Layla Read online

  I look at houses a lot, but until I saw this place for sale, I hadn’t felt drawn to anything.

  There’s something about this place, though. Maybe it’s because I met Layla here. Maybe it’s because being in the literal heart of the country really is grounding in some way. Or maybe it’s because it’s an entire day’s drive from Nashville, and I really like the idea of getting out of that town.

  Whatever it is, I’m not here just because I wanted a vacation. I’m here because I want time to focus on my music and I want Layla to find peace. I feel like this is the only place that can give us that. The seclusion would be perfect for us. She’d feel safe.

  I spin around at the sound of Layla screaming.

  I immediately run across the room and toward the bathroom when I hear glass shattering.

  “Layla?” I swing open the door, and she looks at me with two fearful eyes. I immediately reach for her hand because there’s blood on her knuckles. Shards of mirror line the bottom of the sink. I glance up, and the bathroom mirror is shattered. It looks like someone put a fist right to the center of it. “What happened?”

  Layla shakes her head. She looks from the broken mirror to all the glass in the sink. “I . . . I don’t know. I was just washing my hands, and the mirror shattered.”

  There’s an obvious indention in the mirror, as if someone punched it, but I can’t imagine why Layla would do that. Maybe it was already broken before she started washing her hands and the movement jarred the glass out of place.

  “I’ll grab the first aid kit out of the car.”

  She’s in the kitchen when I return from the van. And just like earlier, I care for her wounds. I don’t ask her questions. She seems shaken up. Her hands are trembling. When I’m finished, I take the first aid kit with me and grab one of our suitcases. “I’ll email the Realtor about the mirror,” I tell her. “That could have done some serious damage.”

  She grabs the other suitcase and follows me upstairs. I can tell she’s rattled from that incident.

  I have to stop treating her like she’s incapable of caring for herself, though. She’s capable. She’s strong. She’s incredible. And I’m going to be the one to remind her of that, because she seems to have forgotten.

  CHAPTER SIX

  If I weren’t striving to be a musician, I’d be a chef.

  There’s something calming about cooking. I never was much of a cook before Layla’s surgery. She taught me a few things when she moved in with me, but after she got injured, I didn’t feel comfortable with her exerting too much energy, so I started doing the cooking. I’ve mastered soup, mostly because it was all Layla was ever in the mood for while she was recovering.

  She’s upstairs unpacking. I made sure to unpack my shoes myself and put them in the closet so she won’t see the ring. I came downstairs to start dinner. I wanted to try and start this trip out right, so I’m making pasta e fagioli. Her favorite.

  I’ve learned a lot since she’s been out of the hospital. Mostly from her mother, Gail. She stayed with us for the first few weeks after Layla’s release. She wanted to take Layla back to Chicago with her, but thankfully Layla didn’t want to go. I didn’t want Layla to go. I felt like it was on me to help her recover since what happened to her never would have happened had I been more protective of her.

  I have to admit it was an adjustment. I had only met Layla two months before she spent a month in the hospital. Right after that, her mother temporarily moved in to our already cramped, new apartment. In less than three months, I went from always having lived alone as an adult to living with my girlfriend, her mother, and a couple of times, her sister, Aspen. The apartment I leased was only one bedroom, so the couch was always occupied, and an air mattress took up most of the rest of the living room.

  I was glad when her mother finally went back to Chicago, but not because I didn’t like her. It was just a lot. Everything we had been through, not really feeling like we had our own space, and then watching Layla struggle to fall back into step with her life—I just craved normalcy. We both did.

  But it wasn’t all bad. I got to know Layla’s family, and I quickly became aware of why I fell in love with her in the first place. They’re all very charismatic, open people. Hell, I even kind of like Chad Kyle. I’ve only seen him once since the wedding, and like Layla suggested, he’s a bit of a douchebag, but he’s funny.

  I’m kind of looking forward to their visit on Friday.

  Once I get all the ingredients into the pot, I dry my hands on a dish towel and then run upstairs to check on Layla. She was unpacking when I decided to start cooking, but that was over half an hour ago, and it’s been quiet upstairs since then. I haven’t heard her walking around.

  When I open the door, I find Layla asleep on the bed, the unpacked suitcases still open. She’s snoring lightly.

  It’s been a long day. This is her first trip since being released from the hospital. I can imagine it’s taken a toll on her, so I start quietly unpacking the suitcases while she sleeps.

  Every now and then I’ll glance at her, and I’m taken back to the days we first spent here. Every single second with her felt like an awakening. Like I’d never really opened my eyes until she came along.

  I was blind but now I see.

  That’s how Layla made me feel. It was like someone let all the air back into my life when I had no idea I was even suffocating.

  What I wouldn’t give to go back to that feeling before we were unfairly robbed of it. We were comfortable in my house in Franklin. Layla didn’t have trouble sleeping at night. She wouldn’t look over her shoulder every time we were in public.

  I walk over to where Layla is asleep on the bed, and I touch her hair, pushing it gently behind her ear. They had to shave a section of her hair during the surgery, so she wears her hair parted now to cover up the regrowth. I brush her hair away and look at the scar.

