Layla

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.

It’s become our nightly routine. She stresses out. I soothe her. We make love.

I took a shower after Layla fell asleep. I still couldn’t sleep after that, so I went downstairs and crammed in an entire day’s worth of stuff in the span of two hours. I’ve shaved, washed the dishes, written some lyrics for a new song.

It’s now one o’clock in the morning, and I’m finally back in the bed with Layla, but my mind still won’t settle down.

I close my eyes and try to force myself to sleep, but my mind is racing. I thought today would be different for Layla. Stress-free. I thought maybe it would be like the first time we were here—but it hasn’t been.

Today has been like all the other days since the hospital. As much as I don’t want to suggest it again, I really think she needs to start seeing a therapist.

The doctor recommended it. Her mother and sister recommended it. But she insisted she would be fine. Until now, I’ve been on her side. I thought if I supported her through her recovery, the anxiety would pass. But it’s getting worse.

I’m staring at the alarm clock when I feel Layla’s side of the bed shift.

I hear her stand up and walk across the hardwood floor.

At first, I think maybe she’s heading to the bathroom. But the sound of her walking ceases, and she doesn’t move for a while. I can feel that she’s not in the bed, though, so I turn over to see what she’s doing.

There’s a standup mirror on the wall a few feet away from the bed.

Layla is staring at herself. It’s dark in here, other than a little light from the

moon shining through the window, so I’m not sure what she’s trying to see.

She turns from left to right, inspecting herself in the mirror. It’s strange how long she stares at herself. I wait another couple of minutes, thinking she’ll come back to bed, but she doesn’t.

She steps closer to the mirror, lifting a hand to the glass. She traces her index finger over the mirror as if she’s outlining her body.

“Layla?”

Her head snaps back in my direction. Her eyes are wide with embarrassment—like she got caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. She rushes back to the bed and slips under the covers with her back to me. “Go back to sleep,” she says in a whisper. “I’m fine.”

I stare at the back of her head for a while, but then I turn away from her. I certainly can’t sleep, though. Especially now.

I’m staring at the alarm clock when it turns over to 1:30 a.m. Layla has already fallen back asleep. She’s snoring lightly.

I can’t sleep, no matter how long I lie here.

I sneak out of bed, grab my cell phone, and go downstairs. I take a seat on the couch in the Grand Room. It’s 1:35 here, but it’s only 11:35 back in Seattle. My mother never goes to sleep before midnight, so I text her to see if she’s up. She responds with a phone call.

I lie against the arm of the couch and swipe my finger across my phone screen. “Hey.”

“You guys made it to Kansas?” she says.

“Yeah. Got here around five o’clock.”

“How’s Layla?”

“Fine. Same.”

“How are you?”

I sigh. “Fine. Same.”

My mother laughs because she can tell when I’m full of shit. But she also knows I’ll tell her what I feel like telling her when I feel like telling her.

“How’s Tim?” He’s the first guy my mother has dated since my father died. I’ve met him a couple of times. He seems all right. Meek. Gentle. Just the kind of guy I’d want for my mother.

“He’s fine. His morning class didn’t have enough students, so it got dropped. Now he has an extra free hour in the mornings. He’s really liking that.”

“Good for him,” I say. And then, before I can even think about the words coming out of my mouth, I ask her, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“That’s random.”

“I know. I just don’t remember you ever talking about ghosts.”

“I’m kind of indifferent to the idea of them,” she says. “I don’t not believe in them, but I don’t know that I’ve ever had an experience that would make me believe in them.” She pauses for a moment, then says,

“Why? Do you?”

“No,” I say. Because I don’t. “But earlier . . . I don’t know. Something weird happened. I almost caught the house on fire while I was cooking. I was upstairs before I noticed the smoke. When I got back to the kitchen, the rag I had left on the stove was in the sink. Water was running on top of it.

The pan had been knocked to the floor, and someone turned off the burner.

Layla was upstairs the whole time, so it couldn’t have been her.”

“That is weird,” she says. “Does that place have a security system?”

“No. But the house was locked up from the inside. Even the windows, so no one could have put a fire out and then left without being seen.”

