Forever Layla: A Time Travel Romance

by Melissa Turner Lee

  He stepped even closer. “As soon as I knew it worked, I had to come. I had to see you. It’s all I’ve worked for all these years.” His hands were on my arms, and his blue eyes pierced into mine. “I’ve missed you, Layla. Everything good left when you did.”

  I cradled my still flat abdomen for the first time. “Not everything good.” I blinked and glanced down.

  “Layla, I had to…”

  I didn’t hear him finish as a new wave of nausea hit me. I turned and made for the bathroom, reaching it just in time to revisit my saltines and Coke. When I leaned up, a cold cloth was suddenly on my forehead. I held it there and grudgingly said, “Thank you.”

  David 2016 tested my cheek with the front of his hand “You’re sick?”

  “Maybe… or pregnant.”

  He got this look of awe on his face and stepped forward, but I put my hand out to stop him. “Was your Layla very sick during her pregnancy? I never heard that story if she was?”

  “No, every time I called her, she said she was feeling great.”

  “Hmmmm?” I let out a sigh. “Then maybe it’s just a bug.”

  I struggled to walk, feeling a bit weak. David’s arms wrapped around me, holding me up.

  “I can do this myself.” I tried to get away from him, but he wouldn’t let go of me. I was planning to go back to the living room, but David turned toward the bedroom. “Don’t come in here with me.”

  He stopped and stared down at me, his forehead wrinkled. “Why not?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable being alone in my bedroom with you.”

  His brow furrowed. “But I’m your husband.”

  “No, my husband is away at school, and you’re a widower.” I’m not sure why I was being so harsh toward him. Perhaps it was the hormones.

  Pain gripped his face, but he shut that down before he spoke. “I’m not planning on seducing you. I’m just putting you to bed since your husband isn’t here to help you.”

  He continued to the bedroom where he pulled down the comforter and settled me on several pillows before wrapping me up. He stepped back and took me in again, almost the way a mother might stare at her newborn—full of awe. I felt guilty that he’d come back to see his Layla and had stumbled on sick and grumpy me. I knew I looked a mess. But you’d never know it by his stare. “Why are you here?”

  “I told you, I wanted to see my wife again. It’s what has driven me night and day since you left me. I chose now because I knew my younger version was away chasing a stupid dream when he should have been cherishing each and every moment he had with you.”

  I looked away and swallowed. “It isn’t a stupid dream. But… I wish you hadn’t come.”

  “Why not?”

  I thought about it. Why was I so cross with him for coming? And then it hit me. “You look at me and see what you lost, right? And it hurts.”

  David nodded. “Like hell.”

  “You are the reminder of what I’m going to lose. I live knowing… every day knowing the future to come.” The tears filled my eyes and my voice broke. Suddenly he was beside me with his arms around me.

  “Please don’t cry. You were never a crier.”

  “Not in front of you. In front of you, I swallowed my sorrow and ate my own pain and let you live your life assuming all was good in the future. There wasn’t any point in you suffering before you absolutely had to. People aren’t supposed to know what’s ahead. It’s what keeps living normal and joyful.”

  “Had I known, I would have spent more time by your side.”

  “Exactly, and you wouldn’t be with Dr. Green and Dr. Volkoff right now learning what you needed to know for this trip of yours to be possible.”

  “No, I would have been at medical school, learning how to save you. You’d still be with me, and I wouldn’t need this trip.”

  “And you wouldn’t have been able to send me to 1994. We never would have been married.”

  “We could have figured out a way.”

  “Or maybe kept us from happening at all in the process. And what about our son? Do you think I’d risk him never being born? The world needs him more than it ever needed either of us.”

  I suddenly needed to get to the bathroom again. I pushed the blanket off, but before I could, David had me up and was helping me to the bathroom. I realized then that had he not been there, my legs would have been too weak to carry me. I vomited again, but this time I was too weak to stand after.

