thin walls (are calling me home)

Chapter 22

A/N: i wrote the second scene of the chapter while listening to "wait" by m83 so like......,,. cries

--//--

That's my girl.

Lauren stared at her uncle's comment on the picture Camila had posted of her while her pulse ran wild. The Latina's thoughts had somewhat frozen until she took in her revelation, and the only thing she could do now was think about was what the hell would she do now.

Lauren needed to talk to Normani, she had to do more research. An accusation of this magnitude required proof, after all. And what proof did she have? Intuition counted for nothing. No, Lauren had to dig deeper, she needed to find the connection her colleagues had missed all those years ago. Her uncle was an influential person, after all, and-

Her uncle. Had he really... Could he have? Could Marcus have been the one to murder Camila's parents? Granted, he was a complete and utter asshole, who didn't care one bit about how much his company harmed the planet. He had beaten her up as a kid, for crying out loud. But murder...

Lauren had to dig deeper.

The Latina got to her feet, making a beeline to her bedroom. Her hands itched for her to just grab her laptop and Google away, but she entered the bathroom instead. Lauren sat on the border of the bathtub and settled for opening Google Chrome on her phone. After about five minutes of searching for her uncle's company, she found a couple of old news that talked about - surprise surprise - toxic leakages.

God, it was unbelievable that his company was going through the same problems it had faced years ago. If anything, it showed how little he cared about the environment. But that still didn't prove anything.

Before Lauren could search any further, three knocks on the door startled her. "Lauren?"

She quickly regained her composure and stood up. "Yeah?"

"Dinner's ready, babe. Everything okay in there?" Camila said from the other side of the door.

"Y- yeah, yeah, I'll be right out." Lauren stuttered, opening the faucet as if she had just used the toilet and was going to wash her hands.

"'Kay, I'll be at the table." Camila stated before her footsteps made themselves heard as she walked away.

Lauren sighed and took the opportunity to wash her face and maybe then she would clear her mind. The green eyed girl wanted nothing less than to be the perfect girlfriend to Camila today - as she always desired, but with the good news she had brought home Lauren had to be extra perfect - and that meant not completely zoning out during dinner due to her racing thoughts. She would have lots of time to search later.

(Even if she wanted to do that now.)

Lauren took a deep breath and exited the bathroom.

--//--

Lauren's head started throbbing after a couple of hours lying awake in bed, unable to sleep.

When Lauren finally managed to get a bit of rest, nightmares woke her up, the face of her uncle apparently printed onto her eyelids.

Marcus seemed to haunt her, no matter how much time she put into breaking his hold on her. He was everywhere. Even in something as fucking unbelievable as this.

(The idea that he could have tainted Camila's story like this hurt more than any punch he ever threw at her.)

Lauren's chest felt heavy then. Her mind, foggy from the short amount of sleep, drained of energy. Her breaths, hard and coming in increasingly shorter pants, until she was just fighting to breathe. And there were the tears, that would usually fight their way out of Lauren's eyes.