  I’m thankful for it.

  I know she hates it and she does everything she can to cover it up, but sometimes I look at it while she’s asleep because it’s a reminder of what I almost lost.

  Layla flinches a little, so I pull my hand away, just as the smell of something burning enters the room. I look toward the doorway, confused, because there’s no way the soup could already be burning. It’s been less than ten minutes since I turned the gas stove top on.

  I walk to the top of the stairs and see a dark cloud of smoke drifting out of the entryway to the kitchen.

  As soon as I start to descend the stairs, I hear a crash come from the kitchen.

  It’s so loud; I feel it in my chest.

  I rush down the rest of the stairs, and when I get to the kitchen, soup is everywhere. I scan the stove, the floor, the walls. I wave the smoke out of my face and try to figure out what needs saving first.

  There’s no fire, though. Just a bunch of smoke and a huge-ass mess.

  I’m staring at it all in shock when Layla runs down the stairs.

  She pauses in the entryway to the kitchen and takes in the mess. “What happened?”

  I walk to the stove to turn off the burner, but when I reach for the knob, the burner isn’t even on. It’s been switched to the off position.

  My arm falls down to my side. I look at the burner, then look at the pan on the other side of the kitchen.

  “Why is the sink on?” Layla asks.

  There’s a stream of water running from the faucet. I don’t remember leaving the water on. I walk over to it to turn it off and notice something in the bottom of the sink.

  A burnt rag.

  The same rag I wiped my hands on right before running upstairs.

  The rag obviously caught fire, because it’s burnt to a crisp, but how did it end up in the sink? How is the water on? Who turned off the stove?

  Who knocked over the pan of soup?

  I immediately walk to the front door, but it’s locked from the inside. Layla follows me. “What are you doing?”

  I know there’s a back door, but if someone knocke
d the pan off the stove as I was descending the stairs, I would have seen them heading toward the back door. There’s no other exit to the kitchen.

  I walk back to the kitchen and look at the window. It’s also locked from the inside.

  “Leeds, you’re scaring me.”

  I shake my head. “It’s fine, Layla,” I say reassuringly. I don’t want to worry her. If I act like I can’t explain this, it’ll cause unnecessary concern. “I caught the rag on fire. Accidentally knocked the soup off the stove trying to put it out.” I rub my hands up her arms. “I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up.”

  “I’ll help you,” she says.

  I let her. I’d rather her be in the same room because I’m not sure what the fuck just happened.

  THE INTERVIEW

  The tape ends, so the man ejects it, flips it over, and presses record again.

  I wonder if he knows how much easier using his cell phone would be. He’s probably a conspiracy theorist who questions the government to the point that he refuses to even carry a phone.

  “I want to see the stove,” the man says. He picks up the tape recorder and walks with it back to the kitchen. I stay seated on the couch for a moment—wondering if asking him to come here was a mistake. Most sane people would call me crazy after hearing my story. And here I am trusting that this man won’t leak my story straight into the hands of all those sane people.

  Honestly? I don’t even give a shit. My potential career, my meager following, the image Layla has been trying to build for me—none of it matters anymore. It all seems so insignificant now that I’ve seen what this world is capable of.

  It’s like I’ve lived my entire life in shallow waters, but in the last few weeks, I’ve sunk all the way to the Challenger Deep.

  The man is staring at the stove when I walk into the kitchen—his head tilted. He presses the knob in, turns it, and waits for the gas flame to ignite. When it does, he watches it burn for a moment. Then he turns it off.

  He waves his hand at the stove. “You have to press it in to get it into the off position. How’d you explain that to yourself?”

  I shrug. “I couldn’t.”

  He laughs a little. It’s the first iota of expression I get from him. He takes a seat back at the table and places the recorder between us.

  “Did Layla seem bothered by it?”

  “Not really,” I say. “I took the blame, and she didn’t question me. We cleaned the kitchen together, and I ended up making plain pasta instead.”

  “Did anything else strike you as strange that first night?”

  “Not like what happened with the stove.”

  “But something out of the ordinary did happen?”

  “Several things happened over the course of the next couple of days that left me questioning whether or not I was going crazy.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Things that would have sent anyone else out the front door without a second thought.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Layla is picking at her pasta, moving it around with her fork more than she’s eating it. She looks bored.

  “You don’t like it?”

  She stiffens when she realizes I’m watching her. “It’s good,” she says, taking a small bite.

  She hasn’t had much of an appetite lately. She barely eats, and when she does, she picks out anything with carbs. Maybe that’s why she’s only taken three small bites—because everything in her bowl is a carb.

  She weighed herself a week after she was released from the hospital. I remember I was brushing my teeth at the sink, and she stepped on the bathroom scale next to me. She whispered, “Oh my God,” to herself, and I haven’t really seen her eat a full meal since then.

  She chews her food carefully, staring down at the bowl in front of her. She takes a sip of her wine and then begins scooting pasta around again.

  “When are Aspen and Chad coming?” she asks.

  “Friday.”

  “How long are they staying?”

