after this night (camren)

34. Lauren

There was only money, all ten thousand dollars that she'd won, and I'd lost.

......

The next day I wasn't any wiser as to whether she'd be returning. I hadn't heard from her: no emails, no calls, only a text to say she had landed safely. I took some small solace in the safety update, but it truly wasn't enough for me. I wanted all of her. I needed all of her. And I had virtually none.

I'd zombied my way through the day, grateful that the Bainbridge's had signed on the dotted line after the emergency sooth session the day before. Warding off that near-fiasco had given me the mental space to manage the bare minimum I needed to get through the contracts and phone calls on my agenda.

I emailed her the ticket back to Los Angeles. I'd booked it for two weeks from now, hoping that was fair - a week apart, a week to plan. She replied with a thank you.

I checked countless times for messages from her. Each time I'd come up empty.

I scrolled through my texts on the subway home just to make sure I hadn't missed one from her.

After a workout at my boxing gym that left my shoulders sore and my body tired, I still was no closer to knowing whether she was going to need those fluffy towels or not .

The time without her was like a black hole, a vacuum that gnawed away at me. I'd subtract a few years from my life simply for a note that gave me some sense of which way she was leaning. Something, anything to hold onto, to give me purchase. How had it only been twenty-four hours when it felt like a fucking year?

But that was what love does. It changes your perception of everything, of your own capacity for pain, for hope, and most of all - your perception of time. Because now, time was measured by her, by her presence, by her absence, and my relentless desire for her yes.

I check my phone once more on the way home from the gym, like an addict. I was going to wear a whole through the screen with my thumbprint from all the times I'd swiped it. I needed company; I needed someone. I showered and headed uptown, reasoning that if I wasn't going to find an answer from her, I could at least ask questions of someone else.

When I arrived at the building off Westwood with the green awning, the doorman buzzed her apartment, "You have a visitor. Lauren Jauregui is here to see you" the man said, then paused, "Very well"

He hung up.

"She said to come up" the doorman said, gesturing to the elevator.

I hadn't been there in a long time. I hadn't needed to. Now I did.

When Lucy opened the door, she was wearing a tank top and slim jeans, her hair pulled into a high ponytail, showing off her neck.

A neck that I'd once kissed.

I didn't mince words or bother with preambles.

"Are you in love with me?" I asked as I walked inside.

"I have been for years" she said, as the door closed behind us.