ally's food heartily. "Well it's worth it to see your sunshiney widdle face." Ally pinched her cheeks sarcastically. "Shut up." Lauren swatted her hand away but smiled nevertheless. "Where the hell is Dinah anyway?" Camila asked. Lauren shrugged, Normani shrugged, Ally was quiet. "Allyyy?" Normani drew out as she trained her eyes on her. "Where is she?" Ally fixed her eyes on her plate as she ate another mouthful. "Allyson, if you don't tell us-" Ally pouted at the use of her full name. "Leave off her, she made us lunch when it wasn't even her job." Lauren defended "Which is why I need to know where the hell Dinah is at so I can kick her ass!" Normani hissed. "Look Ally just tell us, you clearly know where she is." Camila sighed. "She's on a plane." Lauren tilted her head. "Why? Is she going somewhere?" Ally nodded. "Back to her family, she didn't want to hang around here right now." Camila's mouth hung open. "Huh?" Normani's eyes were glued to Ally's. "She wanted to stay home...for now. Lauren, Dinah said that she was sorry, she couldn't tell you herself it was over." Ally mumbled as she looked anywhere but at Lauren. "God Lauren.." Camila reached for her hand but Lauren felt numb, frozen, as if time wasn't passing by at the speed of light. "She just..left? Just like that?" A hoarse voice came out of her mouth. "I really am sorry Lauren, I tried my best but-" Lauren shook her head at Ally. "It wasn't your fault, don't worry mama. If it's what will make her happy..well I'm just sorry I wasn't enough for her." She breathed. "Lauren, you've got us, you have me. You don't need Dinah, we did just fine without her before and we can do better now." Normani put a hand on her shoulder for support. Lauren stood up for a hug which Normani provided followed by Camila and Ally, making it a group hug. "You guys really are just so cute." Lauren giggled. Camila smiled widely and jumped on her back making Lauren squeal and hurriedly grab her legs. "Camila! What if Lauren dropped you?" Ally gasped. "Well she didn't." Camila stuck her tongue out. "But she nearly did." Normani noted. "But I also didn't, Camz is fine. Aren't you Camz?" Lauren laughed as she whirled herself and Camila around. "Hey, guys can we go out today? Look around New York? We haven't really done that yet, at least not together." Camila suggested. "Yeah, well that sounds like it'll be fun to me." Lauren smiled. "Are you both in?" Ally and Normani looked at each other and nodded. "Well then girls, to New York City." Ally smiled. They wandered for a few hours looking at various different landmarks, lights, and they obviously did some shopping while they were out. New York definitely had qualities that Miami significantly lacked. But despite Lauren acting like she was over Dinah, she wasn't at all; her mind had a nasty habit of drifting back to the girl. Lauren wondered whereabouts the Polynesian was right now, and what she was up to. Probably spending time with her family and maybe even laughing away at her expense. "Lauren do you need a break? You look tired." Camila noted when she turned around to look at the girl. They had all spread out, Ally and Normani, Camila and Lauren. "Yeah, thank you." Lauren mumbled as she sat on a bench. Camila took a seat beside her and leant her head on Lauren's shoulder. Lauren held her hand in Camila's, Camila felt her heart both warm and break at the same time. "You miss her, don't you?" Lauren settled with a small nod. "It's like I keep trying to push her out of my mind, but when I do that, she just ends up creeping in more than before. You know? Have you ever tried to forget a person so hard that they're just fucking embedded in your brain. They're like a jammed bloody switch when the light just won't turn off." Lauren ranted, and the Cuban just couldn't help but agree. Lauren had described the way she felt around the girl who held her hand, as well has her heart. "I have a pretty good idea." Camila settled on saying. "I just don't understand..how I could..how I could mean so little to her, that we all could mean so little to her to just walk away from us like that." Camila gave a sigh. "I mean, I know Dinah, or at least I thought that I did. She wouldn't pull something like this unless she had good reason to." Camila attempted to defend her friend in her absence, even if her absence was her own fault. "But to get someone else to do your dirty work, to tell your girlfriend they're dumped..do you not think that's just low?" Lauren challenged. "Well maybe Dinah didn't want to hurt you, because she still loves you." Lauren grumbled bitterly. "Yeah, she loves me so much that she broke up with me, because that's how people go around expressing their cherished love these days." Camila fought back a smile at Lauren's words, she was sassy when she was mad, she was also pretty hot. "I mean if it helps, from another person's perspective, or whatever it is I'm trying to say leading up to this, is that I would dare never treat a girl that way. I would never do that to someone I loved, ever." Lauren leaned back and pressed a light kiss to Camila's temple. "I know Camila because you're just too sweet to do that to someone." Camila couldn't focus on anything other than her fast pounding heartbeat in her ears. "Hey Lauren, you do know you deserve a whole lot better than what Dinah did. Don't you babe?" Lauren smiled shyly. "I guess, but what the heck, maybe she never loved me. It could have all been a lie, because that's not something you do to someone you love. You said it yourself, didn't you?" Camila nodded as her answer, giving Lauren's hand a gentle squeeze. "Love sucks." Camila pouted making Lauren laugh. "Yeah it does, I'd drink to that if I had one with me." Camila hummed in response and just enjoyed the company she respected and loved. She concluded Dinah was a fool to mess with Lauren's heart. "I love you Camzi." Lauren said making Camila suddenly pay attention. "Aw, I love you too Lolo." She snuggled into her embrace as Lauren wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Do you think Dinah will come back?" Lauren asked, after a little while of silence as they watched the mass of people go by. "I don't know." Camila decided, but in a selfish way, a part of her was hoping Dinah didn't return.