green ➸ camren

twenty two

"Can you try and tell me what happened that day, Camila?"

Lauren and Camila sat on a less-than comfortable white couch in the doctor's office. It had taken the older girl a while to convince Camila to leave the house. Camila had had a death grip on Lauren's arm for the entire car ride.

Now, Camila squirmed under the doctor's watchful eye. Lauren bit her lip and glanced back and forth from the doctor to her wife, wondering if she should interrupt.

"Talking about it will help, Camila," the doctor glanced down at her file, tapping his pen against the desk. "Keeping it all to yourself is only going to make it harder on you."

Camila hung her head, shuffling her feet against the floor nervously. The smaller girl kept her head down even when the doctor sighed and turned his attention back to her file.

"It's really all up to time," he said after a few moments of silence, now addressing the green eyed girl beside Camila. "It's all up to her. When she feels ready to talk, she will. Otherwise we can't really do anything besides bring her back to therapy each week."

Lauren's shoulders dropped slightly. She watched as Camila kept her head down, afraid of being ridiculed. The green eyed girl let out a soft sigh and turned back to the doctor, giving him a soft nod.

"Medicine is always an option," he added. "But it says here you didn't really have a good experience with that the last time you tried it?"

Lauren shook her head quickly. "Yeah... I mean, no. No medicine," she bit her lip. She didn't want to have a repeat of what had happened last time they put Camila on medicine.

"Alright," the doctor wrote something down. "At the most, we can talk about giving her something to help her sleep if this continues. For now, we've just got to wait it out."

"You okay?" Lauren whispered, reaching out and placing a hand on Camila's shoulder. The smaller girl looked up uneasily.

"We get to go home now," Lauren nodded towards the doctor. "He just wanted to check up on you."

Relief washed over Camila and she stood up quickly, standing by the door and looking at Lauren expectantly. After thanking the doctor, the green eyed girl followed Camila back out to the car.

"Hey, hey, look at me," Lauren reached over the center console and took Camila's hand in hers. "You're okay. Breathe," she whispered softly, running her thumb over the back of Camila's hand. The brown eyed girl met her eyes, giving her a slight nod.

They drove in silence for a while, which was only broken when Lauren took what Camila believed to be a wrong turn. The smaller girl sat up quickly, her eyes moving around the car frantically.

"Woah, woah, calm down," Lauren laughed softly, pulling into a small parking lot. "You know where we are, goofball."

Camila paused, peering out of the window and calming down slightly when she realized where they were. Lauren grew disappointed, though, when the smaller girl didn't show much of a reaction.

"I figured we'd get froyo as a little distraction, yeah?" Lauren asked hopefully. Camila glanced over at her, giving her a hesitant nod. Realizing that was all she was going to get, Lauren slid out of the car. Camila immediately appeared at her side, holding onto her arm nervously.

Lauren couldn't help the pang of guilt she felt when she saw how on edge the smaller girl was. She wasn't sure how to fix this, though, so she settled on squeezing Camila's hand and leading her into the small store.

Camila's eyes widened when they stepped inside, suddenly surrounded by a crowd of people who had the same idea as them. She bit her lip, pausing and taking the time to survey her surroundings.