Roses for Layla (The Sweetheart Series Book 1)

by Ash Night

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Will it get me out of here?

  “No, I’m afraid it won’t.”

  Didn’t think so

  “It won’t get you out of here, but it could prevent a longer stay. The court sees you as mentally unstable right now. If you talk to me, I can write about everything you tell me and maybe convince the jury that your actions were justified, Layla. Please, you can trust me. I believe you’re innocent in all this.”

  I did kill him. I’m not innocent. I haven’t been innocent in a long time

  “Hmm…Were you angry at Mr. McDermott?”

  My hands shook as the pen hovered over the paper. His grinning face invaded my mind and wouldn’t leave. He was laughing at me. He would never leave. I wanted to be free.

  I want to be free of him. He won’t go away. He won’t leave me alone

  “Do you see him here now?” The doctor leaned forward, interested. His eyes were warm. In that moment, I could tell I had been wrong about him. He truly cared about me. He wanted to help me.

  Yes, he haunts me every time I close my eyes. I can’t escape him. He wanted to make me his forever…and he succeeded.

  “No, Layla, Mr. McDermott did not succeed. No one can owe a person, no matter what he may have told you. You are your own person with your own thoughts and feelings. Did you see him while you were sleeping before?”

  No, but I can’t stop thinking about him now. I hadn’t even known I had fallen asleep until I looked at the clock

  He wrote something down in his notebook. His eyes were focused, as if he didn’t want to leave out a single word of whatever it was he was writing. I was curious what he was writing down, but he probably wouldn’t have let me see it anyway. Finally, he set the pen down. “Would you like to go watch some TV?”

  I’m allowed to do that?

  He laughed. “Yes, Layla, you aren’t a prisoner here.”

  Sure feels like it

  He laughed again, leading me out of the room. After observing you, I do not believe you’re a threat to anyone.”

  It was the first time I’d been out of my room since being admitted last night. I was led to a rec room that apparently everyone hung out in. Three girls were parked on the yellow couch, watching an old Lifetime movie. Another girl was painting at the large round table. None of them looked at me until my stomach growled at the smell of popcorn. The three girls turned to look at me. Painter girl didn’t even react.

  “Cassie, Sam, Brin, May, this is Layla. Please treat her with respect. She’s going to be staying with us for a while. Nurse Coach, I leave her in your hands.” The doctor smiled at her and nodded before leaving. It occurred to me that I hadn’t bothered to learn his name.

  “Want some?” One of the girls on the couch offered me the bowl of popcorn. The girl looked nice enough. She was blonde and had nice teeth. Probably hadn’t done drugs a day in her life. Her complexion was too clear.

  No thanks

  She smiled without batting an eye at the fact I has just used a notebook to answer her instead of talking to her. “Okay, lemme know if you do.” She turned back to her movie just like the two other girls. I didn’t see the third girl the doc had mentioned. Maybe he spent too much time around crazy people and was going crazy himself.

  Curiosity got the better of me and I watched the girl at the table. She was painting a sunset on a lake. There was a house in the picture, but it was painted in a dull, muted brown compared to the vibrant colors used for everything around it. It had to mean something.

  I sat across from her and started scribbling absentmindedly on a fresh page of my notebook. When I finally tore my attention away from the girl, I realized what I was drawing. A piece of popcorn.

  “This usually helps me.” I looked up. It was the girl who had offered me the bowl of popcorn. She had set a piece of popcorn in front of my notebook. “Seeing it can help you draw it better, at least in my case.” She sat in the chair next to me after getting a piece of paper of her own and a pencil out of the drawer. “So, Layla, right? Doctor Trey dropped you off here. What did you do to score a session with him? I’m Cassie, by the way.”

  Bad shit, Cassie

  Cassie nodded. “I understand. Are you here long term or just on hold?”

  Another 61 hours and fifteen minutes

  “Wow. That bad, huh?”

  The waiting is the worst

  “Yeah, watching the same movie ten times can get pretty boring. But what else is there to do?” She shrugged. “But it’s not so bad. Life is what you make it, they say.”

  So, nothing but shit?

  She laughed. “It can be. But once I introduce you to the crew, you can make it fun.”

