Don't Touch Me

"I can't lose you."

Ally sort of felt on the outskirts of everything.

She didn't know if it was because of her age or sexuality, but she just felt...disconnected from everyone.

And it wasn't a progressive realisation, it kind of just hit her one day during lunch when Normani was joking to Lucy about something that had happened on the weekend. Dinah had just arrived at the table, sat down, asked what the pair were laughing about and was soon joining in. The smallest girl had no idea what had been going on, so she sort of just wordlessly retreated to the library where at least the books still made her feel welcome.

And Ally didn't blame the girls, she wasn't upset with them. How are they to know? They were just doing what they always did...and that was socialising.

Ally didn't socialise much, her parents had always taught her that there were more important things in life and she wholeheartedly believed that herself.

It was why Jake knew education came first, why the girls always understood her lack of attention to conversation.

Ally never thought that would really be a problem...until it became sort of a problem.

Because Ally learned that education and friendship sort of go hand-in-hand. You learn from the people around you how to be the person you are being shaped to be.

It was why Ally lost her breath when she found out Lauren had been shot.

It was why she was still parked in the hospital parking lot wondering when the hell she started caring this much.

It was why she was too paralysed with fear of losing someone to remember what her last Sociology class was about.

Camila had been sitting by Lauren's bedside for twenty minutes following the girl waking up. She'd rushed to find a doctor and he'd extracted the breathing tube from Lauren, which looked way too painful for Camila to watch, and then he checked her vitals.

Lauren seemed stable the doctor declared, her speech would be a little impaired due to the tube but aside from that, her vitals were in check.

Lauren had been staring at Camila for the better part of those twenty minutes and Camila's eyes were dropped to her hands as she tried to rack her brain for reasons as to why Lauren would have said Lucy's name instead of hers the second she woke up.

She sort of wanted an explanation, but she knew that was a lot to ask with Lauren's undoubtedly sore throat.

Camila was also insanely angry at the green-eyed girl. She'd marched into a house with a known drug lord and attempted to threaten him? Who the hell did that?

And sure, she understood...it was Lucy after all, but in Camila's head no one was worth Lauren having a bullet through her stomach. Camila could've lost her and she wanted to scream that at Lauren's face, she wanted to shake the girl until she understood that Camila couldn't lose her. She couldn't.

They'd been through that, they'd agreed that even three months apart was more than long enough so Lauren knew how Camila would feel about her leaving her and she still went and tried to fuck with a gang member. And she'd gotten shot.

And Camila had tried picturing her life without Lauren but it came up blank. It was exactly like the night Lauren had broken up with her, nothing made sense anymore, everything was a question that Camila didn't want to answer.

So Camila was considering what the hell she was going to do. Because leaving Lauren wasn't an option, no way, she already contracted a mild case of anxiety when the girl was out of her sight for half an hour, a lifetime would have her in a state.