thin walls (are calling me home)

Chapter 23

If there was one thing Lauren didn't take into account when making up her master plan, it was the fact that Camila would want to go with her to the hospital for her check-up.

And to make things worse, she didn't even have any argument whatsoever as to why Camila shouldn't go with her. The check-up was on a Monday morning, she didn't have rehearsal, and her meeting with Hiro wasn't until a couple of hours later. For a moment, Lauren had thought she was done for.

But then, Normani had come to her rescue, which was pretty much routine by now if she were being honest. They had been in the middle of a small get together with all the girls that Sunday afternoon when the subject had arisen, much to Lauren's panic. But then, Normani had offered to pick her up and take her "home" after her check-up so that Camila could go to Hiro's office directly from the hospital.

(They wouldn't go home, obviously, but no one needed to know that.)

Convincing Camila of it hadn't been too hard, much to Lauren's surprise, and pretty soon it had been set. And now there was Lauren, sitting with Camila as they waited for Dr. Lawrence to call her. And although her thoughts had been filled with her uncle and Camila's parents during the weekend, the case didn't occupy much of her mind at the moment. The thing was, Lauren simply couldn't stop thinking about her health and her job. If the doctor had bad news, she literally didn't know what she would do. Being a police officer was all she knew, and Lauren didn't want that to change.

"Hey." A soft hand to Lauren's knee made it stop bouncing. The raven haired girl looked up to find warm brown eyes staring lovingly at her own, and some of her anxiousness instantly melted away. "It'll be okay, you'll see."

"I hope-" Lauren croaked out, interrupting herself to clear her throat. "I hope so."

Camila leaned in and gave Lauren's cheek a light kiss. "I know so." She whispered before pulling back.

Lauren smiled at her girlfriend, warmth spreading through her from the spot Camila had kissed.

"Are you thirsty?"

Lauren frowned, just now realizing that yeah, her throat actually felt a little dry. It astounded her sometimes that she could get so caught up in her thoughts that she literally didn't notice those things.

"A little."

Camila nodded. "I'll get you some, wait a sec."

Lauren smiled and watched as her girlfriend went away to get her a glass of water, thinking not for the first time about how lucky she was to have her.

"Lauren?" The girl heard Dr. Lawrence call for her, turning her head to see him standing by one of the doors. "You can come in now."

"Uh..." Lauren looked around, not seeing Camila anymore. "Hm, Camila went to get me some water and-"

Lawrence walked over to her as she spoke, interrupting her with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry about it, I'll ask the receptionist to send her our way. You can go into that room in the meantime."

Lauren opened her mouth to protest, to say that a minute or so wouldn't make a difference. But then again, one more minute and she could've died that day. So Lauren closed her mouth and nodded, going into the room as she was told. Not long after he was there with her once more, sitting at the table across from her.

"So, Lauren, how are we feeling?" Dr. Lawrence started, making Lauren start bouncing her leg again.

"Now? Fine, I guess. Nervous." She chuckled.

"It's good that you're okay now, but how about these last few days? I told you you would probably get some headaches, how's that been?"

Lauren's mind went back to her thoughts about exercising her brain without instruction, which made her instantly a little bit more apprehensive, but she couldn't get into that without telling the doctor why she'd been making so much effort with her mind, so she chose to not mention it.