Habit

Chapter 14

Lauren's Pov

It's crazy, isn't it? The desire to always try to please others- the addiction of always meeting the standards others put up against you, whether they be good or bad. It's a sickening quality, almost like a disease, an addiction. A desire so powerful, that the thoughts of ever betraying the laws society burden you with are so loud, that they can never silenced.

As my fingers wrapped around the tiny bottle in my hand, it was like all those loud, judgmental thoughts were silenced in fear. Nothing had ever felt uglier than the empty bottle of pills that I held in my hand. I felt my every mechanism-stop. My brain couldn't formulate a coherent thought, my heart didn't pitter-patter in my chest, and my lungs most certainly couldn't pump in the oxygen I so needed in this moment. I looked at her, and begged out a disbelieving ''No.'' and when her eyes began to water, everyone around us covered their mouths in shock, and I saw Harry pushing himself through the crowd. Everyone surrounded us and it all felt far more suffocating than it had already, then her words broke me like glass, ''Yeah. Hey, Lauren, take this as a favor. I'm about to disappear." I shook my head frantically, and a sob got caught in my throat. I didn't want her to die, she couldn't die, this wasn't happening, and then she started to run.

My eyes followed her long locks as they swished side to side, and she ran faster than I had ever seen anyone run.

She ran like she was still running away from something, someone, was it me? Harry looked at me, and I saw the pain in his eyes as he hesitantly walked over and opened my hand.

When he caught sight of the empty bottle, he slapped it off my hand and fell on his knees.

He started screaming, horribly screaming, and I looked up and saw Ally covering her mouth and shaking her head while tears fell from her eyes.

As badly as my legs begged me to collapse as well, as much as my mind told me I had no will in me to not break down in front of everyone, I couldn't because I had to find her.

I had to save her. I had to do something, so I started to run after her in the same direction that she was headed in.

I ran, and I ran, and I ran but I never found her. I headed towards her house, and I banged on the door with unintentional disrespect but I had to see her, I had to tell her that I didn't want her to leave, that she looked me in the eyes and said she'd always keep fighting, because that's who Camila and I were, we fought and pushed each other's boundaries, but we never backed down. But I went too far.

The door never opened. I didn't know if anyone was home, but if someone was, I knew they'd hear me.

Could it be that Camila's family didn't care that their daughter could be hours away from over-dosing?

What if they came home to their daughter dead with a suicide note lying next to her emotionless body?

I banged harder against the door, and I felt myself falling to the ground as my cries began to exhaust me but I continued to scream and bang my fists against the door, I screamed out at the top of my lungs,

''Please! Please open the door! Please let me see her! Please just please save her! Please save Camila!''

It went on for a good few hours, but my screaming began to give out and my pounding wasn't as strong as the time went by, and when I looked away from the door, resting my back against it, I saw a just as restless Harry in front of me.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was tousled in every which way and his bottom lip was quivering.

We both looked awful, and we didn't have to say anything, we were just as mad with ourselves as we were with each other and with her for doing this.