The Bachelorette

Episode 2

"You're like a puzzle, I have all the pieces it's just a matter of putting them all together." Camila explained.

"And have you finished the puzzle yet?" Lauren asked.

"No, as I put the pieces together, they display things I've never seen before; new things. But those things are only fragments of the big picture. If I've finished the puzzle, it means our story's done."

"I hope you never finish it,"

"I don't think I ever will." Camila answered, honestly.

Camila had never experienced such a vivid flashback but processing the importance of the puzzle piece in her hands and the girl in front of her, the feelings being drawn out of her went side by side with intense memories she spent so many years trying had so hard to forget.

Puzzles had been their thing as a couple. Not actually doing them, but puzzles became a metaphor for their relationship. It was an important theme they used at rise of their relationship but it was also a theme that came up through the fall of it.

Camila, still in shock, flipped over the puzzle piece only to have a new wave of emotions come upon her.

"Do you remember it?" Lauren spoke, significantly closer to Camila than she was before but still leaving a comfortable distance. After all this time, they were kind of like strangers.

"Uh, yeah." A flustered Camila managed to respond. "Our one year."

"So I know we said no gifts," Lauren stopped once she saw the stern look Camila was giving her. "No, it's nothing expensive." She gave Camila's thigh a reassuring squeeze and leaned over to open the glove compartment. Lauren placed a small, square box, topped with a bow, on Camila lap.

"I swear if you got me jewelry, I will leave this car at the next light. " Camila threatened.

"Open it!" Lauren encouraged, her hand finding her girlfriend's thigh once more. Camila gave her a threatening look. Inside was a puzzle of two monkeys eating bananas. "It was the cutest one they had." Lauren informed.

"Ages two to five?" Camila read.

"I wanted to make sure you'd be able to do it," Lauren responded. Camila answered with a hard slap to her arm. "Hey! I'm driving!"

"Tough luck."

"So do you know why I got you a puzzle?" Lauren asked, rubbing her arm.

"Because of the thing I said about the puzzle pieces?" Camila guessed.

"Because of the thing you said about the puzzle pieces. " Lauren confirmed.

"You're so cute." Camila placed a kiss on Lauren's cheek.

"Go ahead, do it! I wanna see the picture!" Lauren urged.

"In a moving car?"

"Camila, babe, it's like six pieces, it won't be that hard," Lauren assured. Camila did as told, using the back of the box as the surface she was making it on. It took her under a minute to put the pieces together.

"Um, Lo?" Camila asked, checking the box. "There's a piece missing, one of the monkeys heads." She laughed.

"Yeah, exactly, because our puzzle never ends. It'll never be completed."

This must have been some sick joke someone was playing on Camila. Lauren made it clear almost five years ago that the couple was finish, their puzzle completed.