Layla

by Colleen Hoover

  “You saw the video, Layla. There’s no other way to explain what you saw.”

  “I saw a video in which you drugged me and forced me to say things I don’t remember saying.”

  I sigh and lean back in the chair. “I wouldn’t do that to you.” I say that, but at this point, I’m not sure it’s something that’s beyond my integrity. I’m not sure I even have a shred of integrity left, to be honest.

  “If you let me go, I won’t tell anyone,” she says. “I promise. I won’t go to the police. I just want to leave. I won’t even use the car, I’ll walk.”

  “I’m not going to keep you tied up forever. As soon as the man gets here and does what he needs to do, I’ll let you go.”

  Her face hardens, and she looks away from me.

  A light shines across the wall, pulling both of our attentions toward the bedroom window. The curtain is closed, so I walk to the window and push it aside.

  There’s a man climbing out of a white pickup truck. He’s a large man . . . tall, not wide, with a bushy beard. There’s a hat on his head—some sort of cap that seems to match the logo on his work truck. He tosses the cap into the pickup before running a hand through his hair and looking up at the house. He sees me in the window.

  He nods once, then starts heading for the front door.

  “Help!” Layla’s voice is desperate and loud. So loud.

  “Please be quiet.” I rush over to the bed and cover her mouth with my hand. “The quieter you are, the faster he can help. I need you to promise me you’ll be quiet.”

  She’s still screaming against my hand. I look around the room for the tape I brought up with the rope yesterday. I didn’t want to do this, but I’m going to have to. I can’t have a conversation with this man downstairs while Layla is screaming her head off upstairs. I tear off two pieces of tape and cover her mouth with both pieces.

  I hold her face gently in my hands. “I am so sorry, Layla.” I kiss her on her forehead and then leave the room.

  The doorbell rings just as I reach the bottom of the stairwell.

  I open the door, not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this guy. He’s in his late thirties, early forties. He’s wearing a Jiffy Lube shirt, and he smells like motor oil.

  “Sorry about the smell,” he says, waving at himself. “It’s the only body I could find when I got into town.”

  It’s the only . . . what?

  He pushes the door open and squeezes between me and the door. He chuckles at the expression on my face. “You thought I was like you?” He looks around the foyer and into the Grand Room. “Nice place. I can see the appeal.”

  I close the door and lock it. “You’re like Willow?”

  The man turns to me and nods, but then his attention is pulled to the top of the stairs. Layla is beating the headboard against the wall. There’s no denying her muffled screams. We can hear them clearly, even from down here. “Who is that?”

  “My girlfriend. Layla.”

  “Why is she making all that noise?”

  “I had to tie her to the bed.”

  The man raises an eyebrow. “Is she gonna be an issue?”

  I shake my head. “No. She’s just upset with me, but I don’t need you to help with her. I need you to help with Willow.”

  “Where is Willow?”

  “She’s here. Layla needs to rest, though. I don’t want to use her yet, so I’ll answer whatever questions I can until you need to ask Willow specific questions.”

  The man walks to the kitchen table and sets a briefcase down. He opens it and pulls out a tape recorder.

  I wasn’t aware everything I would be telling him would be recorded.

  I have my girlfriend tied to a bed upstairs, and the only thing I know about this man is that his username is UncoverInc. Now he’s about to record everything I’m about to admit to?

  “How do I know I can trust you?” I ask him, eyeing the recorder.

  The man glances up at me. “You don’t have any other choice, do you?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I’ve caught him up with everything I can think of, all the way up to the second he sat down at this table. “So . . . that’s where we are,” I say. “What’s your advice? How do we help Sable find closure?”

  “You sound so sure that Sable has anything at all to do with this.” The man turns his attention to Willow. “Have you ever taken over Leeds?”

  “No,” Willow says. “Only Layla.”

  “I think you should try it. I’d like to see how your memories compare while inside his head.”

  Willow looks at me with concern. She even looks somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of this. “I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.”

  “I’m fine with it.” I am fine with it. I’m fine with anything he thinks might help us out of this situation. And to be honest, I’ve been curious what it’s like. What Layla feels when it happens to her.

  Willow stands up. “I won’t be inside Layla if I move into Leeds. We’ll need to tie her up again.”

  There’s a nervous energy between us as we ascend the stairs to the bedroom, because we’re about to do something we’ve never done before. Something we’ve never even thought to do.

  Willow sits on the bed and looks up at me as I reach for the rope still tied around the bedpost. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I have nothing to hide, Willow. It’s fine. It might even help.” I wrap the rope around her wrists and begin to tie them.

  “How could it help?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. But he’s like you. He isn’t like me. He knows more than both of us put together, so we just have to trust him. It’s all we have left.”

  She inhales, and when she exhales, she leaves Layla’s body.

  Layla just slumps against the headboard. “Not again,” she says, her voice full of defeat. “Why is this happening?” The expression on her face is an agonizing one. I force myself to look away.

  “I don’t know,” I say quietly. “But I’m sorry it’s happening.” I walk to the door, and Layla is calling after me, but I can’t stay to listen to her pleas. I lock the door behind me and head back downstairs.