“Hmm,” she says. “It’s definitely weird. But if someone saved the place from burning down, it sounds like you have a guardian angel. Not a ghost.”

I laugh.

“Or a haunted house . . . keeper,” my mother says, laughing at her own pun. “What else is going on?”

I sigh again, but don’t elaborate on the sigh.

“It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling, Leeds.”

“I didn’t say I was feeling any certain way.”

“You don’t have to. I’m your mother. I can hear the stress in your voice. And guilt has always been your worst trait.”

She’s right about that. I press my palm to my forehead. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Let’s see . . . ,” she says. “You were attacked in your own home. The girl you love almost died. You spent an entire month by her side in a hospital, and even longer after that caring for her. I can imagine that’s pretty stressful,” she says. “And to top all that off, you have a ghost.”

I laugh, feeling the tension ease from my shoulders. She’s always had a way of justifying everything I don’t even have to tell her I’m feeling.

“You know what I miss?” my mother asks.

“What?”

“You. It’s been six months since I’ve seen you, and those weren’t good circumstances. When are you coming to Seattle?”

“Soon. Now that Layla has been cleared to travel, I’ll see what she wants to do. Next month sound good?”

“I don’t care when you get here as long as you eventually get here.”

“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow after I talk to her.”

“Sounds good. Miss you and love you. Hug Layla for me.”

“I will. I love you too.”

I end the call and stay motionless in my defeated position on the couch. Maybe I’m depressed. Maybe I need therapy.

As shitty as it is to think, I kind of hope everything I’ve been feeling lately is a result of depression. A chemical imbalance of some kind. I could take a pill every day and then hopefully start to fall back in love with my life.

This all sounds like it could be a song. I reach over to the end table where I left my laptop earlier, and I open a Word document. I start typing out lyrics.

I’d feel nothing if you punched me in the heart

I’d feel even less if you stabbed me with a knife But I didn’t fall out of love with you

I fell out of love with life

I study the lyrics, convinced I’ve never written truer words. Nothing excites me anymore, it seems. Not even writing music. It feels like I’m opening wounds I’ve been trying to heal.

I should just buy this place. We could stay here forever, plant a garden, get a dog and some cats. Maybe some chickens. We could reopen it as a bed and breakfast and watch people get married in the backyard every Saturday.

I minus out the Microsoft Word app and open Google. I type in the Realtor’s website and search for the house. I have the listing saved in my favorites because I’ve looked at it almost daily since I found out it was for sale. It’s not hard to imagine me and Layla building a life here.

Maybe I could accept growing the public side of my career if I also had an extremely isolated private life. I’m sure there’s a way to find a good balance between both.

Her recovery would probably be less stressful here, especially if I installed a privacy fence and an electronic gate. Get her out of the city where all our bad memories began.

I click on the email icon to email the Realtor. I have some questions about the property, and I’d like her to meet us here at the house so Layla can be a part of the decision.

As soon as I’m finished typing the email, I move the cursor to send, but before I click it, my laptop slams shut—right on top of my hands.

What the fuck?

I toss the laptop away from me. It’s a gut instinct to throw it, even though it pains me as I watch it crash against the hardwood floor.

But what the fuck was that?

I look down at my hands. I look at the laptop that’s three feet away from my feet. There’s no way to explain that. It closed with enough force that two of my knuckles are red.

I immediately run up the stairs. When I get to the bedroom, I lock the door behind me.

I think of all the things that could have caused that to happen, but I come up empty. That can’t be blamed on a broken hinge, or a faulty appliance, or wind.

I don’t believe in ghosts. This is stupid. Fucking stupid.

Maybe I’m delirious. I woke up at 4:00 a.m. in Tennessee yesterday so I could get us packed for our trip here. I’ve been up almost twenty-four hours now.

That has to be it. I just need sleep. Lots of it.

I crawl into bed, my heart still pounding. I pull the covers over my head like a scared toddler trying to shut out the monsters.

I’ll go find a Best Buy tomorrow. Figure out what’s wrong with my laptop. While I’m there, I’ll buy cameras. Some kind of security system that can be connected to an app on my phone.

From this point forward, anything weird that happens in this house will be recorded.