Green eyes (you're the one that I wanted to find)

introduction

She had loved Lauren for as long as she could remember.

They met when she was five, and Lauren was six. They played at recess every day. Camila let a ladybug explore her hand, and she'd give it to Lauren, who always accepted with a smile warm as the sun. She pouted when it flew away from her, and in those moments Camila felt the need to always find a new one so that her best friend could be happy. Lauren, being a grade above her, taught her the new things she learned in math so that Camila could always be one step ahead of her classmates.

When Lauren started second grade, Camila started it too. She moved up a grade, and the smile she had on her face when she walked hand in hand into the classroom with Lauren was enough to light up a universe. During free time they played Jenga on the desk. Camila always lost because her hand-eye coordination was never quite as good as Lauren's, and she always ended up shattering the tower in seconds. Lauren always teased her about it and enjoyed seeing the younger girl's cheeks turn beet red when she did so. Sometimes she let her win, and Camila got so happy that she danced her winner dance around the classroom, upsetting the teacher and amusing their classmates.

At eleven Lauren got her first crush. It was a boy with curly hair, blue eyes, and braces. Camila never understood what Lauren had seen in him, but he made her smile so it was fine. He always wore an AC/DC shirt, and when all three of them played together at his house, he played their songs. He would sing along, and he might've had the worst voice in history, but it didn't matter because Lauren always sang along too. She remembers a strange tug on her heart every time she saw them walk hand in hand into the classroom when they were late to school because it always reminded her of the first day in second grade when she held Lauren's hand. But it was fine because Lauren's cheeks were always red and a smile was painted on her lips every time.

On her twelfth birthday, the boy dumped her best friend. Lauren came over to her house in the evening, green eyes puffy and swollen from crying. Camila pulled her close and hugged her for at least thirty minutes. Lauren smelled like strawberries with a hint of smoke, and Camila suddenly wondered who the boy with the name of a color really was.

Halloween of freshman year was the night they stayed up until three am. Camila was too scared to sleep from the horror movie Lauren had told her wasn't that scary. Lauren refused to go to sleep if Camila wasn't going to. They sat in the younger girl's bed, reading things out of a magazine as teenagers do. Even if the things weren't particularly funny, Lauren always laughed because it was Camila who read the jokes, and Camila always put a smile on her face.

Sophomore year of high school was the year that Lauren danced with her in the living room. Camila nearly fell into the Christmas tree a few times, but every time Lauren would catch her with a dazzling smile on her face. Camila felt like she could fall a thousand times more if Lauren would catch her. Lauren's parents were on a business trip throughout December, so she spent Christmas with the Cabellos. She had stumbled into their house carrying a present almost bigger than herself, and Camila was swooning the entire day, anxiously waiting to open it.

On Christmas day Lauren sat on the floor, watching her best friend open the present she had saved up for since last year. Camila ripped the paper off, and her eyes widened and mouth opened without a sound when she saw what it was. Lauren had bought her a telescope. She had thrown herself at Lauren, hugging her so tightly that Lauren struggled for air. She thanked her over and over again, and the green-eyed girl just sat on the floor with a shy smile on her face, saying that it was no big deal. It was, though.

Now it's the first semester of junior year. Camila goes to school alone, calling Lauren between classes every day, crying in bathrooms and punching walls. Her best friend is in the hospital after being hit, nearly killed, by a drunk driver. Her skin was paler than ever, eyes were green without the mischievous twinkle that was always present before the accident. She was hooked up to machines, barely able to breathe by herself, and Camila had never seen a living person look as dead as Lauren. She picked flowers from her garden and put them in a bouquet for Lauren every day. She took extra art classes so that she could paint something for her suffering angel, and she wished that those things were enough. 

She had loved Lauren for as long as she could remember, and life without Lauren is just death.