You did this
Laura
Laura is just finishing washing the dishes after dinner (Carmilla did try to convince her that it was only fair that she would do the dishes since Laura cooked but she pulled up the “my house, my rules” card and that was the end of it) when she notices that everything is very quiet, although she can hear a faint scratching noise, much like the noise of a pen against paper. She looks up from her shoulder to see that Carmilla is writing something on one of her books.
“Do you always make it a habit of going through peoples stuff like that?” Laura says smiling, turning to finish up with the dishes.
She hears Carmilla finishing up whatever she was writing and setting the book back on the bookshelf.
“Only when I know they don’t enjoy it.”
God, she’s such a smart ass. Laura huffs and Carmilla returns the book back to its original place.
“And here I was thinking it would be a privilege for you to have my first ever autograph.”
Laura stops to look at her for a second, her eyes wide open, her mouth gaping, surprise hitting her. Did she just-
“No. You’re not making a big deal out of this cupcake. Take it as a thank you note for dinner. Seeing that someone wouldn’t even let me do the dishes.”
Carmilla smiled at her, turning herself to face the bookshelf again.
“So, how long have you been reading these?”
She could ask which books Carmilla is talking about but she knows perfectly what she means.
“I read the first one when I was still in college, I guess it was the year it got released. I like it, but I prefer the third one, I guess.”
Carmilla hummed. It almost seemed like she was surprised, probably because it is a bit dark. But she doesn’t really want to get into it, it’s weird enough that she has one of her favorite authors in her room and it would be painfully personal to talk about it with her. Laura hears her taking something from the bookshelf and her breath catches for a moment.
“How old is this picture?”
Laura doesn’t even have to look back to know what she’s talking about. Instead, she just keeps busy cleaning up everything.
“Hmm, around four years and a half, it was taken in college”
“Well, weren’t you the typical nerd” She says and Laura can hear it in her voice that she has a smirk on her face. “Who’s the girlfriend?”
Laura freezes for a second but rapidly resumes scrubbing a persistent spot on the counter.
“Not my girlfriend.” She says, trying not to be bunt but getting a feeling she’s not succeeding.
“Sure buttercup. She’s totally not giving you the heart eyes.”
Laura can hear the sarcasm in her voice and it annoys her, although she knows it shouldn’t. She doesn’t know and Laura doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Do you still keep in touch? With this not girlfriend, I mean?”
“She’s dead.” Laura says bluntly, her hands shake a little so she grabs the counter breathing in deeply. She can hear Carmilla setting the photograph of her and Danny back in place and she thinks she hears her whisper a Fuck.
“I’m sorry I-“
“It’s fine” Laura interrupts her “You didn’t know.”
It would be expected that after all these years she would be able to talk about it, that it wouldn’t hurt, that it would be fine. But every time she looks at that picture it all comes back. All that joy, their friendship, her death. And she knows that if she closes her eyes all she’ll be able to see are her friends eyes.
She shakes her head, turning to face Carmilla who has moved to stand against the back of the couch and is looking down, looking a little embarrassed. But then she looks at Laura with a soft look and it actually helps to ease all this pain.
“Look, I didn’t mean to pry and I’m sorry about that.” Laura sees her looking back at the picture and she mimics her “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”
Now Laura is just looking at Carmilla and guessing that she’s reminiscing in her own memory lane. And she wants to tell her that she figured that reading her books. And that they helped her get through it. Somehow, knowing she wasn’t alone helped.
“If you ever feel like talking about it, I promise I’ll listen.” She looks at Laura with a faint smile that quickly turns into a smirk “More than your eternal ramblings about Harry Potter”
And then Laura is sending the kitchen cloth flying across the room to hit her on her stomach and Carmilla pretends that she was just hit by a bullet or something and lets herself fall on the floor, dramatically, which makes Laura giggle. She approaches the black haired girl lending her a hand and helping her up as Carmilla throws the cloth gently back to her.
“Seriously though.” She has this serious look on her face, her eyes looking deeply into Lauras. She’s picking up her coat and walking to the door. “I’m an asshole, but these” She points at her ears “aren’t usually affected by that” Laura rolls her eyes, despite the fact that she is smiling and shoves Carmillas shoulder.
“Thank you Carm.”
She feels a warmth in her chest and it must take over her brain because next thing she knows she’s leaning in and planting a soft kiss on Carmilla’s cheek. Her face is cold and she can almost swear she felt her skin shiver and her face muscles tense but when she takes a step back to look at her, Carmilla is already turning around and going down the stairs.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She throws over her shoulder and Laura can swear she saw a smile on Carmillas face.
