pretty girl (Lauren/You- first person)

chapter eight.

Three months later

Lauren and I were snuggled up in our bed on a Friday night. She was sat up on her laptop and I had my head resting on her shoulder, playing Cookie Jam on the iPad. As we usually did when we cuddled we had our legs tangled up together. Delilah laid sprawled out like a starfish down by our feet, flipping through a stack of easy reader books she had brought from her room. Lauren had her music playing quietly in the background, so we were all silent as we each did our own things, but together. Every so often I would glance at my two girls, smiling to myself when I thought about how lucky I was to have them and how happy I was to just be here snuggled up with the two of them.

"Hey did you guys know that I seriously love you?"

Lauren stopped what she was doing and looked up at me in surprise. When we locked eyes, she gave me a huge grin and leaned down for a gentle peck. "I seriously love you too. And you bug." She nudged Delilah with her foot, earning absolutely no reaction from the girl engrossed in her books.

Hey." I tried nudging her as well, with the same result." "Mami and I were talking to you Delilah." I saw her glance towards us out of the corner of her eye, but she still gave us no response. Lauren and I shared a look before sitting up and making our way towards our daughter. Lauren laid on her stomach next to Delilah, while I crawled around to be on her other side.

"Hey." Lauren whispered. After a few seconds she tried again. "Hey." Delilah held strong and flipped the next page of her book without so much as a pause to acknowledge our presence.

"Liiiiilaahhh." I sang out quietly, slowly inching my hand towards the back of her knee. "Why don't you wanna talk to your mommies?"

"Yeah don't you love us anymore?" Lauren put on her most dramatic pout and scooted her face right up to Delilah's book, trying to get her attention. She batted her eyelashes and waited patiently but Delilah still didn't say anything to us. I had to give her props, she had a great poker face and wasn't cracking in the least bit.

"I don't know Laur, maybe she went deaf." I squeezed Delilah's knee, a ticklish spot, but she only flinched instead of her usual reaction. Normally by now she would be squealing and flailing all over the place.

"Oh, could be, listening to all those My Little Pony songs so much could've just popped her little eardrums right out." Lauren played along and looked down to her lap as she spoke, feigning sadness at the "tragedy." Delilah was giving us both a little side eye of suspicion, but still wouldn't give us her full attention.

"Well if she's deaf then we can cancel dance classes with Aunt Mani. She won't be able to hear the music to dance along." I shrugged my shoulders dramatically and sighed.

"And we can delete all of her playlists from our Spotify's, she'll never hear the My Little Pony theme song again." Lauren wiped a fake tear from her eye. Delilah had stopped reading at this point but still wasn't ready to give in. Her face was etched with concern as she contemplated whether we would really do these things.

"We'll have to pull her out of school immediately. Sell the house, and move to a city with a special school for her."

"Or!" Lauren looked mischievous, "we could just send her off to a boarding school, Paris? Or maybe England? And then you and I will stay here in this big beautiful house all by ourselves!"

"And since she won't live here we can sell all of her toys and change her room! We could even get a puppy!"

"NOOOOO! I can hear I can hear I can heeeeeeaaaaarrrrr!" Delilah shot up from her spot and tackled Lauren, shaking her shoulders (well trying to anyway) as she shouted at her. "Don't send me away! Don't delete my music! I have to go to dance class Mami!" She stopped shaking Lauren, who was laughing so hard she had rolled over, and turned to me only to grab my cheeks and look deep into my eyes.