Layla

I ate a strand of Layla’s hair this morning.

The thought crossed my mind that something as weird as eating your girlfriend’s hair could be the starting point to even weirder behavior. It could be a precursor to cannibalism, much like harming animals as a child is sometimes a precursor to becoming a serial killer.

But eating her hair was nothing more than a slightly creepy last-ditch effort on my part to try and absolve myself from all the guilt. I dreamt that swallowing a piece of her hair tethered us together somehow, eliminating any fear that we might someday grow apart because of everything that happened. So, when I woke up, I plucked a strand from her head while she slept and put it in my mouth.

That was eight hours ago, and it feels like the strand somehow found its way around my heart and cut off the blood supply.

My heart is choking.

That would make a good lyric.

I open my phone while we wait in line to board the plane, and I type my heart chokes on its own guilt into my notes, beneath several other dismal lyrics I’ve pulled from random thoughts.

My lyrics have really taken a depressing turn lately.

“Leeds,” Layla says, giving me a gentle nudge from behind. I’m holding up the line. I slide my phone into my pocket and head to our seats.

I packed very little for this trip. Two pairs of jeans, some shorts, a few T-shirts, and the engagement ring.

I tucked it into a sock and shoved the sock deep inside a pair of my running shoes. Layla has a separate suitcase, so there shouldn’t be a reason for her to dig through mine, but I don’t want her to find the ring. I bought it when she was still in the hospital. I knew it was premature, but I was

overwhelmed with fears of the unknown. I thought buying the ring might put some kind of energy into the universe that would make her recover faster.

Her recovery has been better than expected, but I’ve yet to propose.

She doesn’t even know I bought her the ring. I’m still not sure when I’m proposing because I want it to be perfect. It might not even happen on this trip, but I’d rather have the ring and not need it than need it and not have it.

I booked this trip because the last six months have been horrendous. It has taken a toll on us, emotionally and physically. I’m hoping going back to the place where Layla and I met will feel like a reset on our lives. I have this notion that if I take us back to the starting line, we’ll never cross the finish line.

Another potential lyric.

The man in front of me is attempting to shove his oversize suitcase into the overhead bin, so I take the pause in the movement of the line and type a tweaked version of that sentence into my notes. I keep running back to the starting line because I don’t want to be finished with you.

Layla’s recovery has been a lot more intense than my own. It was touch and go for an entire week. Once she was stable, it was still four weeks before she was discharged.

I blame myself daily for not being more careful. For not fearing Sable’s instability all those months before, when she refused to stop contacting me.

I blame myself for ever thinking it was a good idea to put Layla’s face out there while not expecting some sort of repercussions. I mean, it’s the fucking internet. I should have known better. Every post has some sort of repercussion.

We desperately need this trip. We need the privacy. A break from the outside world. I just want to go back to how it all was in the beginning. Just the two of us, locked up in a bedroom, having the best and most random conversations between rounds of sweaty sex.

I shove Layla’s carry-on into the overhead bin. We’re in seats 4A and 4B, the last row in first class. Layla takes the window seat. She’s been unusually quiet, which means she’s probably feeling anxious.

I haven’t told her where we’re going yet. I wanted it to be a surprise, but the unknown might be feeding her anxiety. I hadn’t really thought about that until this moment.

I sit down and fasten my seat belt while she closes the window shade.

“Any guesses where we’re headed?”

“I know we’re flying to Nebraska,” she says. “I don’t even know what’s in Nebraska.”

“We’re not actually staying in Nebraska. It’s the closest airport to where we’re going, though.”

That should be a hint, but she doesn’t seem to catch on to it. She grabs one of the small water bottles from between our seats and opens it. “I hope it’s relaxing. I don’t know that I’m in the mood for adventure.”

I try not to laugh at the thought of that. What does she expect? That I would sign her up for rock climbing or river rafting after she’s been in physical therapy for the past six months?

She’s been through so much and I know I’ve been extremely overprotective, but we’ve slowly been easing back into our old routine. No one can bounce back from something like that and immediately fall back into being their chipper, happy selves, so there’s still some ground to cover, but I’m confident our rhythm will come back with time.

