The Donor

Chapter 19

Camila’s POV

For another night spent with Lauren, I am awoken by an irritating buzzing sound, it only lasts for a second unlike my alarm but it still wakes me. It wakes me from a cosy and warm sleep in Lauren’s arms. I open my eyes with a groan and lift my head up from its place on Lauren’s chest, attempting to look around the room but finding just darkness. I strain my neck to lift up further from her warmth and direct my squinted eyes at her alarm clock which reads 1.30 am. Asleep by half 1? Getting old. I hear the vibrating sound again and Lauren’s phone illuminates on the bedside table beside her alarm clock. Glancing at Lauren to find she is still sound asleep, I stretch my still naked body over hers to reach for her phone; a subconscious decision to see what’s happening but concluding I am worried her mother is trying to get hold of her: a rational excuse for my insincerity.

Charlotte
Voicemail

Charlotte (2)

I first feel anger. Why is she texting my girlfriend so late at night and more importantly, who the fuck is she? I had felt no reason to intrude on Lauren’s life and ask who Charlotte was before this weekend and then I saw how close they were. I couldn’t have asked Lauren though, for one I was too scared to be shut down, and two, she had also kept me a little preoccupied with our activities. But she is Chris’ girlfriend so what is it between she and Lauren?

I then feel sadness. Sad that there might actually be something there. Neither girl was obvious about how they felt toward each other but I picked up on the details. The texts, the phone calls, the way she would touch Lauren every chance she had and the way Lauren looked so nerving if her name was bought up around me, in fear I would ask questions.

A pit of jealousy pools in my stomach when I think about how close they could actually be. But it’s mostly sadness. I don’t yet know the truth but I am already hurt that something might have happened between the two beautiful women. Lauren has only been mine for the weekend so I shouldn’t be hurt. But I am. She has only been mine officially for the weekend, but she has been mine since the moment our little family fit so perfectly together.

I can’t read the beginning of her messages, nor can I access her phone because of the passcode so I just stare at the screen. Glaring back at Charlotte’s name and the information of her contacting my girlfriend that sits above Lauren’s lock-screen of her, Emelia and me. It had been taken on just a regular day in my apartment, there was no occasion, nothing was happening, but it was perfect. The three of us were simply watching a movie on the couch but none of us were quiet nor watching it. Emelia had settled herself on Lauren’s lap, her knees either side of her mother’s thighs, and leaning up and into Lauren, hands resting on the older woman’s face and trying to identify all of their similar features. There were lots of them. In situations like that you realise just how much they look alike. Aside from the skin and the hair, Emelia was Lauren’s double, and it was beautiful.

It then turned into a bit of a game when I joined in; Emelia and I both pointing and pawing at Lauren’s face to annoy her, laughing at her disgruntled noises and giggling at her defending hands. It was then that I took the picture. A side view of Emelia touching her mother’s face, both of them laughing while I lean into the picture, my head tipping back onto Lauren’s shoulder and my goofy expression coming through from the bottom of the picture. She had asked me to send it to her and right away it became her lock screen. That had happened on the day we met Lauren and it has been her lock screen ever since.

When the light from Lauren’s phone fades again I leave it, dropping the device onto the bed and sitting up beside Lauren. I just don’t know what to do. I know I have to ask Lauren who Charlotte is but I know I’m not going to like the answer.