  “Where should I sit?” I ask the man.

  He motions to the chair I’ve been sitting in this whole time. “Right there will be fine.” He reaches out his hand. “Give me your phone. I’ll record our interaction while she’s inside of you and play it back for you when it’s over.”

  I slide my phone to him, and he props it up using his briefcase. He points the camera at me and presses record. I suck in a nervous rush of air. I’m staring at the phone when I say, “I’m ready, Willow.”

  I only feel it for a second.

  A whoosh, like a rush of wind moving through my head. It’s as quick as the fluttering of an eyelid, but I know time has passed, because when I open my eyes, I’m still looking at my phone, but the minutes on the recording have changed. It went from just a few seconds to over three minutes. It’s like being under anesthesia for a surgery. You’re awake, and then you’re awake again, with no memory of the in-between.

  “Did it already happen?” I ask, looking at the man.

  He’s staring at me with narrowed eyes, as if he’s working through a difficult equation. He reaches over and hits stop on the cell phone recording.

  I bring my hands up to a point against my chin, overwhelmed by the simplicity of what just happened, but also overwhelmed by the magnitude of it. It was a strange sensation, but also not entirely unfamiliar. Someone might pass it off as a dizzy spell.

  I think back to all the times Willow has done this to Layla. How terrifying it must have been for Layla to be in the middle of a bite of food, and then one blink later and her plate is suddenly empty.

  One second she was upstairs; the next second she was outside.

  I run my palms down my face, flooded with guilt for what this has done to Layla’s mental stability. I knew this was affecting her, but now that I’ve put myself in her sh
oes, I feel even worse.

  Not to mention, I still have her tied up like she means nothing to me. I can’t believe I’ve been letting Willow do this to Layla.

  “What did Willow say?” I ask him. “I want to watch the video.”

  He picks up my phone, but before he hands it to me, he says, “Do you have access to Layla’s medical records?”

  I have access because I’ve been to every appointment she’s had since I’ve been with her, but I don’t know why he’d need them. “Why?”

  “I’d like to see them.”

  “Why?” I say again.

  “Because I’d like to see them,” he repeats.

  This man has given me absolutely nothing tonight. Just question after question and not a single answer. I sigh, frustrated, and then pull my laptop in front of me. It takes me a couple of minutes to log in to Layla’s medical records, and then I slide the laptop over to him. “You think you’re ever going to give us an explanation, or is this one-sided interview going to go on all night?”

  The man stares intently at the computer screen as he responds. “Go get Layla for Willow so I can show you both the video.”

  I gladly push back from the table. I walk up the stairs, wondering what the video is going to show. And why does he need Willow in Layla’s body to play it back to me?

  I think Willow needs to stay out of Layla from this point forward. There’s not really a reason to take over anymore. We’ve told the man everything. Layla has been through enough.

  Part of me wants to untie her and let her leave so she’ll be put out of her misery, but the room is quiet when I open the door. Willow has already taken over Layla again.

  It’s probably for the best. I feel too guilty to face Layla right now.

  “It isn’t right—what we’ve been doing to Layla,” I say. I untie the knots and loosen the rope.

  Willow just nods in agreement. When I’ve released her hands, she wipes at her eyes, and I notice for the first time she’s crying.

  “What’s wrong? What did you find out?”

  “I don’t know what any of it meant,” she whispers, her voice catching in her throat.

  Then she’s off the bed and past me and out the bedroom door. She’s walking with urgency in her steps. I rush down the stairs behind her, and when I get to the kitchen, she grabs my phone from the man. She shoves it into my hands like she doesn’t want another second to pass without me seeing the video.

  My hand is shaking, so I lay my phone on the table as the video begins to play.

  I see myself on the screen, and right when I say, “I’m ready, Willow,” on camera, there’s an instant change in me. My posture stiffens. My eyes open. I look down at my shirt and then hear the man’s voice when he says, “Willow?”

  My head nods up and down.

  It’s so strange . . . seeing myself do things I don’t remember doing.

  I turn the volume all the way up on my phone so I can hear the conversation he had with Willow while she was inside my head.

  “What do you feel?” the man asks Willow.

  “Worried.”

  “Don’t be,” the man says. “I just want to clear up a few things. I need you to try and see everything from Leeds’s point of view right now. Can you see his thoughts? His memories?”

  Willow nods.

  “I want you to go back to the day Leeds and Layla were shot. Do you have that memory?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can see that day from his point of view?”

  “This feels wrong,” Willow says. “I shouldn’t be in him. It feels different. I only want to use Layla.”

  “Give it one more minute. I just have a few questions,” the man says. “What did Leeds feel when he heard the gun?”

  “He was . . . scared.”

  “And what did Sable feel?”

  Willow doesn’t speak through me for several seconds. She’s silent. Then, “I don’t know. I can’t find that memory.”

  “Do you have another memory of that moment?”

  “No. Just the memory Leeds has. I remember what happened before he heard the gunshot, but not during.”

  “What happened before?”

  “He was in his bedroom with Layla, packing for a trip.”

  “What about after that? What’s the next memory you have that doesn’t belong to Leeds?”

