Layla
: Chapter 18

“You don’t eat enough.” My words come out harsher than I mean for them to. Layla looks up from the food she’s been pretending to take bites of.

“I’ve eaten enough to gain three pounds since we got here.”

“I’m not just talking about these past two weeks. You barely get eight hundred calories a day, tops. It worries me.”

“My body is used to eight hundred calories. I function just fine on that.”

“No, you don’t. You’re always hungry.”

Layla laughs incredulously. “You say that like you know my body better than I do.”

I’m making her angry. That isn’t my intention. It’s just that I’ve been angry all day and that’s transferring onto Layla.

Willow hasn’t spoken to me since I gave Layla the ring. I’ve tried talking to her every time Layla leaves the room, but she doesn’t respond.

Yet another night I’ll spend counting down the minutes until Layla falls asleep.

I take my plate to the sink and rinse it off. Layla can sense something is wrong with me. She pushes back from the table and walks over to me, sidling up next to me. “You okay?”

I realize I’m supposed to be on a high because I proposed to the love of my life today, but it is so fucking hard to fake a smile.

“Is it because of the house?” she asks. “Is it really that important to you?”

I don’t hear any traces of anger in her voice. She seems genuinely curious, so I use her good mood to my advantage. I cup her chin in my hand. “This is where I met you, Layla. Of course it’s important to me.”

She smiles. “That’s sweet.” That doesn’t mean she’s okay with it, though.

“It would be a good investment.” I don’t even know if that’s true. It could be a money pit. “You wouldn’t have to live here. We could buy a house in Nashville and only visit this place when we need to check up on things.”

She actually looks like she’s contemplating everything I’m saying. “I wouldn’t have to live here?”

“No. Think of it like a vacation home. But if I do buy it, we’ll need to stay an extra week so I can close on it. Wrap some things up before we head back to Tennessee.” I’ve never bought a piece of property before, but I’m pretty sure it takes more than a week to close. I don’t want Layla to know that, though.

Layla drops her forehead to my chest. “A whole week,” she says with a sigh. “Ugh. Fine. I trust you.”

I take a step back. “Seriously?”

She nods. “Why not? It means a lot to you, and you’ll be my husband soon. Besides, it might be cool to get married at the same place my sister got married.”

I wrap my arms around her and I hug her. It’s the first hug I’ve given her lately that hasn’t felt forced, but I am so relieved. She’s giving me an extra week here, which means I get to see Willow again.

And owning this place will give me more time to help Willow.

Maybe.

After my actions today, there’s a chance Willow may never speak to me again.

I proposed to Layla today, so it only made sense not to push her away when she wanted to make love tonight. She took off all her clothes and said she wanted me to make love to her while she only wore her engagement ring.

I had to think about Willow again in order to get through it. Then, when it was over and Layla wanted to cuddle, I pretended she was Willow while I gently ran my hand up and down her arm until she fell asleep.

That was half an hour ago, and we’re still in the same position. She’s asleep on my chest. I’m staring up at the ceiling—waiting for Willow to

show up. Hoping she shows up.

I didn’t call my mother to tell her I proposed to Layla. I’m not proud of it. I’m not proud of what it’s going to do to Layla when I admit I’m not in love with her anymore.

She shifts against my chest and then sits up.

My whole body sighs with relief when I see it’s Willow. I was beginning to think I’d made her angry enough not to take over Layla again.

She’s staring down at Layla’s ring. Then she slips it off her finger and sets it on the nightstand.

“I don’t like how it feels,” she says. She pulls the covers up over her bare chest and reaches across her body to scratch her shoulder. There’s an elegance to Willow, and it’s my favorite physical difference between them.

Attraction is strange. How can they use the same body, but my reaction to them is so different? How can sex with Layla earlier feel like a chore, but just looking at Willow feels like a reward?

“She’s prettier when you’re inside of her,” I say.

Willow doesn’t make eye contact. “That’s not really a compliment to me. It’s not my body.” She gets up and walks confidently across the room.

She goes to the bathroom and closes the door. A few seconds later, I hear the shower running.

She knows I had sex with Layla tonight. She’s washing that away.

It has to be hard for Willow when I’m intimate with Layla. But I have to be physical with Layla to keep her here, or I won’t get to see Willow.

