Hospital love- Camren

Chapter 2

"I need her on a one-on-one," Camila said after a couple of minutes of silently reading through the papers in her hand. Lauren nodded and pressed the call button for a nurse.

"You're going to need to stay with Aliyah at all times, no one leaves her alone for a second," Lauren ordered, standing up and letting go of Aliyah's hand. Camila also stood up.

"Aliyah, we need to go now, but Rose is going to stay with you for now because we don't want to leave you alone," Lauren explained. The girl didn't answer.

"Laur, are you okay?" Camila asked once they were out of Aliyah's room.

"What? Yeah, of course," she replied.

"The vomit?"

"Oh, yeah it belongs to a patient, he wasn't feeling well," she excused quickly.

"I thought you were going to the bathroom," Camila countered.

"I was, but-,"

"Lo, I listen to these kinds of excuses all day, you can tell me if-,"

"I'm fine!" Lauren shouted, raising her arms agitatedly.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'll see you in a bit," Camila said quietly, turning around and heading the other way. Her mind was racing, of course, she had noticed the symptoms; social withdrawal, constantly running to the bathroom after meals, depression. She stepped out of the elevator and onto the psychiatric floor. No sooner than she had stepped out of the elevator, she heard a scream of pain coming from a nearby room. She broke into a sprint, entering a patient room to see a lady in her mid-twenties gripping her head and screaming hysterically.

"Lexie Grey, 24 years old, paranoid schizophrenia. She's being transferred to an inpatient facility today," a nurse reported from behind Camila.

"Lexie, can you hear me?" Camila asked gently, walking hesitantly towards the brown-haired lady.

"I can't...I can't-," she cried, pulling out a clump of hair and falling to the floor on her knees.

"Push 30 milligrams of haloperidol," Camila ordered, firmly taking Lexie's wrists in her hands to stop her from hurting herself. She had a lot of training in resistance, having to work with psychiatric patients.

A loud scream emerged from Lexie, who was writhing in discomfort.

"Can we get some lorazepam going too?" Camila mumbled to the nurse as she flicked through her charts. She was trying to focus on the task at hand, but all she could think about was Lauren.

"Hey, Lexie, hey," Camila tried to get her attention. The girl looked up at Camila with scared eyes, still struggling to free her wrists from Camila's grip. 

"Let's push 5 of morphine," Camila told the nurse behind her. "Okay, Lexie, we're going to delay you're transfer, we can't have you moving to the facility when you're this distressed, okay? So try and calm down, take your time, and I'll check in with you tomorrow to see how you're feeling and if we can transfer you then."

Camila walked out of the room, leaving the nurses to deal with Lexie who had started to calm down due to the sedation she had been given.

"Hello, stranger," a voice interrupted Camila's thoughts. She turned her head to see her friend, Ally, walking besides her. Ally worked in the hospital as an occupational therapist.

"Hey," she said with a small smile.

"What's up with you? You seem....distracted," Ally commented, running a hand through her blonde hair as they made their way down the corridor.

"Lauren," Camila replied simply.

"What about Lauren? Ally pressed, looking over at her friend. She secretly knew the two had a thing for each other, everyone knew it, but she wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.

"Nothing," Camila sighed. She knew better than to say something about her suspicions when she had no real evidence. 

"How's the new patient?" Ally asked, changing the subject.

"Lexie? Not good, distressed, agitated," Camila commented. She came to an abrupt halt, surprising Ally who'd also stopped walking.

"She's making herself sick."

Ally's forehead wrinkled in confusion before she realised who Camila was referring to.

"Lauren?"

"Yeah," Camila sighed, pushing her hair back.

"How do you-,"

"Ally, it's my job to spot things like this," Camila said as they neared her office. She turned around in the doorway to face Ally, who was headed to the occupational therapy department.

"I'll talk to her about it," she said with a nod. Ally shook her head in disbelief.

"I just can't believe Lauren would do something like that to herself," Ally mumbled before giving her friend a wave and walking on. She pushed open the doors of the OT department and sighed in content. It was a calming and quiet ward of the hospital, where patients only went one or two at a time. She walked into the office where her co-worker, Hannah, was bent over some paperwork.

"Hey hun," she said, looking up at Ally who smiled back animatedly in response.

"Lauren from peds was down here," she commented.

"Really? What for?" Ally asked curiously.

"She came in all flustered and upset and said she needed some chocolate for a patient, but she took like 3 of those massive bars we kept in the fridge," Hannah reported.

"How long ago?"

"Fifteen minutes," she shrugged. Ally nodded and placed her water bottle down on the desk.

"I'll be back in a bit, I'm bringing down a new patient to do some art work," she said, simultaneously walking out of the room. She made her way to the bathroom on the floor and pushed open the door quietly. As she walked in, making sure not to let her shoes click against the floor, the sound of violent coughing filled her ears. She couldn't bear it.

"Lauren, Lauren open the door," she called, walking toward the only locked cubicle. The coughing and hacking immediately stopped and silence fell upon the bathroom.

"Come out, babe," Ally said quietly, pressing a hand against the door. She suddenly heard the sound of gagging and panicked, pushing the door open forcefully to reveal her friend bent over the toilet throwing up, surrounded by chocolate wrappers.

"Hey," Ally said softly, crouching down in front of Lauren who looked a mess at this point.

"Ally, I'm begging you to leave right now," the dark haired girl said, her voice breaking from the purging.

"I can get Mila if you-,"

"Ally!" She shouted hoarsely. 

"Okay," the shorter girl said agreed with a sad sigh, standing up. After Ally had left, Lauren presses her head into her hands in a distressed manner.

Ally knows. Camila is going to know. Everyone is going to know.

Her racing thoughts were eating her alive. She flushed the toilets and scrunched up the wrappers that were surround her into little balls in her hand. She disposed them in the bin and then walked outside to the sinks where she bent over and rinsed her mouth out carefully. Just as she had finished splashing water on her face, the dreaded sound of an opening door filled the air.

Camila.