  The crew?

  Cassie led me over to the couch. “This is May and Sam. The one sitting on the floor is Brin.”

  Brin waved at me from her seat on the floor. No wonder I didn’t see her before. Aside from being hidden by the couch, the girl couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds.

  May offered me a timid smile. Sam barely acknowledged my existence. Cassie chuckled. “Don’t mind Sam. She takes a while to warm up to people. She’s been here the longest so, as you can imagine, she doesn’t really like getting close to others. Brin is the youngest. She’s sixteen.”

  Hi

  “A Not-talker, huh?” Sam asked. “What does Trey think of that? He give you the fourth degree yet?”

  I shook my head. He’s not that bad. Just a little too personal

  “Girl has a sense of humor. Good.” Sam’s ruby red lips curved into a smile. “What’d ya do, Silent?”

  Instead of writing it again, I pointed to the answer I’d given Cassie. Sam laughed. “Okay, then. Bad shit. I can understand that. The world is full of bad shit.”

  I refrained from rolling my eyes. She had no idea. What did you do?

  “Not up for discussion.” She shrugged. “But if you ask me, maybe I’ll consider telling you.”

  I frowned. Cassie rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry. It’s fine. If you want, I can tell you later.” She winked at Sam. Sam groaned.

  I sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall above the TV. Sixty hours and fifty-five minutes to go.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Layla

  Lunch with the girls was, so far, uneventful. It was quiet. Literally no one talked. It was a little creepy. Twenty minutes had gone by. Of course, I hadn’t talked in nearly a week so who was I to judge?

  Painter girl was sitting alone at the far end of our table, eating yogurt out of a Styrofoam bowl. The painting girl’s name was Ruth. She was twenty-six. She looked like she was seventeen.

  Dum-dum. I look up from my scribbling to see Brin sitting further to my left. She was drumming her fingers on the faux wood table while staring at her carrot sticks and tiny cup of dressing. Her brow was furrowed, like she was mad at the food.

  Upset stomach?

  She shook her head after barely glancing at my notepad. “No. It’s too many. I can’t eat.”

  I frowned. I didn’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. Brin had a food issue, like one of those models I’d seen on a reality TV show I saw once. I had thought she was just hyper. The girl literally never stopped moving. It was exhausting.

  It can’t be that many. Like, 10? I shrugged. I had no idea how many calories were in carrots with dip. It couldn’t have been too much. Carrots were healthy.

  She shook her head again. “Five per stick, then ninety for the low-fat dressing. It is low fat, right?” I whistled under my breath. That was impressive.

  “Yes, Brin,” a nurse said. “We never give you full-fat dip. You have to eat. If you skip lunch, you get a replacement shake.”

  “I don’t like those!” she yelled, nearly in tears. “Please don’t give me that…”

  “Then you have to eat,” the nurse said.

  “I know…”

  Cassie smiled encouragingly at Brin. “I know it’s hard, sweetie, but you want to see your little brother, don’
t you? I bet he misses you.”

  Brin sniffled. “Yeah…He wrote me a letter. Dr. Stevens said I could read it after lunch, if I didn’t exercise.”

  “That’s great! I’ll go with you to get it after lunch, and I’ll draw you while you read it so you have to stay perfectly still, okay? We can even mail it to him so he can see how good you’re doing.”

  She smiled wide. “Thank you so much, Cassie!”

  It took her thirty minutes, but she ate the five carrot sticks on her plate along with half of the dip. I found myself clapping with the other girls and I felt oddly proud of Brin. I didn’t understand why.

  After eating an apple, Dr. Trey Marston showed me back to my room. I lay back on the bed for a few hours until dinner. I thought about Kristen and the other girls. I wondered how they were doing.

  Was Ryder working on his music? It was Tuesday. He didn’t have to work. On his days off, he spent the majority of the day scribbling down lyrics and figuring out melodies for them.

  Closing my eyes, I could hear him singing as he strummed his guitar in the park. That day had been nice, aside from the fact I had ended up in the hospital. I was a little sad he didn’t come visit. Was he even allowed to? I still wasn’t sure about everything I was and wasn’t allowed to do while ‘on hold’ as Cassie had put it.

