1 - Breakthrough

                                    

                                          
"Merry Christmas, Camz." 28-year-old, Lauren Tremaine née Jauregui said to the wind, the condensation of her warm breath mixed with the chilling cold created minute fogs. "This year would have been our tenth."
                          
Lauren was holding a glass half filled with red wine. The deep red beverage was the only thing that provided warmth within her with her barren, hollowed out chest yearning for Camila Cabello, the girl she had abandoned a little over eight years ago. Alcohol quickly seeped through her veins and she relished in its glory; for once, feeling something else other than the haunting cold. 
                          
Pain lingered in her chest as if everything had just happened, when in reality, the dull ache was nowhere near fresh but stung as hard regardless. Lauren could have just been used to it as if it was something permanent; living her days knowing that a part of her was lifeless and there was nothing she could do about it. The world knows she had tried to get over the girl that once was her world and every single one of her efforts were ruthlessly shot down. 
                          
The green eyed woman was out in the balcony of her red brick apartment unit, up in the sixth floor and guarded with a modest iron railing with little hills of snow forming over them. Her comfortable slippers created an indentation over the flaky ice where she stood.
                          
Lauren was blankly staring at the dimly lit village before her; covered in a thick blanket of snow with a menagerie of colored lights rhythmically blinking with holiday spirit. The chimneys of different shapes and sizes emitted smoke which dispersed through the air. Families abound, happy ones unfortunately, and it might be wrong but she had wished they'd be a tad gloomier for her sake. 
                          
It may have been a ridiculous decision, if not idiotic, to live close to the suburbs considering she often finds herself thinking about what could have been. Lauren could have been married to Camila by then and they could have had little nuggets running around. Could have; that phrase was taunting and no amount of force or rapid blinks could wake her up from the nightmare.
                          
Everyone seemed happy and there she was, hung up over a relationship she walked away from. What a joke.
                          
"I'm sorry I gave up." She whispered to the same inanimate audience, wishing it was Camila instead. "I know I could never apologize to you enough but I'm sorry; I really am."
                          
A response, no matter how hard she'd prayed for it, never came and the frigid weather cradled her in its unwelcoming arms and for a couple of months in a year, the temperature was as cold as the depths of her soul and she was almost certain she could feel it shiver. 
                          
Her much duller, cloudy green eyes could no longer see those chocolate hues that always see the good in the world. She could only imagine the feeling of Camila's lips against hers; having forgotten how the prickly, electrifying sensation traveled from her fleshy lips down to her heart, revving it up into ineffectiveness. Her colder limbs were in dire need of blood while her lungs forget their function for the duration of that single kiss. 
                          
Lauren never fell in love again after Camila and she'd wished she never even thought about leaving. And she knew in her consciousness that more than eight years of regret could never make the world pity her enough into giving her a second chance; not unless she took matters to her own hands. But years and years later, she had no such luck even with the biggest decision she had ever made five years prior.
                          
"Where are you, Camz?" Eyes closed, Lauren took a deep shaky breath, feeling the pain around her throat. The thin air burned her lungs and never supplied her with enough oxygen. Her heart physically ached every single time the reality of her without Camila dawned on her and like a ruthless beast, it frequently came; twisting the lodged knife painfully. 
                          
"Please find me. I need you."
                          
A tear braved through her left eye and tumbled down her cheek, and Lauren never even thought of wiping it dry; the moisture being a representation of the powerful torment in her being. After the first one, a battalion soon followed and continually flowed out of her eyes no matter how much she had shed over the years. It was as if life constantly reminded her that there was more pain to feel and it had only just begun.