“I don’t need a ride, remember?” She shouts.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, cupcake” It’s the last thing she hears when Carmilla’s already out of sight and it makes her wonder if this is what it feels to have a real friend again. It’s been so long she almost forgot how much better life can be.
***
“What are you doing Danny? Get out of there!”
Laura feels out of breath, like she just ran a marathon without a single stop. Danny is standing on the edge of a bridge, looking down, this weird look in her eyes.
“ Are you hearing me you stupid giant? Get the hell down from there, you’ll end up hurting yourself.”
Her voice is shaking, she feels her heartbeat on her throat and then she hears her voice.
“I’m sorry Hollis. Tell my mom I’m sorry yeah?”
What the hell is she talking about? Laura takes a step towards her but she shuffles away and seriously, she is starting to get on my nerves.
“Wh-what’s going on Danny? Just talk to me.”
Laura can see her shaking. Her knuckles are so tightly pressed that she can see Dannys hands turning white, her shoulders tense and her head bowed.
“Just promise me. Promise me you’ll tell them I love them.” She moves a hand through her hair “And Kirsch. Take care of that idiot. God, he’ll hate me.”
Danny lets out a nervous breath looking up to the sky before smiling but that vanishes immediately as she looks into your eyes.
“I have to do this.”
Laura wants to scream at her, tell her she’s an idiot but her throat shuts down on her. Danny must sense she is about to cry because she smiles, that sweet smile.
“I’m not scared you know? I’m not scared”
She repeats this a couple of times and it’s almost like she is trying to convince herself rather than Laura.
She probably knows that Laura is about to make a move and grab her because she puts her hand up and looks into Laura’s eyes.
“Don’t forget it yeah shorty? Just, don’t give up yeah?”
She’s smiling and her eyes have the same old determined look that they’ve always had and for a moment Laura thinks this is just a prank and everything will be okay.
But then she is taking a step forward and Laura is covering her mouth and running to the hedge but she is gone.
Laura feels like her insides are being torn apart and everything is spinning and she has trouble breathing.
Everything stops. There’s no sound. There’s nothing. Just nothing. And for a second panic takes possession of her soul.
But then she knows this will all be over in just a couple of seconds.
She wakes up with a jolt, tears already filling her eyes and sweat covering her all body.
It’s been a week since the incident after dinner.
Carmilla told her she could talk to her. They have been together every day, Carm makes sure to wait for her at their little coffee shop after she gets out of work. Laura has been apathetic, moody even, but Carmilla is patient with her. Honestly, she thought the girl would just give up and stop coming but she never did.
She knows Carmilla is worried. Not that she asks Laura anything about it. It’s her look and the way she chooses her words, carefully, afraid of hurting her maybe? She’s trying to show Laura she can trust her and that, maybe, talking about it might actually be of some help.
“You know, keeping all that shit to yourself will eat you up inside”
And when she answered that the same could be said to Carmilla she just shrug.
“Who says I don’t have my ways of dealing with it?”
God, she’s infuriating sometimes.
And now Laura is stuck with these nightmares every single night and what can she do? She’s been dealing with it for about 4 years now and she’s doing just fine. Right?
Keep telling yourself that Hollis.
But seriously what is she supposed to do? Just spill everything about it to Carmilla? Sure there’s that stupid thing she signed a couple of weeks ago but this is so much bigger than that. It’s not that she doesn’t trust her, because deep down she knows she does. But she’s afraid.
Then again she barely sleeps already and it would be really nice to have a couple of hours of dreamless rest.
Laura takes a glance to the pen drive on her side table and sighs.
What are you thinking moron? You haven’t shared this with anyone. Well, except Kirsch, but he deserved to know.
What if she just spills everything?
It takes her another weekend without any sleep and the fact that she is starting to look like something out of The Waking Dead until she is at the park, sitting, waiting for Carmilla, while she grabs on tightly to the pen drive on her chest and praying to God that she isn’t making the worst decision of her life.
Carmilla
It’s 9AM and Carmilla knows she’s going soft because there’s no way on Earth or Hell she would be up at this ungodly hour let alone walking through the park. But honestly she is a little worried about Laura. Okay, maybe she’s a lot worried. And feeling like crap.
Ever since that dinner, a week ago, when she made the awful mistake of pushing Laura just a little too far that the girl isn’t quite herself. She keeps dozing off, she barely speaks and she looks like she hasn’t slept in days. Well, Carmilla knows for a fact she doesn’t sleep much but honestly, something’s not right.
