After Hours ➳ Dinah Jane

twenty-one

After locking our lips for a moment, Lauren pulled away with wide eyes. "Oh God, I'm sorry."

I shook my head, "Don't be. I'm sorry."

Lauren licked over her lips quickly before responding, "No, no. Y/N, this wasn't okay. I shouldn't have done that to you."

"To me?"

Lauren pulled her body away from mine so she could sit up. She quickly ran her fingers through her hair before putting her face in her hands. "I'm just mad at Camila. I shouldn't have took advantage of you like that." She muffled through her fingers.

I sat up next to her to pull her hands away from her face and nudged her chin up with my fingers to look at me. "Mama, stop it. If anything we were both in the wrong. And you aren't taking advantage of me. What are we? Six?"

"That's not the point, Y/N." Lauren protested in an excited voice. "I shouldn't have kissed you. You're my best friend. This shouldn't have happened."

"Well, now you make me feel horrible about myself." I joked, trying to get her to calm down. "It was just a kiss, Laur. And weren't you the person telling me that you had feelings for me before I moved off?"

"But that was then."

"Oh." I crossed my legs, turning my body so I could get up off of her bed. I couldn't help that I felt a little hurt even though it wasn't my place. I stepped down and grabbed my shirt from the floor to quickly slip it on over my head. "I think I should go."

I slipped on my sneakers without tying them to hurry over to my bag and pick it up. I didn't really want to be around 'this Lauren'. The Lauren that overthinks and tells you everything that you don't want to hear.

I started to hurry out the bedroom door and Lauren's hand roughly gripped my arm to ensure that I couldn't leave. "Mija, please stop." I yanked my arm away and did what I could to get to the front door. After turning the lock so that the gears would work together to let me out, I pulled on the handle. Sadly, Lauren was a bit too fast and stepped in front of me to press her back to the door so I couldn't get through. "You aren't leaving."

"You aren't my Mom, Lauren. I'm eighteen. I can do whatever I want. Now move."

"I'm not letting you walk out of my life." Lauren growled. "And where the fuck would you go? Your parents are in Nevada."

I did what I could to reach under her body for the knob and replied, "That's why God invented the Motel 6."

I pulled on the door to have it open a little bit, but Lauren pushed all of her weight against the door to have it close once more. "I'm not letting you leave, Y/n. Now get back on my bed and let's talk about this. Okay?"

I shook my head and crossed my arms, "There's nothing to say, Lauren. We kissed and you freaked out. It's not like we fucked."

"But what if we had?" Lauren said nervously as I kept silent. "I didn't mean it when I said I don't have feelings for you because I do. I just didn't want to make it awkward."

"Laur-"

"And what if we didn't stop kissing." Lauren exclaimed. "Even though you're my best friend, I would do anything for you to make you happy. So, if it kept going then I would and we would feel so shitty about ourselves afterwards. I don't want that. Not right now. Your girlfriend is in the hospital."

"Ex."

"And mine is ten miles away, probably crying her eyes out because she's figured out what she did. It'll probably be fifteen more minutes before she calls me and asks me to forgive her and take her back." Lauren reached out for my arm but I stepped back. I just wanted to listen to her. I didn't want to give into her. "And you still love Dinah, Y/N. You know you'd feel bad about this."

"What if I didn't?" I responded in a frustrated tone. "Laur, you even said I seem different. It's like we don't know each other anymore. Sure, I'm the same person but I'm Y/N. I'm the girl that fucked with her teacher, her ex boyfriend, and her best friend all in the same semester."

"So, you're saying you'd be fine with fucking me even though the woman you love is in the hospital?"

"No, Lauren." I rolled my eyes. "What I'm saying is that you overthink way too much. You believe you know what's going on in my mind, but you don't. Maybe during school you did, but I've had to grow up since then." I explained as calmly as I could even though I was still so heated about everything.

And it wasn't all her. It was me, too. I was still so emotional about Dinah that I felt so unkempt with what was happening with my best friend.

"And I love Dinah more than anything, but if you hadn't over reacted, this could've been a good thing for me."

"How?" She exclaimed. "How could this possibly be good for either of us?"

"Because it made me realize that I still have a chance to be happy. We both do." I responded. "I don't want to move on from Dinah, but the way her family treated her when she came out made me think that it's best if I just leave her alone."

"Don't say that." Lauren whispered, getting closer. I could tell she could see I was crumbling.

"It's true Lauren." I responded. "You should've seen how hurt she looked before she passed out. It was like she was living in her worst nightmare. It was all because of me."

"Don't let her crazy ass Mom put that shit in your head." She growled. "You did nothing but love Dinah. If they can't accept it, then that's that. But you can't just give up on her. That woman risked her career to be with you. Not to mention that she risked her relationship with her family because she felt her relationship with you was so important." She finally got close enough to pull me in by my waist. Her arms snaked around me and she softly rubbed circles into my lower back.

I was officially broken. She was right about everything. Tears started to slowly drip down my cheeks onto her tee. "Lo, what did I do? I just let her go."

"Shh. It's okay." She cooed. "She will come back."

"How do you know?" I sniffled, still feeling the warm liquid drip from my ducts.

"If it comes back to you, it's yours." Lauren quoted the idiotic phrase that she had told me the last time I was having 'Hansen Issues'.

I pushed her off of me angrily and used my fist to wipe off my tears, "Don't start with that philosophy-quoting bullshit again."

"Well, it was right last time. Wasn't it?" Lauren smirked, trying to get me to smile. I nodded and she pulled me back into a hug where she placed another kiss on my cheek. "And don't doubt my philosophy again. That's my major and I'm planning on slaying the whole University with my opinions."

"Whatever, Laur." I scoffed, harshly rubbing my now-irritated eyes.

"So, will you stay?" She asked me curiously.

A loud sigh left my lips as I replied, "I guess I have no choice since you will still probably stop me if I try to leave."

"And you say that we don't know each other anymore." She mocked.