Trials and Tribulations

Chapter 50 (part 1)

A/N: Ok, so basically I've had a lot of family stuff going on this week and work has been ridiculous so my apologies that this has taken so long to get to you all. The thing is that for some reason my chapters are growing exponentially in length and this one is over 30 pages already so I've decided to split it so you have something to read until I can finish it, lol. Sorry if it's a bit boring but it's because it's not a complete chapter in itself x Over the next four weeks Camila and Lauren fell in to an easy routine where they finally settled back into one another's lives, the physical distance between them seemingly nonexistent, the time passing quickly and without too much difficulty. Lauren's initial

concerns about Camila returning to rehab and leaving her behind
again were quickly quashed and the worries that she'd had about feeling miserable without her girlfriend around soon dissipated, as though into thin air. If possible, Lauren and Camila spoke more often and more intimately now that they were no longer around each other all the time, the absence of the respective other girl only making their hearts grow fonder for one another, exactly as the old saying went. Lauren found that with Camila away they now had more to talk about and discuss. Their conversation which had previously always been easy was now effortless and they never found themselves at a loss for something else to say; the dialogue they shared without pause for even one breath. Lauren and Camila would talk about everything and anything that came to mind during their long and detailed interactions; Lauren filling Camila in on all the gossip she'd missed at school and the smaller girl discussing her therapy sessions and day fully, in return. Lauren and Camila were constantly in contact as the days turned in to weeks and they would text each other frequently throughout the day, shamelessly flirting with one another via SMS message, Camila even following through on her promise to send Lauren a seminaked selfie, the image of her girlfriend standing, bare- chested, now burnt permanently into her memory and saved to her phone, where she could admire it whenever she wished. Once the school days had finished, Lauren and Camila would have a regularly scheduled Skype conversation which normally lasted

from the time Lauren got home until she went to sleep, and sometimes, continuing even afterwards. On more than one occasion, Lauren had woken up the next morning to find the window still open on her laptop as it rested on the pillow beside her head, Jasper curled up on the duvet next to it whilst the recognisable form of Camila sleeping could be seen on the screen, her face hidden beneath a tangled mess of thick dark hair, the smaller girl having also fallen asleep as they'd spoken. When Camila and Lauren weren't interacting via technology, they were spending time together face to face; Camila returning home almost every weekend following Valentine's day and Lauren taking the rest of the girls to see her every Wednesday after school for the return of their customary girl's night, which included the usual food, movies and fun. The only new addition to their Wednesday evening's was Jasper, who, the manager at the rehabilitation centre had kindly allowed Lauren to bring with her whenever she visited, much to the delight of Camila, who Lauren thought, remained just as adorable as ever during her dealings with him. Camila's seventeenth birthday had been and gone, the day itself a relatively quiet affair when it arrived, the youngster away at rehab having already received her gift from both Lauren and her parents in the form of Jasper, almost a month in advance. Camila's parents had taken her out for a

low key dinner the night of her birthday, Lauren and Dinah accompanying them, however, two days prior to her birthday, on Saturday the first of March, Camila had returned home from rehabilitation for the weekend and been surprised to find that her parents were also hosting a barbecue in her honour, the rest of the girls and their families all present to celebrate it with her. Camila's mom and dad had been particularly emotional that day, both hardly able to believe that their daughter had survived the nine months since the accident in order to age another year, their happiness at her continued recovery, both physically and emotionally, overwhelming them both at multiple times throughout the informal party. Now on a Thursday, a month later, it was once again approaching the weekend and Lauren lay with her stomach pressed into the duvet of her bed, her homework spread out before her, a pen in hand as she made some notes on a pad slightly to her right. Jasper lounged lazily across the back of her legs as she wrote and Lauren could feel the slow rise and fall of his chest as well as the sleepy twitching of his limbs against her as he dreamt. Lauren was trying to get to grips with the pancreas' role in insulin production for her biology class the following Monday when she saw a Skype window popup on the open laptop to her left, accompanied by the now familiar musical dial tone of the programme. Lauren smiled to herself as she moved her homework aside for a moment and reached across eagerly to pull the laptop in front of her. She connected the call from Camila