  “There isn’t one after that. All these memories belong to Leeds.”

  “Okay,” the man says. “Almost done. Let’s back up. Go back to the night Leeds and Layla met here.”

  “Okay,” Willow says. “I have that memory.”

  “What did Leeds feel the first time he looked at Layla?”

  She blows out a steady breath. Then she laughs. “He thought I was a terrible dancer.”

  “Okay. Good. You can leave him now,” the man says.

  In the video, my eyes flick open and I’m staring directly at the camera again. Then the video ends.

  I lock the screen on my phone and fall back into my seat. “You asked like three questions,” I say, waving my hand toward my phone. “How did that even help?”

  The man is still staring at my laptop. Willow is pacing the kitchen behind me, biting her fingernails again.

  This entire thing seems pointless. I’m ready to call it quits and get Layla out of here when the man looks up at Willow and says, “Why did you say he thought you were a terrible dancer?”

  She looks from him to me. “Because that’s what he felt in that moment.”

  “But you didn’t say Layla was a terrible dancer,” he says. “You specifically said, ‘He thought I was a terrible dancer.’ You referred to yourself as Layla when you were in Leeds’s head.”

  “Oh,” she says, her voice a faint whisper. “I don’t know. I can’t explain that.”

  The man motions toward her chair. “Sit down.”

  Willow sits.

  “According to Layla’s medical records, they had to resuscitate her after she was shot. Once before paramedics got her into the ambulance. And again at the hospital.”

  “That’s right,” I say. “Like I told you, it was touch and go for an entire week.”

  “So she flatlined?”

  I nod.

  The man shoots me an inquisitive look. “You said Layla has been different since the attack. Memory loss, personality changes . . . can you think of anything else about her that’s different now than from before the injury?”

  “Everything,” I say. “It affected her a lot.”

  “Are there things about Willow that remind you of Layla?”

  I look at Willow, then look back at the man. “Of course. She’s in Layla’s body when we communicate, so there are lots of similarities.”

  He directs his attention toward Willow. “How did it feel taking over Leeds’s body?”

  “Strange,” she says.

  “Does it feel strange when you possess Layla’s body?”

  She nods. “Yes, but . . . in a different way.”

  “How are they different?” he asks.

  “It’s hard to explain,” she says. “I didn’t feel like I belonged in Leeds’s body. It felt foreign. Hard to control. Hard to remain in his head.”

  “But you don’t feel that way when you’re in Layla’s body?”

  “No.”

  “You feel like it’s easier to possess Layla’s body?”

  Willow nods. The man leans toward her. “Does it feel . . . familiar?”

  Willow’s eyes cut to mine for a brief moment; then she looks back at the man and nods. “Yes. That’s a good way to describe it.”

  The man shakes his head with a look of complete disbelief on his face. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “Anything like what?” I ask. I’m confused by his line of questioning.

  “Your situation is very unique.”

  “How so?”

  “I knew it was possible, but I’ve never actually seen it myself.”

  I want to strangle the words
out of him. “Can you please just tell us what’s going on?”

  He nods. “Yes. Yes, of course.” It’s the most expressive he’s been tonight. He stands up and walks around to the side of the kitchen table, leaning against it, looking at both of us intently. “Death from bullet wounds is usually the result of excessive blood loss, so it probably took Sable several minutes to die after you shot her. And in that same time frame, Layla also flatlined. There were two souls in the same room that left two bodies at the same time. Which means when Layla’s body was revived by paramedics, there’s a strong possibility that the wrong soul entered that body.”

  I stare at him in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?” I ask. “That’s the best you can come up with?”

  “Bear with me,” he says. He nudges his head toward Willow. “When Willow is inside of Layla, she can remember things from both Sable’s and Layla’s points of view. But when she was inside you, she could only remember things from yours and Layla’s points of view. Sable’s memories didn’t move with her into your body.” He pushes away from the table and begins pacing the kitchen. “The reason it’s hard for your girlfriend to remember things isn’t because of memory loss. It’s because they aren’t her memories. She has to search for them, and even then, she can only pull up a memory when it’s prompted. The only logical explanation for this would be that the soul who has been walking around inside Layla’s body since the night of the shooting is not Layla.”

  Logical? He thinks telling me that Layla isn’t really Layla is a logical explanation?

  It was a feat for me to come to terms with there being an afterlife. But this is beyond the capabilities of my imagination. This is absurd. Ridiculous. Unfathomable. “If Sable is Layla, then where is Layla?” I ask.

  He points at Willow. “She’s right there.”

  I look at Willow, too confused—or maybe too scared—to accept what this delusional man is trying to spoon-feed us. I rest my elbows on the table and press my palms against my forehead. I try to slow down my thoughts.

  “What would make this possible?” I ask. “Why would Sable’s soul choose Layla’s body rather than her own?”

  The man shrugs, and I’m not sure I like that shrug. I would much prefer him to be absolute in his responses. “Maybe it’s not so much where her soul belonged in that moment, but where it wished it belonged. Sable obviously wanted what Layla had, or she wouldn’t have done what she did. Perhaps what we desire can sometimes be so strong it overpowers our fate.”