You light me up

Mae don't force a baby on her

LAUREN'S POV*****

I watch as the girls crowd the door trying to bring in all of the snacks. I felt something in that moment I hadn't felt in a long time. I felt as if I had a family. They were my family and I loved them all. Sandra turned to smile at me, I smiled back and went to take the bags out of her hands.

"Let's get this party started," said Mae after she pulled out bottles of alcohol from her paper bags. My eyes widened.

"What the- how did you even get that?"

"I bought it Laur," Christen laughed. Fair enough. The party went on we drank, played around, watched movies, ate junk food, and suddenly it was 3 am. I looked over to Sandra who was laying on the couch next to Mae. Christen was sleeping on the floor and Kara was on the other couch curled into a ball. I took advantage of the fact that they were all asleep and made myself some coffee before flicking on the tv on low volume. I sat there watching "Cheers" for a while until one of the girls stirred. It was Sandra. I felt her body move closer to mine and snuggle into my side. I snaked my arm around her waist and kissed her head.

"You haven't slept?" she whispered. I shook my head. Truth was I couldn't and I knew better than to hold that information from Sandra. "Are you ok?" she asked me.

"Let's go upstairs," I responded quietly. Together we went upstairs slowly leaving the girls in their uncomfortable sleeping positions. We crawled into our bed and Sandra turned to me.

"Ok babe, tell me what's bothering you," I sighed and looked at her with tired eyes. She brought a soft hand to my jaw and gave me a kiss.

"I know I haven't told you anything about my childhood, and I also know you've refrained from asking questions. It's not something I advertise or anything I want people to know about. It's a dark place for me and I don't like thinking of it," she nodded her head patiently as if to tell me to continue. "My dad wasn't the best man in the world. He was cruel, never let me do anything or play outside. I couldn't even have a decorated room because he felt it was too much freedom for me. My walls were grey without a single ounce of color or anything.They were empty. I spent my days in the house locked inside other than to go to school,"

"What about your mom?" I smiled at the though of my mother. She was my best friend.

"My mother was the perfect woman, she was sweet and caring. She let me out when my dad was away and always took the heat for me. I hated the way he treated us but he never actually laid a finger on us. Until one day a few weeks after I turned 14 he came home in an awful mood, till this day I don't know why he was upset. That night he locked me in my room and took the key but I had already stolen another one from his room so I could get out either way," I cleared my unshed tears. "I heard muffled noises upstairs and decided I wanted to make sure my mom was ok. I went up and found him on top of her, I couldn't tell whether she was still alive or not but I grabbed the heaviest thing I could find and," I took a pause.

"Did you hit him?" she asked. I closed my eyes and though back to that day.

"I kept going until I couldn't tell it was his face anymore, he was drunk which made it easier for me. When I finally realized what happened I ran to the bed to check on my mom but she was long gone. I sat there, for a while in the pool of my dads blood. I didnt know what to do so I simply ran. Few days later, along came the cops and I spent hours in a small room waiting for a someone to show up for me. Apparently family turns the other way when one murders their dad. I was sent to an orphanage since they couldn't charge me, it was turned as self defense."

"Babe, I-I don't know what to say. But I do know that I know who you are. And nothing will stop me from loving you." I smiled at her.

"No one ever adopted me, they didn't want a murderer. But once I turned 18 I inherited the family money I didn't know we had and went to college far from Colorado. I went to Penn State and then moved here, to Washington. The school wanted to give me a chance and gave me a break from all the hard times I've had. I'm really glad how everything turned out," I smiled at her. By that time it was around 4:30 am and I was all out of coffee.