  Cassie was hard to figure out. One minute she was happy, but the next, when she thought no one was looking, she looked anxious. She looked like I felt. Did she have something similar to me? Dr. Trey called my condition PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder. His description of it seemed to fit me. He had also assured me it could be treated. I just hoped it wouldn’t mean having to stay here.

  Cassie was nice enough, but her friends scared me. They were all so fine with being in this place. How could anyone be fine with being here? How could anyone even work here? It was depressing. It made me itchy. I was like a trapped animal. From what I’d seen, none of the girls were allowed outside. Even under Devin’s rule, we were allowed outside.

  Thinking about him made my chest feel tight and I could feel my throat closing up. Ryder had once explained to me what a panic attack was. I was pretty sure I was having one. What did I do now?

  Ground yourself.

  Getting up took a lot of effort, more than I assumed I had, but I made it to the floor.

  He’s dead. He can’t hurt me anymore. Even as I thought that, I knew the words were a lie. He could hurt me. He was hurting me. He would always hurt me. The physical pain was nothing compared to this. Scared of my own shadow. Reduced to a sobbing, hyperventilating mess at the drop of a hat. I’d almost rather he’d be beating me. At least that had an end.

  “Layla, it’s okay.” Dr. Trey walked in, looking concerned. “Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Slowly.”

  Since grounding myself wasn’t working, I decided to take his advice. I focused on breathing, taking three deep breaths in through my nose and slowly exhaling out of my mouth. The tightness faded and my heart quieted down to a dull roar. I smiled at him, beyond thankful for his help.

  “Better?” he asked, sitting down in his usual spot. I nodded and sat on the bed. “It’s almost dinner time. Are you hungry? I see you’ve made some friends. You’ll have someone to sit with.”

  Cassie’s okay. The others are a bit odd. Of course, this is a mental hospital. I suppose we’re all weird if we’re in here.

  He frowned. “None of you are weird, in my honest opinion. Your brains are wired uniquely, that’s all. Everyone reacts differently to stress. You, for example, have stopped talking, your sleep pattern is a mess, and all you’ve had to eat in the last five days is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple.”

  C-R-A-Z-Y

  “No, not at all. While this behavior is not normal, it’s a common reaction in someone who feels guilty. What I want to know is why you feel guilty. Is it survivor’s guilt? I heard what Kristen Alice said on the news. She said there were girls who didn’t make to see the day Mr. McDermott died. Is that why you feel guilty? Because you did?”

  I flinched. I hadn’t seen the news in days. When had Kristen said that? Why was she on the news? Who in their right mind would think to interview any of the girls before letting us all heal?

  “The news has been anxious to hear from you too,” he continued. “Of course, we wouldn’t let them before you’ve been evaluated. That’s the reason for the seventy-two-hour hold in the first place.”

  Were they bugging Ryder? I bet he hated that. He liked his privacy. I wondered how he was reacting. He was back on his meds hopefully. That brought up a good question.

  Will I be on meds?

  “I may prescribe Fluoxetine or Sertraline.” He chuckled when I gave him a confused look. “Sorry, Prozac or Zoloft.”

  Will it change me? I’ve never been on…legal drugs before

  “It will be a low dose, given your heart condition. We’ll monitor it for a few months and adjust it as needed. It’s really nothing to worry about, Layla. I promise.”

  Will I still get the meds in jail?

  “If you were to go, yes. But I will do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  I wanted to believe him. I wanted to. But I was wrong. The court would see that. They would see I was an evil, dirty murderer. I’d promised myself to never kill for him. But I had. I deserved to be in jail.

  The tightness crawled back inside my chest as I heard Devin laughing inside my mind. Drawing my knees to my chest, I hugged my knees.

  “Layla?” Dr. Trey knelt beside me. “Deep breaths.”

  Tears streamed from my eyes as I shook my head. “That won’t help. Nothing will help.” My voice was rough with disuse. “He got what he wanted. He got what he wanted…”

  Before I knew the sound was coming from me, I started screaming and sobbing. This moment was never going to end. I was going insane, and I didn’t care. I didn’t care if these four blank walls were my home now.

  Beauty be damned.