Breaking Walls (Lauren Cimorelli)

Chapter 25

Lauren's POV

An obnoxious ringing woke me up, making me cover my eyes as the sun peaked through the curtains in front of the window. I looked over at my phone to see Christina calling me and quickly picked it up before quietly walking out of Coley's bedroom.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Hey, did I wake you up?"

I cleared my throat. "Yeah, but it's fine. What's up?"

"Well, Lisa and I went apartment hunting yesterday..."

"Did you guys find something?" I asked.

"Kind of. Think you can be ready in fifteen minutes? We can come get you then take you to the apartment."

"Yeah, sure. I'll be ready," I yawned.

I heard a chuckle. "Okay, see you then."

I hung up as I made my way back into Coley's room, grabbing some clothes and bringing them into the bathroom with me as I quickly changed and got ready. I smiled as I walked back into the bedroom and gently kissed Coley's forehead before writing a small note to leave on her bedside table. I saw her smile in her sleep out of the corner of my eye as I finished writing the note, and I quietly made my way out of the room and eventually out of the house.

------------------------------------

"How's Coley?" Lisa asked from the passenger seat. I looked away from the window to face Lisa and gave her a small smile.

"She's good."

She immediately frowned. "Are you two still..."

I shook my head. "We're okay," I explained, "I just misinterpreted something and she didn't explain it until yesterday. It's all good now."

I was expecting her frown to turn into a smile, but instead she just looked down and then met Katherine's eye who sat beside me. "Lauren, we have something we need-"

"How about we save that for when we get to the apartment?" Christina interrupted Lisa from the driver's seat.

"Yeah, why don't we listen to some music?" Katherine suggested.

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Shouldn't we almost be there? We left Coley's house like twenty minutes ago."

I heard Amy sigh from the back of the van, and Lisa looked down again while Katherine gave me a sympathetic look.

"It's a little far out, Laur," Amy said quietly.

I gave them all a confused look and nervously laughed, "How far out? Like half an hour?" No one said anything. "Okay, an hour at the most?" I laughed again, and Lisa finally looked up. I saw sadness in her eyes and felt tears start to build in mine as I realized what was about to be said.

"Chris-"

Christina held her hand out to stop Lisa from talking as she cleared her throat. "It's eight hours."

My eyes widened. "Eight? Are you crazy? We can't move eight hours away! Why aren't we getting an apartment here?" Tears started to fall down my cheeks, but I ignored them.

"I'm the only one of us that's been working since the band broke up, Laur. You know that we gave Mom and Dad the band money-"

"Just because they didn't want to get off their asses and go back to work at first when Dani died! They're working now, and that money belongs to us! We can use it to get an apartment in the actual town we're living in right now. We can do that, right?"