It’s the worst catch-22 imaginable. I can’t break up with the girl I’m falling out of love with, or I won’t get to spend time with the girl I’m falling in love with.

When Willow is finished showering, she walks back into the bedroom wearing a towel. She drops it to the floor and pulls on a T-shirt before crawling back into bed with me. She rolls onto her side, her back to me.

She’s hurting, and that’s my fault.

“I don’t want to marry her, Willow.”

“Then you shouldn’t have proposed,” she says quickly.

“What was I supposed to do? Let her leave?”

Willow rolls over and sits up. “Yes.” She makes it sound so simple.

“I didn’t want her to take our last night together.”

“What about after tonight?” she says. “What’s going to happen if you buy this house? We’ll have a scandalous affair whenever Layla is willing to come back here with you? I’ll get to take over after I have to stand outside your door and listen to you have sex with her?”

I grab her hand and pull her against me, hating hearing that pain in her voice. She falls into my arms in a heap of defeat.

“This isn’t fair to me,” she says. “You get us both in your world, but I don’t get you at all in mine.”

I brush my hand gently over her hair. “If I knew how to do it any differently, I would. But I’m not in love with Layla anymore, if that helps at all.”

“Yes, you are,” Willow says quietly. “You’re just confused. You showed up here in love with her, but I’ve made that complicated by using her body.”

“It was complicated before I even got here. I thought this place could change that. Fix us somehow. But it just made it worse. You said yourself that I look sad when I’m with her.”

Willow lifts off my chest and searches my eyes. “What if that’s my fault, though? If I wasn’t here, inserting myself into your life, you might have actually been able to reconnect with her.”

I sigh, not wanting her to look at me when I say what I’m about to say.

I’m scared it’ll make her lose whatever respect she might have left for me.

“It has nothing to do with you, Willow. I’ve seen Layla at her lowest points, and sometimes those low points are really, really low. At first, I blamed my fading feelings on the fact that our roles had changed so suddenly. I became her caretaker. I thought once she got better, things would change. But the further we got into her recovery, the more distant I started to feel. That isn’t her fault. It isn’t your fault. It’s my fault.” I drag my hands down my face with a huge exhale. “All of this is my fault. What we’re doing to Layla now.

What Sable did to her. What I did to Sable.”

Willow sits up on the bed. She wraps her arms around her knees and is quiet for a moment. “I want to know what happened that night.”

“Can’t you just look at Layla’s memories?”

“I want to hear your version.”

“There’s not much to tell. Sable shot Layla, then me when I entered the room. I ran for the gun.”

Willow doesn’t react to that with words, but I can see her whole body stiffen when I say that. “So . . . you shot her?” she asks in a whisper.

I nod. The memory of it all still feels surreal.

Willow rests her head on top of her knees and continues to stare at me.

“Who was Sable to you?”

“I dated her for a few months. Last year, before I met Layla.”

“But you broke up with her? Why?”

I swallow the thickness in my throat and sit up on the bed. Willow continues to observe me, but I can’t look her in the eyes. I rest my elbows on my knees and focus my gaze on my hands. “I thought it would end up being a one-night stand at first, but she kept coming around. I didn’t do anything about it because I didn’t mind the company. But before I knew it, she was posting pictures of us online, calling me her boyfriend, coming to every show. Garrett and the guys in the band thought it was funny because they knew I was dragging it out because I felt sorry for her. I let it continue for several weeks longer than I should have because I didn’t want to upset her. But then she started taking things a little too far, and it left me with no choice but to break things off.”

“Taking things too far in what way?” Willow asks.

“She was upset that I wouldn’t tell her I loved her back after only knowing her for a couple of weeks. She was upset that I hadn’t posted a picture of us together on Instagram. She’d get irrationally angry when I would tell her I wasn’t looking for anything serious, and then she’d try to tell me all the reasons she thought I was wrong. In my head, we were having fun. In her head, she was practically planning our wedding. When I finally did break up with her, she wouldn’t stop calling me. Then she came to one of our shows, and she started screaming at me because I wouldn’t take any of her calls. Garrett had to have her kicked out and wouldn’t allow her at any future shows. I had to cut her off. Didn’t know how else to deal with it. I thought she’d eventually get over it.”

