Photograph (camren)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Saying she'd come into work today wasn't among Camila's best decisions. There were dark circles under her eyes, her hair was a mess, and she was almost certain there were still tear stains on her cheeks. But it was fine.

   The memory of watching Lauren's blurry figure make its way through the gate has been on replay ever since Dinah and Mani managed to pick the brunette's shaking body up from the floor and get them out of that god forsaken airport. She couldn't breathe. It hurt too much. But it was fine.

   Camila hadn't spoken a word since either, but something inside her tells her that if she even so much as bothered, it'd come out so painfully monotonous that even she wouldn't recognize it. So, for now she stayed silent as she made her to the locker room to get changed into her scrubs. On the way, she kept her eyes trained directly in front of her and didn't make eye-contact with anyone. The young doctor simply just allows her feet to carry her where ever it is she needs to go. She's simply just existing. But it was fine.

   Once Camila entered the small locker room that reminded her of the ones from high school PE, but she stopped herself there. Thinking back to high school would only bring of memories of her and she couldn't let herself be broken at work. This was probably going to be the only thing that could possibly keep her mind of the marine and she didn't want to jeopardize that by tying the memory of a breakdown to that stupid locker room. So, the young Latina takes a sharp breath and prepares herself for the scent that's left on Lauren's sweater to be replaced by that of her scrub top and feels the nausea form in the pit her stomach. Soon, nothing would smell like Lauren anymore, and that frightened the young doctor. It frightened her to no end. But it was fine.

    Finally, she changed and debated taking a seat, she was still rather early- in fact the other interns that had taken night shift hadn't even been cut loose yet. If she made her way to the coffee cart between peds and the ER she'd be able to get to rounds early, which would probably earn her some brownie points with whoever's service she was on that day. So, the brown-eyed doctor pulls her lab coat over the blue scrubs and curses herself under her breath for keeping the note Lauren wrote her the Monday after their first fight in the pocket when her fingers come into contact with the folded piece of paper. But it was fine.

    She doesn't take it out, she doesn't read it. The brunette simply walked out of the locker room and stormed her way to the coffee cart. She really fucking needed a steaming cup of bitter liquid she usually drowned in milk and sugar, which Lauren had always accused her of murdering it's taste with. Fuck. Why can't she just stay out of her thoughts for five minutes. Of course, that thought Segway's into a memory of an early morning in Lauren's – no, their apartment, where Camila had been sitting on the counter-top after fixing herself a cup of coffee while the marine stood between her legs with a fake look of disgust on her face.

*   *  *

"Camz, I don't understand why you drown the poor coffee in milk and then sprinkle sugar on it's wounds. It kind of gets rid of it's flavour, don't you think?" Lauren scrunched up her nose while leaning over Camila's coffee cup to take a wiff of what her girlfriend deemed to be a holy concoction.

"No! Don't knock it 'til you try it idiot. It tastes pretty freaking good, but I don't understand how YOU drink it black. I can't wrap my head around it. I tried during exam period last semester and nearly had war flashbacks to the time I drank Captain Morgan straight. That's some vile shit. So, again. I don't get it." She watched as Lauren takes a gulp from her own coffee cup, only to find her looking back only seconds later.