  “Something isn’t right. I think I’m dehydrated.” I said in gasps before getting sick again. When I could finally speak again I said, “Call 911”

  “No, I’ll take you there myself.” David lifted me off the floor and carried me to the kitchen where the car keys hung. He took my car keys and headed for the door.

  “I’ll need my purse for my insurance information,” I whispered against his shoulder as my head hung like a ragdoll’s.

  “I’ll get it after I put you in the car.”

  He placed me in the passenger seat, buckled me in, and closed the door. I must have gone to sleep because when I woke I was on a gurney in the ER. I tried to sit up. “I’m going to be sick again.” All I could manage was to turn my face as a nurse placed a kidney bowl under my mouth. I finished being sick, rolled my head back away from the bowl, and was out again.

  When I woke there were ticks and beeps in a rhythmic pattern. I blinked as I tried to focus and remember where I was. David was holding my hand. “David, where am I?” He leaned forward and I saw that it wasn’t my David, and I remembered.

  “What’s happening?”

  “You became severely dehydrated and passed out.”

  I tried to sit up. “How long was I out? Can I have some water?”

  “They said ice chips for now.” David stood and brought a white foam cup full of ice to my lips and spooned some of the chips in. “You’ve been in and out since yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? Do they know what I have?”

  Just then the nurse came in. “She’s awake. Good, I’ll let Dr. Bridges know. He wants to talk to you both.” She turned and left.

  “Why do they need to talk to both of us?”

  “You needed a relative to sign for your treatment. They asked my relation to you so I said I was your husband.”

  A young, sandy haired doctor pulled back the curtain and walked to the foot of the bed. “How are you feeling Mrs. Foster?”

  “Sleepy and still a bit nauseous.” I blinked, trying to open my eyes wider.

  “The groggy feeling is from the Phenergan we gave you for the nausea. Sleepiness is a side effect, plus you were pretty dehydrated and weak when you got here. Take it easy on the ice chips. You don’t want to start throwing up violently again. When did your symptoms first start?”

  “This morning at work…I mean, yesterday. I thought I might be pregnant when I counted up, but this isn’t normal morning sickness so I figured it must be a bug.”

  “You were right with your first guess, but you are also right that this isn’t normal morning sickness. You have what is known as Hyperemesis Gravidorum. It is extreme morning sickness that can put you in the hospital like this.”

  So I was pregnant. My hand went to my tummy as I realized it was happening. All Layla’s stories were happening to me. But I’d never heard of the ones where she was sick like this. “What can I do?”

  “If you have someone to watch over you, we can send you home. If not, you have to stay here for a few days.”

  David stepped closer to me. “I’ll take care of her.”

  “Great! We’re going to have a nurse teach your husband how to administer an IV.”

  I glanced at David and then back at the doctor. “What?”

  “It may not come to that if the Phenergan continues to help, but doing it at home will keep you out of the ER.”

  “But my husband is out of town most of the time.”

  David’s arm rested on my shoulder. “I will stay with you.”

  I turned to face him. “No, y
ou won’t.”

  “I’m going to let you two work this out and will be back to check on you in a few hours. But I will not release you if there isn’t someone available at home to help you. ” The doctor then turned to David. “Make her rest until she gets her strength back. No driving while on the Phenergan, and the nurse will be in to show you how to administer the IV in just a little while.”

  When he left, I sank back in the bed. “I never knew this about Layla’s life.”

  David blinked and then glared at me like he was angry. “Neither did I. You kept this from me?”

  “You need the classes under the professors visiting for the summer. You’ve talked non-stop about it. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

  “I needed to be taking care of my wife. But whenever I called to check on her, she told me she was fine. You didn’t even tell me until I got home from the first summer session that you were pregnant, and you swore that you were feeling great.” His teeth were grinding together at that point.

  “I haven’t done any of that yet.”