“Is that why she showed up at your house and did what she did?

Because you had moved on with Layla?”

“I don’t know, honestly. She was definitely upset by a picture I had posted with Layla. Upset enough to reach out to Layla on social media. But the police said she had a long list of diagnoses, some of which stemmed from childhood. Depression, bulimia, bipolar disorder, you name it. And she wasn’t taking her medication for any of it. Maybe that’s why she did what she did. Because she really was unstable.”

“That had to be terrifying for Layla. And you.”

I nod. “It was.”

“Why does it seem like you feel guilty about it?” she asks. “It doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong. People break up all the time.”

I shrug. “I don’t feel guilty for breaking up with her. I feel guilty for ending her life. I could have easily held her at gunpoint until the police arrived, but I didn’t. I let my anger at what she’d done to Layla take over. I took her life, and I’ve regretted it since the moment I did it.”

Willow’s voice is quiet when she says, “You did what most people would do in that situation. She had an obsessive personality, and you were just a casualty of that. How were you supposed to know how deep it went, or that she had a fan club for you before you even met her?” She leans into me a little, urging me to make eye contact with her. “She forced you to take it as far as you did when she showed up to your house with a gun. That’s not your fault.”

I don’t talk about this to anyone, so it’s nice to hear her say those words. I’m about to tell her thank you.

But then my blood chills . . . freezes . . . shatters like tiny shards of glass exploding inside of me. The words that just came out of Willow’s mouth are rushing through me, searching for a place to belong, but they don’t belong.

Her words don’t belong in Layla’s head.

I never mentioned specifics about Sable to Layla. I never told Layla that Sable had a fan club.

I’ve certainly never told Willow that Sable ran a fan club.

How does Willow know anything at all about Sable? That’s not something she should know.

I grab her wrist and I sit up, rolling her onto her back. I crawl out of the bed and stand next to it, staring down at her.

Her eyes are wide with confusion at my sudden movement.

I squeeze my jaw, silently trying to piece together a puzzle that has seemed so complicated, but really it’s simple. It’s a puzzle that only consists of three pieces.

Me.

Layla.

Sable.

Is that why Willow is here? Because she’s Sable, in need of closure? If that’s the case, why would she go by a different name?

“Why do you call yourself Willow?” I ask her.

My reaction is making her nervous. She rubs her hands up her arms.

“You asked what my name was. I don’t have one, so I just . . . made it up.”

My words feel stuck in my throat. “You . . . made it up?”

“Yes. I already told you I don’t have any memories. How would I know what my name was? I’ve never even spoken to anyone before you, so no one has ever asked me my name.”

My mind begins to whirl in every possible direction. Why have I not considered this possibility? Sable is dead. I’m responsible for her death.

That’s why she’s here.

“Leeds?” Willow tosses the blanket aside as she watches me pace the room. “What’s wrong?”

I stop walking, and then turn around and face her. I feel like the bottom has dropped out from under me and I’m about to free-fall straight through the house. “How did you know Sable had a fan club?”

Her eyes fill with something else now . . . something Willow’s expression is never full of. Guilt.

For the first time since I arrived in this house, I’m finally having the reaction I should have had all along. Fear.

“Get out of Layla.”

“Leeds . . .”

“Get. Out. Of. Layla!”

Willow scrambles to her feet. “Leeds, wait. You don’t understand. It’s confusing inside her head. Nothing makes sense. That’s not my memory—

it’s one of Layla’s.” She’s in front of me now, pleading.

I feel like a fucking fool. “I never told Layla that. She wouldn’t have that memory. Only Sable would know that.”

Willow’s hands go up to the sides of her head like she can’t come up with an excuse quick enough.

Willow is Sable, and I should have recognized that immediately. But I was too caught up in the idea of it all. Too enamored that something this huge was happening, and I was a part of it. I felt like I was part of something bigger than me or Layla, but all I’ve been a part of is destroying us even more than we’ve already been destroyed.

I want Willow out of Layla, and I don’t even care if she does it while Layla isn’t in the bed. I don’t care if Layla is terrified when she opens her eyes and doesn’t remember standing up. I plan on leaving with Layla tonight anyway. I need to get her as far away from Willow as possible.

I push past Willow and grab the suitcase Layla started packing earlier.

