New Beginnings

Chapter Nineteen

<Lauren POV>

What the fuck had Lauren gotten herself into? After she blurted out her confession of love to Connor he stood in shock before embracing her. They remained silent for a long time until Lauren made up some excuse to leave. As she exited the door building she felt dizzy. Her head was completely spinning full of confused emotions. She didn't know why but she wanted to cry, instead her body went limp as she passed out on the lawn in front of the building.

When Lauren opened her eyes again she was laying on her bed with a cold damp towel on her forehead. She was still feeling light headed and the fluorescent lights of her dorm room gave her a migraine. She didn't know how she ended up in her room but she was in no state to sit up and start asking questions. Luckily, Normani had noticed her roommate's eyes flutter open.

"Thank god you're okay!" she said in a relieved voice walking over to the raven-haired girl's bed. "Lauren, what happened? I got a call from Ally who happened to be walking past Connor's building and she said she saw you knocked out cold on the ground. She panicked and called me and Dinah to come help her pick you up and bring you back here."

Lauren blinked her eyes a few more times and peeled the towel off her forehead slowly and carefully sitting up in her bed. "I don't even know," the disoriented girl started, "one minute I was in Connor's room the next I was leaving and the minute I walked outside I just sorta lost control of my body. I still have a bad headache and feel dizzy."

Normani put her hand to Lauren's forehead to see if she could feel anything wrong. "Have you eaten anything recently?"

Then it clicked for Lauren that she never actually ate her meal at lunch because she stormed out after slapping Parker. All she had was coffee in the morning and tea for lunch but she hadn't eaten in over 24 hours. "Um, I ate that spinach dip last night at the bar?"

"Lauren! You mean to tell me you haven't eaten since last night at..." Normani looked at the clock sitting by her bedside, "...ten o'clock???"

The green-eyed girl rubbed her temples and watched as her roommate grabbed her cellphone and called in an order of Chinese takeout to be delivered to their dorm room. Normani was in full-on mom mode and it was really cute. Then Lauren remembered the other issue that made her dizzy again. She told Connor she loved him. She didn't know if she meant it or not. In the moment, it seemed like the right thing to say and she did have strong feelings for him, but was it love? And then she thought about her feelings for Normani and how confusing all of this was. Was it possible to be in love with two people at the same time? And if so, what was she supposed to do? She felt bad leading either of them on, but she also felt bad letting either of them go. For someone who had little experience with relationships everything became even more confusing. She felt shitty, and not from the lack of food. How was she supposed to choose? How was she supposed to hurt one of the two most important people to her? Lauren was so wrapped up in her thoughts she almost forgot Normani was in the room until the dark-skinned girl spoke up.

"So..." she started timidly, "what were you doing at Connor's?"

Lauren didn't feel like lying to Normani about why she went to talk to Connor. She didn't really want to tell her the last part of the story but she decided to be honest and tell Normani what they talked about.

"I went to tell him about last night."

Normani's mouth formed an 'o' as she sat down crisscross on her bed twiddling her thumbs.

"I didn't want to keep any secret like that from him, I mean it was just a kiss but I don't know how he feels about that so I wanted to tell him." Lauren looked over at her roommate who wasn't looking at her, wondering what she was thinking about the whole situation.