Layla pulls her phone out of her purse before shoving the purse beneath the seat in front of her. “We need to post a picture of you on the plane,” she says, lifting her phone.

I smile, but she shakes her head, indicating she doesn’t want me to smile. I stop smiling. She snaps a picture of me and then opens it in an editing app.

It’s hard not being a little bitter at the idea of fame after what happened to us. Layla never would have been injured if it weren’t for social media.

She finishes editing the picture and holds it up for me to approve. I always approve them. I don’t really care what she posts, to be honest. I nod when I see the picture, but then I groan when I see the hashtags. #Singer

#Musician #LeedsGabriel #Model

“Model? Really, Layla? Am I trying to make it as a musician or an influencer?”

“You can’t be the former nowadays without also being the latter.” She posts the picture with the hashtags.

“They used to say MTV was the death of the ugly musician,” I mutter.

“Not even close. Instagram is the new grim reaper.”

“It’s a good thing you look like you do, then,” Layla says. She kisses me and then puts her phone back into her purse.

I turn my cell on airplane mode and drop it into the back pocket of the seat in front of me, dreading the inevitable pictures Layla will force me to take before my head hits the pillow tonight. I know I should be more grateful to her for wanting me to succeed. It just all feels dirty now. Our story made a few headlines and circulated in the Nashville scene, so it gave me a small bump in sales and a huge bump in followers—I’m over ten thousand now. But I can’t help but feel like I’m capitalizing off her injuries.

I feel like a sellout who never really had anything to sell out.

The plane begins to taxi, and Layla starts twisting the hem of her dress nervously. She’s already downed both bottles of our water.

The attack changed a lot of things about her. It changed both of us.

A lot was taken from her because of me. Months of her life. Her confidence. Her security. She was left with anxiety, dependency issues, night terrors, panic attacks, memory loss. The carefree and confident girl I fell in love with no longer sits next to me. Instead, I sit next to a girl who seems like she’s fighting not to crawl out of the skin she’s in.

It’s like all her resilience is buried beneath layers of scar tissue now.

Maybe that’s why I’ve let her basically take over as my manager while she recovers. I do what she says because my career is the only thing that seems to give her a sense of purpose. Keeps her mind off everything that’s happened.

And maybe that’s how she deals with it—by turning the one thing that caused all of this into a positive thing. Every aspect of our lives other than my career has suffered. Layla says it’s good we have that small sliver of positivity to hold on to. I don’t want to deprive her of that, but I kind of miss the days when she didn’t take my career as seriously. I miss it when she encouraged me to quit the band in order to preserve my own happiness.

I miss how she used to pull my guitar out of my hands so she could crawl on top of me. I miss it when she didn’t care about what was posted to my Instagram page.

But mostly, I miss just being myself around her. Lately, I feel like I’ve been inching away from the person I was so that I can become the person she now needs.

“Is the seat belt sign off yet?” she asks. Her face is buried in the sleeve of my shirt. She’s gripping my hand. Honestly, I hadn’t even realized we’d

taken off. It’s like I live inside my own head now more than I live in reality.

“Not yet.”

She must be extremely nervous right now if she can’t even lift her eyes to look for herself. I bring my hand to the side of her head and press my lips into her hair. She tries to hide it, but anxiety is not an invisible thing. I can see it in the way she holds herself. In the way her hands twist at her dress. In the way her jaw hardens. I can even see it in the way her eyes dart around when we’re in public, as if she’s waiting for someone to come around the corner and attack.

When a ding indicates the seat belt signs are off and it’s safe to move around the cabin, she finally separates herself from me. Her eyes flitter nervously around the cabin as she takes a mental note of her surroundings.

She lifts the shade and gazes out the window at the clouds, absentmindedly bringing her hand up to the scar on the side of her head. She’s always touching it. Sometimes I wonder what she thinks about when she touches it.

She has no memory of that night. Only what I’ve told her, but she rarely asks about it. She never asks about it, actually.

Her knee is bouncing up and down. She shifts in her seat and then glances back into coach. Her eyes are wide, like she’s on the edge of a panic attack.

She’s had two full-on panic attacks in the past month alone. This is how they both started. Her touching her scar. Her fingers trembling. Her eyes full of fear. Her breaths labored.

