Chapter 1
Camila’s POV:
“Babe?” I hear a deep husky voice scream out from the living room of our New York city flat. I run in and see her crouching in front of the tv, staring at it with worry.
“What’s wrong Lo?” I ask as I crouch down to my girlfriend and kiss her shoulder.
“Look.” She says without taking her eyes off the screen.
I look up to see what got her so worried and am met with a video clip a of explosions and gunfire everywhere, buildings burning, people screaming. I realize what got her so worried and look back to see her almost in tears.
“Lauren. I’m sure he’s fine.” I say sitting down completely next to her while brushing some hair out of her face.
“Chris. He’s there and it’s chaos. It’s horrible Camz! What if he’s dead? What if he never comes back!! I couldn’t bare to live without him!” Lauren screams and breaks down into sobs.
At that point I didn’t know what to do. What could I do to possibly make this better. All I could do right now is hold her. Just be there for her since Chris can’t. Chris and Lauren have always been really close so when he was drafted unwillingly to go off to the war, it broke her. The war is bad and even when I say everything will turn out alright, I know I can’t promise that. All I can do is silently pray for him and his safety.
“Please be alright.” I whisper to myself as I hold a broken Lauren in my arms. It kills me that with everything that’s happening, there’s nothing I can do to protect her. Nothing to make her happy. I’m her girlfriend but I can’t do anything to save her from her sorrow. I’m the one that should be protecting her and keeping her away from harm but this is something that’s out of my control something that no matter how much I try there’s absolutely nothing I can do. And it KILLS me.
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I lie awake in bed next to her shaking body. I watch as she whimpers and sweats in her sleep. Nightmares are what has been keeping her. Keeping her trapped in a world of misery. Of where she doesn’t know if what is going on in her head is real or not. She tries to talk to me but lately she’s been pushing herself away farther from me. Every night for the pass month since the war has broke out again she’s been screaming and crying in her sleep. I wake her up thinking it would save her from her nightmares but it just gets worst once she realizes it’s actually happening in reality. It hurts to see her as she wakes up screaming in my arms and sobs about how she had a nightmare about Chris going into war and not coming home. It hurts even more when I have to tell her Chris did go to war. I try to reassure her that no matter what her nightmares told her they weren’t true. That Chris would make it back home and in the safety of his own bed. But I know I can’t promise it. So when she looks at me and asks me to promise her that everything will be okay. I can’t.
With every week in this war it just gets worse. And the hope that I had is slowly fading. Still no news of how Chris is doing or if he is even still alive and fighting. All the report we get is from the news. The news reporters telling us that today is even more worse the yesterday. That more soldiers have gone missing and some have died. While the war is this bad they can’t even count, or name all the missing and dead soldiers. It’s just too much and too many to account for at once. Every day I walk out the front door to go to work, and I feel horrible going about my daily life acting like everything is okay when I know it isn’t. I walk down the hallway every morning to see a sleepless looking Lauren on the couch staring emotionlessly at the phone in her lap. I can’t help but break a little every time I come home from work to see her in that same position.