And she feels guilty about it. Ever since, she has tried everything. Hot chocolate seems to cheer her up a bit and so do the cookies she as asked Perry to bake for her (which ended up with her almost strangling LaF so they would stop teasing her about how this was a very weird strictly business relationship), but she still can’t get that warm smile out of her.
And it’s killing her.
“C’mon cupcake, what is up with you? I can’t believe I’m about to say this but, you have barely made a nerdy joke or a Hogwarts reference in a week and I’m starting to worry about you.”
Laura looks at her cup of hot chocolate, whirling it and Carmilla is not sure she heard her.
“You wanna talk about it?”
“No.” Laura answers, mumbling almost inaudibly with something of a pout.
“It speaks!”
Laura looks at her and she thinks that if she wasn’t feeling so down she might be flipping her off right now but, hey, she’s not complaining because at least it shows her some of that fierce that she’s gotten used to see in Laura.
“Look, you don’t have to speak to me but, please, speak to someone about it.”
Laura is still looking at her, her expression unreadable and it’s infuriating how stubborn she can be.
“Jesus Christ Hollis, just snap out of it!”
Her expression changes a bit, from apathetic to surprised or mad or maybe both and it doesn’t matter because now Carmilla knows she has struck a nerve.
“You know, keeping all that shit to yourself will eat you up inside.”
This was definitely not the plan.
Carmilla stopped trying to tell herself that this is all about keeping an eye on Laura a week ago. Let’s just face it, the cupcake is annoying as hell but she also made her way into Carmilla’s routine and ended up becoming her friend.
And this is what you do for friends. You wake up early on the day after you’ve taken a bit of a beating by three thugs that were trying to rob a store. Not that she didn’t leave them bleeding on the floor, feet and hands tied together. She chuckles a little.
Thankfully she learned early on to cover her head so there are no visible marks. The same can’t be said for her arms, back and torso but hey, at least there were no knives or guns involved.
She closes her leather jacket, covering her chest and thank God she’s wearing pants because it’s getting colder by the day. Hell might freeze by December.
She looks at her phone again, reading Lauras last text.
Laura [8h30AM] : Meet me at the park? Left side of the lake.
Carmilla didn’t need to ask why because Laura hasn’t texted her in a week so clearly she’s either gonna tell Carmilla to back the fuck off or she finally decided to just let go of the damn thing. Or she’s going to murder her because there’s literally no one else at the park today, and yeah, that would suck.
She sees Laura’s figure at a distance. She’s sitting at a bench facing the lake, under this big tree, her hair a little damped, probably from the morning dew. God knows how long she’s been here.
Carmilla clears her throat when she’s approaching to warn her that she’s there and Laura turns, throwing her a faint smile.
Ok, maybe murder is out of the equation.
She sits by Laura’s side, looking at the girl. She has baggy eyes (she hasn’t slept again) and her cheeks are pink, probably from the cold. She looks a little tense, her long coat open to reveal a shirt and jeans, and of course that ridiculous pen-drive necklace she always wears. Except she is grabbing it like someone’s going to try and yank it from her chest any second now and that’s when Carmilla feels that something’s off.
She has tried asking Laura what’s going on, she has tried persuading her into telling her what’s been eating her up lately, although she is fairly sure she knows what this is about. She didn’t tell her, of course, but she did a little digging of her own about her friend. Well, actually she asked LaF to do so, but then when they gave her the file she couldn’t bring herself to read it.
Because she felt like this was Laura’s story and she should tell it, when and if she wanted to.
“Thank you for coming Carm. I know you’re not a morning person.”
Laura’s voice woke her up from her thoughts and she hummed in response. She heard Laura breath in heavily and she saw her give another squeeze to her necklace.
“I’m sorry I kinda shut down this last week, it’s just…I guess you kind of struck a nerve back at my house and I wasn’t being able to shake it off.”
Carmilla opens her mouth to apologize again but Laura cuts her off.
“And I guess you’re right, maybe I do need to talk about it. Maybe it has been too long.”
She shifts her weight and crosses her legs on the bench.
“Danny and I met at college, my Junior year. She was my English Lit TA and a huge pain in the ass.” She let out a nervous smile. “But then I got to know her and we became friends. I mean, when you asked if she was a girlfriend, I guess that was what struck a nerve. There was something, for a while, but it didn’t work out. We were just looking for different things, so we just ended up being friends.”
She looks at the lake, her hands on her knees. The sun was going up and as it hit her face, her eyes turned into honey and Carmilla stared into them when she turned to face her.
