Layla

by Colleen Hoover

  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.

&nbs
p; 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.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I enter the pass code given to me by the real estate agent. The gate is wrought iron and shakes as it slides unsure across the gravel driveway, as if it’s struggling to remember how to operate.

  The bed and breakfast is a two-story old Victorian-style mansion overlooking acres of dense trees. It’s stark white with a red front door, and from what I can remember, six bedrooms upstairs and a couple downstairs.

  At first glance, the property looks the same as it did last year—just more vacant. The parking lot is empty. No guests walking the grounds. The first time I pulled into this place, I remember there being an energetic buzz as everyone was preparing for Aspen and Chad’s wedding. It was in the height of the summer, so the grass was green and the lawn was manicured.

  Right now, the grounds look to be in limbo, waiting for spring to bring back all the life that was murdered by winter.

  “It looks the same,” I say, putting the car in park, even though it doesn’t really look the same at all. It looks . . . lonelier.

  Layla says nothing.

  I open my door and can’t help noticing the emptiness in the air. No smells, no sounds, no birds chirping. It’s quiet now, and I sort of like that. I welcome the idea of being in the heart of the country with Layla again, with the bonus of complete isolation.

  We grab our suitcases from the trunk. I pull both of them up the porch steps while Layla uses the keypad and the code given to me by the Realtor to open the door.

  I step inside first and immediately notice the smell is different. I don’t remember it smelling like mothballs at the wedding last year. Hopefully there are candles we can light to overpower that scent.

  Layla takes a step over the threshold, and as soon as she does, she shudders. She lifts a hand to the wall, like she’s trying to steady herself.

  “You okay?”

  She nods. “Yeah. I just . . .” She closes her eyes for a few seconds. “It’s cold in here. And my head hurts. I kind of want to take a nap.”

  It’s not cold. It’s actually kind of stuffy, but her arms are covered in goosebumps.

  “I’ll find the thermostat. Leave your suitcase, and I’ll bring it to our old room for you in a second.” I head into the kitchen to search for the thermostat. It’s not in the kitchen, but I’m relieved to see the Realtor delivered the groceries. I wouldn’t normally ask someone to grocery shop for me, but she offered, and I tipped her well.

  I wasn’t sure they’d allow us to stay here, so I alluded to the fact that I’m interested in buying the place and wanted a trial run. I haven’t mentioned that to Layla, though. I wanted to check the place out first—see if we love it as much as we did when we were first there.

  I’m not so sure the look that’s been on Layla’s face since we pulled into the driveway conveys a desire to live here, though. If anything, she looks ready to leave.

  I walk toward the Grand Room to see if that’s where the thermostat is located. I’m relieved to see the baby grand piano is still here. The lid is shut and there’s a fine layer of dust over it, which makes me sad. A piano this beautiful deserves to be played, but by the looks of it, I might have been the last person to have touched it.

  I run my finger across the top of the piano, clearing a line of dust away. I didn’t know what to expect when I was told this place was vacant. I was worried that meant the owners moved the piano out, but all the same furniture is still here.

  Layla knows this is as much of a work trip as it is a vacation. I have an album to write, so I plan on using the piano as much as I can without making Layla feel like music is my priority these next two weeks.

  Hell, she’ll probably make it my priority. She wants me to finish this album more than I want to finish it myself.

  I leave the Grand Room after failing to find the thermostat. I glance down the hallway and see Layla peeking into a room. She closes the door and then continues walking and opens the door to a second room. She seems confused—as if she can’t remember where our room was. She starts to close that door.

  “It’s upstairs, Layla.”

  She startles when I say that, spinning around. “I know.” She points to the room she
was about to walk past and heads inside. “I just . . . need to use the restroom first.” She slips inside the bathroom and closes the door.

  She just used the restroom twenty minutes ago at the gas station.

  Sometimes I feel like her memory loss is worse than she admits. I’ve thought about testing her—maybe bringing up something that never happened just to see if she’d pretend to remember it.

  That’s conniving, though. I already feel enough guilt as it is.

  I hear the water begin to run in the bathroom just as I locate the thermostat next to the stairwell. It reads seventy-one degrees. I’m not sure I want it warmer than that, but I bump it up a few degrees for her so that the heat can eat away whatever chill she’s feeling.

  I make my way to the living room, if only to inspect all the areas of the house I never entered last time I was here.

  It has a very unwelcoming feel—as if the room isn’t meant for living at all. A light cream-colored sofa and matching love seat are angled toward a fireplace. A stiff brown leather chair sits next to a table strategically piled with books.

  There’s only one window in the room, but the curtains are drawn, so the room is dark. I passed by this room a few times when I was here last, but I never utilized it. There were always people in here, but now those figures are replaced by shadows.

  I don’t necessarily like this room as much as I like the Grand Room. Maybe because Layla and I connected in the Grand Room. There’s history for us in there.

  This room feels unconnected to us. If this house is the heart of the country, this room is the gallbladder.

  If we end up buying this place, this would be the first room I would strip bare. I’d knock out part of the wall and add more windows. I’d fill it with furniture that Layla could spill cereal on, or red wine.

  I’d make it livable.

  Nothing has felt like home to us since Layla was released from the hospital. Neither of us wanted to go back to my place in Franklin. Understandably. But I didn’t feel right getting a new place without Layla having a say, so I leased a temporary apartment near the hospital, and that’s where I took her when she was discharged. I’ve been dragging my feet on buying something permanent. I’m not sure I want a place in Franklin. Or Nashville, even.