I throw it on the bed, then grab our other suitcase. Willow doesn’t say a word while I pack. Her eyes just follow me around the room as I gather our things.

I move to the bathroom and pack everything up; then I walk to the top of the staircase. I shove one of the suitcases forward and watch it topple down the stairs, and then I rush down the steps with the other one.

Willow is behind me, still inside of Layla.

I don’t know why it took me so long to realize this. Willow is here for a reason. That reason is because she’s the one who shot us. That reason has been staring me in the fucking face since I walked into this house. A house that went up for sale several months ago. A house that changed ownership not long before that.

Willow said she can’t remember how long she’s been in this house, but I remember her saying it wasn’t long before ownership changed. Which would mean . . . the timing coincides. Willow showed up here around the time I shot Sable.

I get to the kitchen and I grab my car keys and then turn to see Willow standing in the doorway. “We’re leaving. I need you to get out of her.”

She shakes her head, looking at me with imploring eyes. “Even if I was Sable in a past life, I’m not her now. I could never do what she did to you. What she did to Layla.”

I’m squeezing my keys in my fist, full of even more fear now. Every time I’ve asked Willow to leave Layla before, she’s done it.

What if she refuses to leave her now? What am I supposed to do?

“You said things were chaotic inside Layla’s head. Are they chaotic because you have memories that aren’t Layla’s?”

Willow’s chin is quivering. She nods.

“How many of Sable’s memories do you have?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know what memories are Sable’s, and I don’t know what belongs to Layla. I have both when I’m inside of her.

It’s why I told you it was chaotic inside her head, because there are two versions of everything.”

“Like what?”

Willow walks closer to me, and I take a step back. Her eyebrows draw apart in agony when I step away from her. She stifles a sob and then sits down at the table. She’s covering her mouth with both hands now, as if she’s trying to keep the sobs at bay while also trying to keep the truth at bay.

I reach behind me on the counter and grab a napkin. I hand it to her

. . . wanting her to trust me as long as I’m still here. Long enough to let her explain herself, and then hopefully I can talk her into letting me leave with Layla. I repeat the question she’s yet to answer, but I repeat it more gently.

“What memories do you have two versions of, Willow?”

She lifts her eyes to mine, wiping away tears with the napkin. “None of them when I’m not in Layla’s body. But when I am inside of her . . .

there are a lot.”

I blow out an unsteady breath and turn away from her. She’s been lying to me this whole time. “Do you remember the shooting?”

“Yes,” she whispers.

“Do you remember doing it?”

There’s a pause, and then . . .

“The memories all seem like mine when I’m inside Layla. So I don’t know. It’s there. But is it mine? I don’t know.”

I turn around and look at her. “Why else would you have access to Sable’s memories?”

She looks away from me, covering her face with her hand, full of shame. “I don’t know.” She stands up, quickly, and rushes over to me. “If I was Sable, I’m not anymore, Leeds. I could never be capable of something like that.”

I feel sick to my stomach. “Get out of Layla,” I plead, knowing it’s a hollow plea. There’s no way she’s going to let us leave now. Sable got to us once before, and now she’s gotten to us again. And I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

Except this isn’t some small mistake. It isn’t even some huge betrayal.

This is far beyond anything I could even imagine. This is otherworldly.

Way beyond my comprehension.

Tears are spilling out of Willow’s eyes. She just shakes her head, and with eyes full of sorrow, she says, “I’m so sorry.”

And then she screams.

It’s a bloodcurdling scream that makes my spine stiffen.

I can instantly tell Willow is no longer using Layla’s body.

Layla looks around the kitchen and then grips the bar. She lowers herself, as if her knees are too weak to hold her up. “What is happening?”

Her voice is a shaky whisper. When she looks at me, her eyes are wide.

“Leeds, what is happening to me?”

I grab Layla’s hand and pull her up. “We need to leave. Now.”

She’s hysterical. She pushes away from me and says, “I need my medicine. I’m freaking out.”

“I packed it.”

She stops in the doorway and looks at me. “Why? I need it. Where is it?”

I walk to the foyer and grab our suitcases. “I’ll get it for you in the car.

We need to leave right now. Let’s go.”

