Miss Cabello (Camren)

19

Camila's PoV

This couldn't be happening. Less than four hours prior I'd finally had the guts to ask Lauren out, and now she was being urged into a hospital. And for a reason I still didn't know.

"Please calm down." Kevin, Mr Rogers said gently as my knees bopped on the seat of the subway. We had no other way to get to the hospital, and another English teacher had already gone in the ambulance with Lauren.

"Calm down?" I asked exasperated. "One of our students was sent into an ambulance, hardly breathing!"

"She'll be fine." Kevin said lightly. "Lauren's a strong girl, she'll get through it."

"Do you even know what happened to her?"

He shook his head, staring out of the subway windows. "I don't. I honestly have no clue."

I stayed silent after that, biting my fingernails anxiously as my knees bopped up and down. I felt like I could finally breathe when we entered through the hospital doors a few minutes later, and made our way down several halls to find Lauren.

"She's stable." Miss Clarke, the English teacher that had gone with her in the ambulance, said as she stood outside the door. "It turns out it was a peanut allergy. A serious one. The restaurant had accidentally given Lauren the wrong pudding. She's lucky to be alive you know. Her peanut allergy is very serious, she almost...died."

I clutched my hand over my mouth, trying to hide out the unbearable sob trying to break free. I couldn't fathom what had happened all too fast within the last thirty minutes. All I remembered was running into Lauren's dorm after a frantic Anna had searched for me, and found a panicked Lauren gasping for breath. Her eyes and face were dangerously swollen, and a rash had spread from her arms to her neck.

It sounded cliché, but my heart rlly did seem to break. It was like I felt it split open into two, and the pain was so unbearable I almost toppled over from the overwhelming anxiety.

What would I have done if Lauren hadn't made it? Sure, the school would most likely be sued.
Lauren's family would be furious and devastated. But as selfish as it seemed, I only cared about how empty I would be without her. I wouldn't have a green-eyed girl that constantly made terrible jokes in my English class, or a girl that brings me homemade cupcakes when she finds out I had broken up with my boyfriend. I wouldn't have a girl that seemed genuinely interested in my day, or one I could just sit with and talk to for hours on end.

But mostly, I wouldn't have my first love. My first love. Lauren.

It felt surreal saying it. But as I thought about it more and more I realised that I was in love with her. I shouldn't be. Heck, I was a twenty-three year old English teacher, and Lauren was my seventeen year old student. But I honestly hadn't realised how miserable and lonely my life had been before her, even when Michael was around.

"Is she awake?" I asked Miss Clarke, snapping out of my thoughts.
"She is." She smiled sadly. "You can go in and see her."

I opened the door and closed it behind me. Lauren was lying in a hospital bed with an oxygen mask over her mouth, and wires attached to her arms and neck. Her arms were still red from her rashes, but they had faded slightly. Her face and neck were still swollen, but I reasoned they'd probably die down within a couple days.

"Hey." I whispered when I saw her eyes slowly opening. My voice cracked as I spoke, and I realised I was still on the verge of crying.

Lauren smiled, a genuine large smile, and my heart leapt out of my chest.

She didn't talk- which obviously I didn't expect her to- so I sat down beside her and gently held her hands. I stroked her palm back and forth as I stared into her eyes- now a faded lifeless green.