Marry Me (Camren)

FOUR

"Lolo..."

"Yeah?"

A Saturday afternoon, the little couple gathered around to watch Netflix, with two big bowls of popcorn Lauren made for each of them.

The older girl was sitting on the sofa, the younger on the floor by it, suddenly called when the TV was playing a scene not important. Lauren got distracted and transferred her concentration to her wife, ignoring the movie.

"Have you... um... have you dated anyone before you got married?" feeling a little embarrassed after saying the words, Camila looked down to avoid eye contact with Lauren. "I don't mean to interrogate, I'm just intrigued when you suddenly wanted to marry me."

Lauren replied softly, "It's alright, it's normal to be curious, but..." She stopped. After a few seconds of silence, she decided to tell everything to Camila. she didn't want to hide it and upset herself when Camila found out later.

She put her popcorn on the stand, crooked her legs in her arms, she was looking into Camila's eyes but it seemed the sight penetrated her. "On the first day we met, you told me your ex-boyfriend proposed to you and you rejected, and for me..." Lauren laughed, making Camila felt like a cold shiver ran down her spine. "He went to the same high school with me. I knew he liked me but I didn't accept him until we went to university. So we've been dating for seven or eight years."

She paused before she continued, "I did love him, his presence had become a part of me, so familiar. And when I thought I could move on, we already had certain feelings for each other, so I told him to marry me, with no shame. I thought he would rub my hair gently like he used to and accept all my requests, but what I got back was a furrowed and serious countenance. He told me he wanted to break up with me. He loved me too hard, he had no choice."

Lauren blinked a few times, surprised by no tears but she didn't say anything, she gazed into the chocolate brown eyes and continued, "I don't understand why we break up because we loved hard, anyways I agreed with it. But then my thought in my heart changed, if we still couldn't get marry even we loved each other deeply, then it doesn't matter love exists ir not when people marry."

The Cuban-American girl buried her face in her knees after her speech. The smaller girl felt guilty for making the older girl say this when she felt the obviously dropped atmosphere and Lauren's emotions. She didn't know what to say, so she sat aside Lauren and wrapped her arm around her shoulder, pretending a deep and manly rough voice, "It's alright, now you're married to me, I'll be good to..." Camila wanted to be cool but unfortunately choked herself before she could finish the sentence.

The green eyes girl couldn't hold her chuckle, she patted the brunette's back to smooth her breath, "yeah, I'm married to you, and I'm all yours, babe." She then rested her head on her shoulder and snuggle in the brunette's arm, didn't struggle a bit.

They were cuddling, the clarity from the TV reflected on both their faces, but they weren't caring about the movie anymore.

A long while later, Camila said, "But Laur, if one day, you decided to go back to him, please tell me directly and immediately."

Lauren didn't reply at instant but after a deep thought, "Never, I'm already married with you, and you married me." She giggled with a nudge on the brunette's shoulder.

"Please promise me... Just in case it happened, please don't make me the last one to know."

Lauren could hear the seriousness in Camila's voice and knew she's not joking with her, "Sure."

-

That night, she was sleeping on the bed with Lauren had already fell asleep, but Camila was still tossing and turning around. Moonlight penetrating from the windows projected on the raven haired girl's serene expression on her face. Camila could do nothing but stroking the girl's cheek.

She wondered how could that beautiful face contain so much feelings. The scene of Lauren recalling her memory floated in her mind, indicating how fragile the girl was. And comparing to when they registered, after they both signed the marriage certificate, the dark haired girl turned to face her with a bright smile, "Hey, you're married to me."She then held the brunette's hand and put the wedding ring into her ring finger. The grin bright at sunshine at that moment, and the tempting smile when they were at the coffee shop, both made Camila felt sad for Lauren.

It's right that Camila didn't want to marry someone, or maybe she hadn't met someone who she wanted to marry, so no matter it's a man or a woman, if it was just like Austin and her, wasting time dating without love and no feelings were built up during the years. Eventually it would be like when Austin proposed to her, her first response was not feeling touched or happy but trying to find a reason to reject him. But Lauren was different from her.

She was longing to marry the person she loved, she even put aside her dignity to proposed to a man. Reality was always mean and she got rejected, how deep would this hurt her? Leading to the result of not believing in love is the factor of marriage, and randomly proposed to a stranger. Even though she was only the legal other half of Lauren, she felt really heartbroken for this.

Secretly, she held Lauren's left hand under the blanket, hoping to console her.

-

Camila woke as the dawn came, beside her was Lauren sleeping in a serene expression. She thought she was not able to go back to sleep even when she laid down again, so she made her move to the recliner in the balcony, staring at the dim Sun which just rose.

On the past few days when she got off from work, she could always see Lauren sitting in the dining room, with a whole table of well-cooked dinner, looking at the view of tall buildings in the city intensely, but that infatuated sight seemed like it was towards some mesmerising scenery. The Latina sat next to the dark haired girl a few times to try understand what made her so infatuated, the same landscape for both, she still couldn't get it.

Until now, her mind was still winding by the moments in her dream, her heart so heavy, dragged by the aftertaste of the dream, so tight and not able to relax. The feeling was strange, she was still working on digesting it, but instead getting more and more depressed.

Maybe it's because she was thinking about Lauren and her ex-boyfriend before she went to sleep, causing her dreaming about the same thing, but the leading role changed to herself.

And who is the partner, she couldn't remember, the facial features were blurred, only the love sweet left stirring in her heart, and suddenly received the message being rejected. From listener to the person involved, she could even feel the pain in her heart, lasting till now waking up.

A dream like this was just like the time lapse version of Lauren's life, a short dream like this was harsh enough to disrupt her sleep, then how did the raven haired girl pass her days like this? Talking about time, it was just one or two weeks ago, and Lauren could act like nothing had happened and take care of her, take care of their life, take care of their home. Even the next day after she rejected Austin, she tenderly covered her body with a windbreaker, and let her rest her head on her shoulder when they watched a movie together.

How much feelings could be hid under the calm mask? How much pain could there be?

Since this moment, Camila decided to treat the girl well, she would give in all of herself to treat the girl the best she could.