  “Just one night. They have that road trip.” Layla nods like she knows what I’m talking about, but when I called Aspen to tell her about this trip, she told me she hasn’t spoken to Layla in two weeks. I checked Layla’s phone later that night, and she had several missed calls from both her mother and her sister. I don’t know why she’s avoiding them, but she sends their calls to voice mail more than she doesn’t.

  “Have you talked to your mom today?” I ask her.

  Layla shakes her head. “No.” She looks up at me. “Why?”

  I don’t know why I asked that. I just hate that she’s avoiding most of her mother’s calls. When she does that, Gail starts texting me, wondering what’s wrong with Layla. Then she texts Aspen and worries Aspen. Then Aspen texts me, asking why Layla isn’t answering her phone.

  It would just be easier for everyone if Layla updated them more often so they wouldn’t worry about her so much. But they do worry. We all do. Another thing that’s probably a setback for her.

  “I wish my mother would get a hobby so she wouldn’t expect me to talk to her every day,” Layla says, dropping her fork to the table. She takes another sip of her wine. When she sets it down, she closes her eyes for several long seconds.

  When she opens them, she stares down at her pasta in silence.

  She inhales a breath, as if she just wants to forget the conversation.

  Maybe she spent too much time with them when she was released from the hospital. She probably needs a nice break from them, much like I need a break from the rest of the world.

  Layla picks up her fork and looks at it; then she looks down at her bowl of pasta again. “It smells so good.” She says good in a way that makes it sound like a moan. She actually sniffs the pasta. Leans forward and closes her eyes, inhaling the scent of the sauce. Maybe this is her newest trick to dropping the fifteen pounds she keeps talking about—smelling food instead of eating it.

  Layla grips her fork and twists it in the bowl. She takes the biggest bite I’ve ever seen her take. She groans when it’s in her mouth. “Oh my God. It’s so good.” She takes another bite, but before she finishes swallowing, she’s shoveling yet another bite into her mouth. “I want more,” she says with a mouthful. She grabs her wineglass and brings it to her mouth while I take her bowl to the stove and refill it with more pasta.

  She practically rips it from my hands when I sit back down at the table. She eats the entire bowl in just a few bites. When she’s done, she leans back in her seat and presses a palm to her stomach, still gripping her fork tightly in her right hand.

  I start laughing because I’m relieved she’s finally eating, but also because I’ve never seen anyone so animated while they eat.

  She closes her eyes and groans, leaning forward. She props her elbows up on the table and moves her hand from her stomach to her forehead.

  I take a bite of my own pasta right when she opens her eyes. She looks straight down at her empty bowl and makes this horrific face like she regrets every carb she just ate. She covers her mouth with her hand. “Leeds? My food is gone.”

  “Do you want more?”

  She looks up at me—the whites of her eyes more prominent than I’ve ever seen them. “It’s gone,” she whispers.

  “Not all of it. You can have the rest if you want it.”

  She looks horrified when I say that—as if I’m insulting her.

  She looks at the fork still in her hand and studies it as if she doesn’t recognize it’s a fork. Then she drops it. Tosses it, really. It slides across the table, hitting my bowl just as she scoots back and stands up.

  “Layla, what’s wrong?”

  She shakes her head. “Nothing. I’m fine,” she says. “Just . . . ate too fast. A little nauseous.” She turns and leaves the kitchen, then rushes up the stairs.

  I follow her. She’s behaving like another panic attack might be on the horizon.

  When I get to the bedroom, she’s rifling through the dresser drawers, muttering, “Where is it?
” When she doesn’t find whatever it is she’s looking for, she opens the door to the closet. I panic a little—thinking maybe she might find the ring by accident. I walk over and grab her hands, pulling her attention to me and away from the closet.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “My medicine.”

  Of course.

  I reach into the top drawer of the dresser and pull out her bottle of pills. I open them and hand her one, but she looks like she wants to take the bottle from me and down every single one of them. I have no idea what has her so spooked, but as soon as she has the pill, she goes to the bathroom and turns on the faucet. She places the pill on her tongue and then takes a sip straight from the sink. She tilts her head back to swallow it, and it reminds me of the night in the pool when Aspen gave her medicine.

  The thought makes me smile as I lean against the doorway. Layla seems a little bit calmer now that she’s taken the Xanax, so I try to distract her from her own anxiety by making conversation. “Remember when I thought your sister gave me drugs?”

  Layla swings her head in my direction. “Why would I remember Aspen giving you drugs?” As soon as she says that, I can see the regret in her eyes. She drops her head between her shoulders and grips the sink. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.” She blows out a breath and then pushes away from the sink. She walks over to me and snakes her arms around my waist, pressing her forehead against my chest.

  I hug her, because I have no idea what it must be like inside that head of hers. She’s doing her best, so I don’t let her mood bother me. I hold her for several minutes—feeling her heartbeat as it gradually slows down.

  “You want to go to bed?” I whisper.

  She nods, so I slip my hands up her back and ease her out of her shirt. Somewhere between the bathroom door and the bed, we start to kiss.