“You okay?”

She nods, but she doesn’t make eye contact with me. She just blows out several slow and quiet breaths, as if she’s trying to hide from me that she’s attempting to calm herself down.

She closes her eyes and leans her head back. She looks like she wants to crawl beneath her seat. “I need my pills,” she whispers.

I knew she didn’t seem right. I reach to the floor for her purse. I look for her anxiety medicine, but it’s not in her purse anywhere. Just a wallet, a pack of gum, and a lint roller. “Did you put them in the checked bag?”

“Shit,” she mutters, her eyes still closed. She’s gripping the arms of her seat, wincing as if she’s in pain. I don’t pretend to know what it’s like, dealing with anxiety. She tried to explain it to me last week. I asked her what the anxiety felt like. She said, “It’s like a shiver running through my blood.”

Up until that point, I had always assumed anxiety was just a heightened sense of worry. But she explained it was an actual physical feeling. She feels it running through her body like tiny waves of electric shocks. After she told me that, I just held her in my arms. I felt helpless. I always feel helpless now when it comes to her, which is why I go out of my way to make sure she’s okay.

And she is not okay right now.

“Do you want to go wait it out in the bathroom?” I ask her.

She nods, so I grab Layla’s hand and help her out of her seat. When we get to the front of the cabin, I lean in to the flight attendant. “She’s having a panic attack. I’m going in with her until it passes.”

The flight attendant takes one look at Layla, and her expression immediately turns sympathetic. She closes the curtain to block off the view of the bathroom door from the first-class cabin.

There’s no room for us to move once I close the door. I wrap one arm around Layla’s waist and pull her face to my chest. With my free hand, I wet a paper towel in the sink and then press it against the back of her neck while I hold her.

She told me last week that my arms work better for her than her weighted blanket. I don’t know how I feel about that—being the one thing that seems to ease her panic. I’d like for her to figure out how to fight these without my help. I can’t always be here with her, and I worry about what will happen if she has one when I’m not around.

I hold her for a moment, feeling her body trembling against mine.

“Want me to tell you where we’re going?” I ask her. “Maybe not knowing is making your anxiety worse.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to ruin your surprise.”

“I planned to tell you after takeoff anyway.” I pull her face from my chest so I can see her reaction. “We’re going to the Corazón del País. I booked it for two whole weeks.”

There isn’t an immediate reaction. But then, after a few seconds, she makes a confused face. “Where?”

I try to hide my concern, but this has been happening a lot. Things she should easily remember take a moment to come back to her. The doctor said it’s normal after brain damage, but it’s still jarring every time I realize just how much she lost.

That took a long time to accept—that she has brain damage.

It’s minor, but noticeable. Especially when it takes her a little longer to recall things that were huge for me. For us. I don’t take it personal, but I still feel the sting.

“The bed and breakfast,” I say.

Familiarity eases back into her expression. “Oh yeah. Aspen’s wedding. Garrett’s shitty band.” There’s a flicker of excitement in her eyes.

“The breakfast.”

“Actually, it’s not a bed and breakfast anymore. The place is up for sale now; it shut down three months ago. I emailed the Realtor and asked if we could rent it for a couple of weeks.”

“We have the whole place to ourselves?”

I nod. “Just me and you.”

“What about the cooks? And housekeepers?”

“It’s not a business anymore, so we’ll cook ourselves. I already had groceries delivered.” I can tell she’s still trying to overcome the minor panic attack, so I continue talking to keep her mind off it. “Aspen and Chad want to come stay a night. It’s only a couple hours from Wichita. They’re thinking Friday.”

Layla nods and then presses her cheek against my shirt. “That’ll be nice.”

I hold her for another couple of minutes—until she’s no longer shaking. “You feeling better?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I run my hand over her hair and kiss the top of her head. “We should go sit back down. Everyone on the plane will be talking about the couple who joined the mile-high club.”

She doesn’t release me. Instead, she brings her mouth close to mine and her hand begins to crawl down my chest, all the way to the button on my jeans. “Let’s not make them liars.” She stands on her tiptoes until her lips are pressed against mine.