“A year after we met, it’ll be 4 years in December, Danny sent me a text to meet her. She asked to meet at this bridge where she and Kirsch, that was her, well, I guess they never made it official but they totally had a thing for each other and, it doesn’t really matter. They used to go there and have this stupid competitions on who could throw stones further. They would spend whole afternoons there.”
Carmilla can see in Laura’s eyes that she is reminiscing so she just lets her talking, not making a sound.
“When I got there she was…she was standing at the edge, you see.” Her eyes start watering and Carmilla feels her chest tightening. Oh hell… “She just jumped, Carm.”
Laura’s eyes are filled with tears and Carmilla just slips her hand between the other girls knee and hand and grabs onto it tightly, giving her strength to continue.
“She just left. I was to mad. How could she? Why would she make me watch her…”
Her voice catches and she cleans her face from the tears that go down her cheeks.
“That first year was hell. Her family was devastated, her mom wouldn’t even look at me. Kirsch shut down completely. Eventually dropped out of college because everything reminded him of her. I guess I know what that’s like. I just buried myself into college work. And a lot of alcohol.”
She took a couple of seconds to steady her voice, clearing her throat and she squeezed Carmilla’s hand.
“I’m sorry about your friend, cupcake.”
Laura nodded as she breath in the cold breeze.
“Yeah, that would be bad enough wouldn’t it?”
Carmilla furrows her eyebrows.
“But here’s the thing. Something never added up. Why did she ask me there? And why would she do it? I mean, Danny was one of the strongest persons I ever met and she was happy. She had her family, Kirsch, the Summer Society, sports and she was happy you know? So a year latter, one day I was visiting her grave and her mom showed up.”
Carmilla waits for Laura to finish her story but something seems to have stopped her, and she can almost hear her think.
But then she is taking her necklace out and turning up Carmilla’s hand, the one she was previously grabbing, and placing the pen drive in it.
“There’s only two people in this world who ever saw the full content of this.”
She closes Carmillas hand around the necklace and suddenly it hits her how big this is and how this is definitely not what she was expecting. She closes her grip on the pen drive, staring at her own hand and nodding.
Laura doesn’t speak much more after this, she seems kind of exhausted, ready to sleep for a whole week and Carmilla can’t really blame her because, wow. This is too much information to process.
She looks at the necklace that she chose to put around her own neck in an attempt to prove to Laura that she will cherish her trust and she thinks it works because her face lights up a little as soon as she sees it there.
She walks Laura to her home, afraid she might pass out somewhere, but how it is that she ends up sitting on Lauras couch, with the other girl sleeping on her side, she does not know.
She sets the reporters’ computer on the arm of the couch, plugging the pen drive and as she starts reading the first document Laura pulls herself closer, placing her head on Carmillas lap and grabbing the hem of her shirt. She lowers herself a bit to make room for her head and can’t help but smile because, yes, Laura is usually pretty cheerful already but she seems so peaceful sleeping.
“I’ll do my best not to betray your trust in me cupcake, God knows I don’t desserve it but still,” She whispered, lowering a hand to nudge a strand of hair from Lauras face.
***
Carmilla has been pacing in her room for a long time now. She knows it’s been long because her feet are starting to ache and her tights are tense.
She tried training a bit before, to help her clear her mind but obviously that didn’t work out. It only made her angrier and upset.
What the hell was she supposed to do with this? Why did Laura had to go and show her all this shit? Really, she’s finally in a good place in her life and the past comes to bite her in the ass. Typical.
She can’t make up her mind about it. Should she tell Laura? Maybe she already knows? She’s going to hate her. Although it isn’t her fault, she knows it isn’t, but still. There’s a connection, unfortunately, if she may say. The thought makes her sick.
She re-read the files Laura gave her three days ago, dozens of times now.
Were you waiting for the letters to rearrange Karnstein? Fucking shit.
Danny Lawrence was a young woman, no criminal charges, an impeccable record and impressive grades in most of her classes. She played sports, was in something called the Summer Society? That name rings a bell for some reason but Carmilla can’t quite place it. She had no apparent reason to kill herself and still.
If nothing of this made sense before reading the contents of that god forsaken pen drive, the same can’t be said now.
She hears her phone, it’s probably another text from Laura. She might kind of been avoiding her lately, ever since that day.
And Laura must be thinking about it and worrying that stubborn head of hers until it explodes but she really needs to think this through.
Because Danny didn’t kill herself. Someone made her do it.
Her chest is heavy and she’s griting her teeth. Carmilla stops in front of an old photo, looking at a young woman, much like her physically, her expression stern while she holds her father’s arm. Her grip tenses around the frame and for a second she thinks she might even throw it against the wall but then just puts it back in place.
You did this.