  “You have for me. I’m finding out ‘Saint Layla’ was just a liar.” For the first time ever, his eyes took me in with an expression of disgust as he turned away to stare at the wall.

  “Hey, I never asked to be canonized. That was your doing.”

  He spun around, his expression livid as he glared at me. “Why would you keep all this from me?”

  “It was my job to make sure you reached your destiny.” My voice rose more than it should have.

  David spun around and ran his hands through his hair before turning back to me. “I hate him.”

  “Who?”

  “That idiot boy you’re married to. He’s a blind fool chasing his dreams and assuming all will be well along his path to find them.”

  “Isn’t that how most people are?” I turned and looked at the beige wall.

  David walked around the bed to look me in the eye. “I hate him mostly because he has you and takes all this for granted. He doesn’t even know what you go through for him. I know, but I don’t have you anymore. It isn’t fair. He doesn’t deserve you.” His blue eyes were wet, like a river overflowing its bank.

  I didn’t have time for my own emotions, let alone his. “We have to figure out how I’m going to make it home.”

  “I’ll stay and take care of you.”

  “And have the people of Chesnee talking about the older man hanging around at my place while you are at college? That’s really going to heal the rift between me and your folks.”

  “That’s right. We still weren’t speaking to them then.” David plopped down in the chair. “When I got home at the end of the summer semester, you and my mom were thick as thieves.” He looked back at me, understanding filled his expression. “You must have called her for help. Call her. My dad’s a dentist. I’m sure between the two of them they can deal with IVs and medication.”

  “I don’t see why they can’t just show me how to do the IV.”

  “You can’t do this for yourself. Think of DJ.”

  I cradled my middle again, considering my options.

  “Call them or I stay.”

  I looked at David. “Hand me the phone and dial them for me.”

  David’s mom answered. I swallowed hard and made myself speak. “Hello, Mrs. Foster, this is Layla. I’m really sorry to bother you but…I’m at the hospital and I need your help.”

  “Has something happened to David?” I could hear the panic in her voice.

  “No, ma’am. David’s fine. He’s at college. It’s me that needs help. I’m very sick, and it looks like I will need some help at home for a while, but I don’t have any family to call.”

  “What do you need?”

  “I have a severe form of morning sickness, and they need to teach someone how to give me IVs at home.”

  “Morning sickness? Then you’re…”

  I had to smile as I thought of the little boy on the way. “Yes, I’m pregnant.”

  “Why isn’t David there helping you?”

  “Because I don’t want to take him away from his dreams. He needs to stay at college for now, and I need to deal with this. If I told him, he’d rush back, and I can’t do that to him.”

  “You’re really trying to do what’s best for my son?”

  “Yes, I love your David very much.” I glanced up at David 2016. “And I always will.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She hung up, and I handed the phone to David. “She’s coming, so now you need to go.”

  “I don’t want to leave you. Please, don’t make me leave you.” He took my hand and blinked back tears.

  “And I didn’t want to leave you. I want to stop it with every fiber of my being. I want to stay with my family.”

  “You haven’t left your David yet. We could change this.” He was sitting, leaning into me on the bed. I swallowed back my own tears as always.

  “Ever since I realized that I was Layla, I have lived every single day knowing that I will leave you and our son far too early. And every single day, I wish there was a way to stop it, but I can’t.”

  “Maybe you could if you let your David help you.”

  “I can’t. It could change something.” My hands cradled my still flat abdomen. “What we created together is more important than either one of us as individuals. I won’t do a thing to save me or you—if it would jeopardize him.”

  “We could have found a way if you had ever let me in on the problem.”

  “No, I can’t risk it. His path is wrapped up in ours. If ours were to change, so might his.”

  David leaned down and kissed my forehead. “You deserved someone better than me.”