She’s unmoving. “Why are we leaving? Why am I downstairs?” She spins in a circle, looking up the stairs, and then into the kitchen. “I can’t remember anything. I think something is wrong. Something is wrong with me.”

“Nothing is wrong with you, Layla. It’s this house. We need to get out of it.”

She looks at me, and maybe it’s the seriousness in my expression, but she finally nods in agreement. “Okay,” she says, her voice full of nervousness. I open the door and push Layla out first. Then I pull the suitcases over the threshold.

“Hurry,” I say, needing her to be faster before Willow takes over again.

We get halfway to the car when Layla stops. “Let’s go, Layla.”

She doesn’t move.

I look at her but no longer see Layla standing next to me.

It’s Willow again.

I just let go of the suitcases. I throw my hands up in defeat. The suitcases fall over, and I kick one. I kick it again. I kick it and I kick it and I kick it because she’s not going to let us leave.

“Leeds, stop,” Willow pleads.

I don’t know how to get Layla out of her grasp now.

And even if she does slip out of Layla, is Willow going to follow us?

How do I know she won’t be in the car with us when we leave? I can’t call the police. What the hell would I say? The ghost of the girl I killed is stalking me? Again?

How the fuck did I get myself into this mess?

“Listen to me,” Willow says calmly. Her coolness is such a stark contrast to Layla’s hysterics. “If I was Sable in a past life, I am not anymore. I’m Willow. And I could never do what Sable did to you and Layla. If you want to leave, I’m going to let you leave. But . . .”

I shake my head. “I don’t even want to hear what you have to say. I want to leave.”

She holds up a hand. “Please. Just let me say this.” She takes two steps forward, slowly. “If I was Sable, then there’s a reason I’m here. You’ve watched all the movies with me. You know all the theories. Why is Sable stuck here, Leeds? Maybe she needs your forgiveness. Or maybe you need hers? I don’t know, but if you leave, we’ll never figure that out. And you’ll go the rest of your life knowing that ghosts exist, and you might be the reason one of them is stuck here. This is going to follow us forever. Both of us.”

I shift my weight to my other leg. “I’ve been trying to help you figure this out since we started talking! You’re the one who didn’t want to know anything, Willow! Now you want my help? After I replace out you’ve been lying to me for weeks?”

“I wasn’t lying. I didn’t know,” she says. “I thought it was all just chaos inside Layla’s head, because I don’t have memories at all when I’m not in her head. I still don’t know for sure. Your theory makes sense, but it doesn’t feel right. There’s something off about it.” She steps closer again. I don’t step back this time because part of me only sees Willow when I look at her, and that part of me still feels bad for her.

But not bad enough to stay.

I point at her. “You’re the reason this happened, whether you remember it or not. You’re the reason Layla almost died. I will not be the reason you ultimately kill her. Get out of her and stay out of her.”

She’s still calm, but now there are silent tears spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t know why I’m here. But I’m here, and wherever this is, I don’t feel like an evil person. I feel good and I feel honest. I am not whoever Sable was in her life. I feel like me. Like Willow. I’m the girl you’ve been watching movies with and eating leftovers with and spending time with. I’m the girl you kissed on that bed last night. Me. Not Sable. Not Layla. Willow. ”

I clench my teeth. “Willow doesn’t exist. It’s a name you made up.”

She closes the gap between us and takes my face in her hands, her eyes full of desperation. “I do exist. I’m right here. I’m standing right in front of you.”

I can’t look at her while she’s crying like this. I spin around and rest my hands on my hips. I drop my head, unsure of what to do next. An entire minute goes by, and she just stands behind me, crying quietly.

I don’t know what to do. I stare at the driveway, knowing that’s the direction I should be going. But why is my internal compass pulling me in the opposite direction? Why am I even struggling with this decision? Why do I still feel drawn to stay here when she’s the reason we’re in this mess to begin with?

“Leeds?” she finally says. “Just . . . go.”

I spin around, and Willow is looking at me, completely defeated. She waves toward the car. “Go. This isn’t right. We shouldn’t be doing this to Layla anyway. Go, get married, buy her a different house, have babies, be famous and shit. Be happy.” She wipes the areas beneath her eyes with her fingers. “I want you to be happy. I promise I won’t stop you when you leave with her this time, if that’s what you want.”

I study her for a moment, unsure what to believe.

