What was the first thing you rememb

What was the first thing you remember afterwards?” Lauren asked her interestedly, changing the subject slightly but trying to get Camila to open up some more.

“You really want to know?” Camila asked her.

“If you don’t mind sharing it with me…” Lauren said.

“Not a lot,” Camila commented. “Just, bursts of unconnected things….like one of those old projectors that keep skipping quickly from one slide to another.”

Camila thought for a moment.

“I remember a light,” Camila told her. “It kept moving across my eyes and it was irritating me but I couldn’t move my hands to block it,” Camila explained. “I remember that everything felt heavy and effortful to move, like I was stuck in quick sand and everything hurt… Everything.”

“Did you remember what had happened?” Lauren asked. “When you woke up I mean…could you remember it?”

“No,” Camila replied. “It was a month before my memory started to come back. They said it was post-traumatic amnesia and that it was comment in head injuries. It took a long time for me to be able to remember even the smallest bits of new information.”

“Kind of like you after your seizure,” Lauren said remembering how she’d struggled to retain anything.

“I suppose.” Camila said, not knowing how she’d behaved.

Camila ran a hand through her hair and found the thick scar on the left side of her head, her fingers tracing it meaningfully. Her hair was starting to grow longer around it, obscuring it from view even further, but, Lauren realised, Camila would always be able to feel it, would always know it was there, even if other people didn’t.

“I remember my sister would come in to see me once I was off the intensive care unit,” Camila divulged. “She would always want to play and she’d get sad when my mom and dad told her that we couldn’t.”

“You sound sad about that,” Lauren said, reaching out and placing a hand on Camila’s arm.

“Yeah well,” Camila told her, “she’s just a kid. She doesn’t understand what was going on. She just wanted to be able to play with me, to do the things we used to do before,” Camila continued, a smile creeping on her lips, “you know, making sandcastle at the beach…”

“Eating ice lollies?” Lauren offered.

“Right,” Camila confirmed.

“I can’t do those things with her now,” Camila told her. “She wants me to pick her up and carry her like I used to but I can’t,” Camila continued. “She wants to jump on me and make me chase her round the garden or the park…”

Camila leant back slightly stretching.

“Now I’m home she thinks I’m better,” Camila went on, “but I’m not and it makes me sad that I can’t be the same big sister to her that I was before.”

Camila wiped at a tear that had escaped her eye unbidden and Lauren leant forward to catch Camila’s lips in her own.

Camila was surprised at first but soon let herself sink in to Lauren’s lips, her mouth giving Camila comfort in silence instead of words. Lauren raised her free hand and reached up to touch the side of Camila’s face, her thumb stroking her cheek soothingly. After a moment, Lauren went to move away, but as she pulled back, she felt Camila press her mouth harder against her own and causing her to moan slightly in response.

Camila took the opportunity to suck on Lauren’s bottom lip, catching it in her mouth as Lauren had opened her own to moan. Camila leant up onto her knees to close the gap between the two of them, placing her hand on Lauren’s back between her shoulder blades. Lauren felt Camila’s tongue lick the top of her bottom lip and her breath hitched in her throat, her whole body shivering in response to Camila’s mouth on her own, every fibre of her craving more. Her heart was elated, beating forcefully in her chest, the pounding in her ears almost completely in time with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore nearby. Lauren opened her mouth and Camila let her tongue slip inside exploring the previously unknown territory eagerly.