  “There’s no such person.” I closed my eyes and leaned into him, letting him hold me as I breathed him in. This was the David of my childhood dreams—the mature David, all alone, longing for his Layla, until he found a way back to her. And what he got when he succeeded was a sick woman bitter about the fact that she’d never know that David as her husband. A woman growing weary of being strong for everyone else but with no other choice.

  “You know, I love you more than he does.”

  I said nothing at first, slowly digesting his words. “That’s because true love only grows with time. You’ve loved me longer.”

  I tried to sit up straighter and pushed David away. “You need to go before your mom gets here.” I turned my head to avoid looking at him directly. My heart couldn’t take it.

  “I won’t say goodbye to you.” A tremble overtook his voice. “Until we meet again, either here on earth, or up in heaven.”

  I rolled over in the bed and faced the wall, fighting back the tears. I ate my pain just like normal and was thankful for the drugs as I gave into the sleepiness from the medication and my own weariness.

  Chapter 16

  Layla

  I SETTLED INTO THE bed Mrs. Foster had made up for me and looked around the room. I remembered it from the tour on David’s birthday two years before. The room was still decorated in Star Trek posters and a shelf of metal lunchboxes with titles like, Quantum Leap, Doctor Who, and Star Wars. It had never occurred to me what he had left behind when he left home. I wondered if he had left those things in some show of leaving his childhood behind. Then I wondered if his mother had left it as it was in hopes that her little boy would one day come back to it.

  I cradled my tummy instinctively as I considered what it would be like to have a child walk out and not return. It created a new sympathy for my mother-in-law.

  There was a knock at the door, and I sat up. “Come in.”

  Mrs. Foster stood at the door holding a tray. “I made you some chicken broth. I put some saltines on the side and some natural ginger ale. The kind with real ginger is supposed to help with nausea.”

  I adjusted my position on the bed so she could place the tray over my lap. I didn’t really feel like eating, but I knew I had to try—if not for this fledgling relationship betwee
n us, then for my son. “Thank you. I’m sorry I had to call you. I didn’t mean for you to bring me to your house. Just maybe check on me at mine or be on call if I needed someone.”

  “Nonsense. The doctor said you got seriously dehydrated very rapidly. We can’t risk it until you are doing better.” My mother-in-law pulled a chair from underneath the desk in the room and pulled it beside the bed and took a seat. “The doctor said your husband was there earlier? But you said you didn’t want to pull David from his studies.”

  I bit my lip, hating to lie, but knowing I had no other choice. “It was Mr. Duke. He had sent me home sick and came by to check on me and saw I was in really bad shape. I must have blacked out on the ride to the hospital, and they needed a family member to sign for my treatment He pretended to be David.”

  “I still don’t understand why you don’t want David to know. We can tell him you’re here with us and being well taken care of, so he won’t worry about you.”

  “But what if he does worry and doesn’t pay attention in class or what if he does rush back? I can’t risk that he’d come home and not finish this semester.”

  “Why not? There will be other semesters.”

  “Not with the professors he has right now. They are visiting for the summer, and David has been studying their work for some time now.”

  “I still don’t get what David plans to do with his future. What he’s studying isn’t practical. The most he can do is become a dusty old professor. I remember my science professors from college. They all had crazy hair and seemed out of touch with the rest of the world outside of academia”

  “If that’s his dream… most people don’t think dentistry is glamorous either.” I didn’t want to disagree with her, but I had to defend David’s choices.

  “I suppose. I guess I’ve always been a bit of a micromanager. I can see the kind of life joining his father’s practice would provide. I can’t picture where this other path will take him.” She pointed all around his room. “I’ve never been a fan of David’s science fiction obsession. Did you know that’s why he started tutoring and ended up best friends with Michael? I gave him an allowance each week, but made him save it up to buy practical things, like school clothes and such. I found out after the fact that he had started tutoring kids in the school’s library, so that it was his money clear and free of me telling him how to spend it. I guess he has always had his own interests, and I’ve always tried to bend him to mine. In the end, I pushed him out of my life.”