And why the hell do I still feel bad for her?

I walk over and pick up one of the suitcases. Then the other. I walk them to the car and shut them in the trunk. She’s standing at the driver’s-side door.

I pause a few feet from her, watching her cautiously.

“Do me a favor?” she says. “Will you email that man and ask him to come here anyway? I need to figure this out now. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Those words, and the agonizing way she said them, settle in my chest.

I don’t want to be here anymore.

I clear my throat. “I’ll email him tonight.”

She smiles gently, and her lips are trembling when she whispers,

“Thank you.” Another tear falls out of her eye, and she looks up and to the right, her face pained. “I hope you have a good life.”

And then she’s gone.

Layla is hysterical again.

She spins in a circle, confused as to how she got outside.

I grab her hand and walk her to the passenger-side door. “Just get in the car,” I say, trying to sound calm, but that’s hard to do when she’s screaming and scared and confused and sobbing. I buckle her in and walk around to the driver’s-side door.

I place my hand on the door handle and pause for a moment. Layla is screaming for me to hurry. My head is pounding from the pressure of everything that’s happened in the last hour. I just want to scream because I feel like I’m being torn in half right now.

I think about the night I met Layla. I think about what she said . . .

about realms and how she believes we move from one realm, to the next, to the next. I think about how she said in the womb we don’t remember existence before the womb. In life, we don’t remember being in the womb.

And how in the next realm, we may not remember this life.

What if Willow really doesn’t remember being Sable?

What if who she is in this realm is different from who she was in her past realm?

She’s right. No matter how far away from this place I get, I’ll never stop thinking about this. I’ll never stop needing answers.

I look back at the house . . . at the place that means the most to me in this world. The heart of the country.

If Willow . . . Sable . . . didn’t need my help, why would she have come here?

There’s a reason she’s here. She knew I would show up here somehow.

Maybe it was a cosmic force at play. Maybe it’s something as simple as needing Layla’s and my forgiveness.

Whatever it is, whether the reason is complicated or simple, this whole thing is bigger than Layla. This is bigger than me. This is so much bigger than the world I thought we existed in, and I’m trying to force it into a tiny little box and tuck it away like none of it is happening.

I feel the pull to help Willow in my gut, my bones, my heart. If I walk away, those feelings will stay here, in this house, with this ghost, and I’ll leave feeling just as empty as I felt when I arrived.

I can’t explain why, but walking away from this place out of fear feels so much worse than staying to help this girl replace closure. If Layla and I are related to the reason she’s stuck here, we’re more than likely also her only way out.

“Leeds,” Layla pleads. “Get in the car!”

I’ll always feel a constant pull to this place, no matter where I am in life or how far I drive away from here.

And for the life of me . . . I can’t figure out why. Why do I care what happens to Sable? Is she manipulating my thoughts somehow?

“Willow,” I say into the air. “I have a question. Get back inside Layla again.”

Layla is still yelling my name, begging me to hurry.

Then she stops.

She’s suddenly calm as she unbuckles herself and opens her door.

When she climbs out of the car and turns around, it’s Willow looking back at me from over the top of the car.

“Have you ever gotten inside of me?” I ask her.

She immediately answers with a shake of her head. “No. Of course not.”

The look on her face is a clear indicator that she isn’t lying. “You said you only have memories when you’re attached to a body,” I say. “Is that right?”

She nods.

“If that man comes to help you, then you’re going to need a body.

You’re going to need those memories.”

It takes my words a few seconds to register, but when they do, Willow covers her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle her cry. Then she drops her hand to her chest, over her heart. “You’re going to help me?”

I let go of a regretful sigh. “Yes. And I have no idea why. So please don’t make me regret this. Please. ”

Willow shakes her head adamantly. “I won’t. But . . . Layla isn’t going to stay here willingly. Not after tonight.”

I walk back toward the house and away from the car. “I know.”

This is the moment I truly question myself as a boyfriend, a caretaker, a human being. I don’t know why I feel so strongly about staying, or why I feel so strongly about keeping Layla here with me. My behavior right now goes against every moral I have, but I’ve never felt this kind of certainty in my gut.

My gut is telling me this terrible decision will pay off when it’s all said and done.

Which means this is the moment I’ll likely regret the most.