I know she thinks this is probably some fantasy of mine— I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t—but not right now. Not after she just came down from a panic attack. It feels wrong.

I take her face in my hands. “Not here, okay?”

She deflates a little. “We’ll be fast.”

I kiss her. “Not right now. Tonight.” I back away from her and open the door, stepping aside to let her walk out.

She waves me out and shakes her head. “I want to use the bathroom first,” she says with a weak voice. Her eyes look like they’re frowning when I close the door. I walk back to my seat, feeling like a complete asshole for turning her down.

But it would have made me an even bigger asshole if I’d fucked her sixty seconds after she had a panic attack.

That’s not something I want her to get used to.

I can’t be the Band-Aid for her wounds. I need to be what helps them heal.

“How far away are we?” It’s the first thing she’s said since we got in the rental car. She fell asleep before we were even out of the airport terminal.

“About twenty minutes.”

She stretches her legs and arms and lets out a moaning sound that makes me shift in my seat. I’ve been regretting not bending her over the airplane sink since I walked out of the bathroom earlier. The old Leeds would have taken her up on that offer. Twice, probably.

Sometimes I think I’ve changed more than she has. My love for her has been over-the-top protective since her surgery. I think I’m too careful with her now. I’m careful when I speak to her, careful when I hug her, careful when I kiss her, careful when I make love to her.

I flip my blinker on to take the next exit. “We need gas. This is the last store before we get there. You need a bathroom break?”

Layla shakes her head. “I’m good.”

After we get to the gas station and I get the nozzle locked into place, I walk over to the passenger door and open it. Layla looks up at me, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun. I grab her hand and pull her out of the car.

I wrap my arms around her, leaning her against the car, and then I kiss the side of her head. “I’m sorry.”

It’s all I say. I don’t even know if she’s disappointed that I turned her down or if she even knows what I’m sorry for, but she sinks into me a little more.

“It’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to want me every second of the day.”

The wind is blowing her hair in her face, so I push it back with my hands. When I do this, I feel something in the strands of her hair. They’re clumped together—sticky between my fingers. I lean in and inspect her head, even though she tries to pull away. Her hair is dark, so I can’t see the blood, but when I pull my fingers back, the tips of them are red. “You’re bleeding.”

“Am I?” She presses her fingers against her head, right over her incision.

The gas nozzle clicks, so I release her and pull it out of the gas tank.

“Let me park the car and I’ll come inside and help you clean it up.”

After I park the car, I search the store shelves until I find a small first aid kit. I meet Layla in the women’s restroom with it. It’s a one-person stall, so I lock the door to the bathroom behind me. She faces me, leaning against the sink. I take a cotton swab and some peroxide out of the kit and clean the dried blood out of her hair first, then from around the incision.

“Did you hit your head on something?”

“No.”

“It’s pretty bad.” It should be healed by now. It’s been six months since she got the scar, but every couple of weeks it breaks open again.

“Maybe you should get it checked out this week.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” she says. “It’ll be fine. I’m fine.”

I finish cleaning it up and then put some antiseptic ointment on it. I don’t press her again about why it’s bleeding. She’ll never admit that she does it herself, but I’ve seen her picking at it.

I clean up the mess and close the first aid kit while Layla uses the restroom. She moves to the sink and washes her hands. I’m leaning against the bathroom door, watching her in the mirror.

What if I’m part of the problem? What if my hesitation to treat her exactly how I treated her before is holding her back somehow?

We make love a lot, but it’s different than it was before. In those first couple of months together, we were a combination of everything that makes sex good. I was sweet and gentle with her, but also reckless and rough, sometimes all at once. I didn’t treat her like she was fragile. I treated her like she was unbreakable.

Maybe that’s where I’ve gone wrong. I need to treat her like the person she’s trying to become again. The Layla who was full of strength and spontaneity before that was ripped from her.

She’s watching me in the mirror as I set the first aid kit next to her on the sink. Our eyes stay locked together as my hand bunches up her dress and then slips slowly between her thighs. I can see the roll of her throat when I hook my finger around her panties and yank them down.

I place my right hand on the back of her neck and push her forward while I unbutton my jeans.

And then, for the first time in six months, I’m not gentle with her at all.