Layla

by Colleen Hoover

  “She’s not leaving here in your body. It’s yours.”

  “Tell that to the police,” Layla says.

  “No one has to know. But she is not leaving here until we figure out how to fix this.”

  Layla grips the back of her neck and pulls away from me. “You heard that man. He said there’s no way to fix this.”

  “He also said this is rare. Maybe it doesn’t happen enough for anyone to have figured out a solution yet. We’ll be patient. We’ll do our research. We’ll figure this out, Layla.”

  I wrap my arms around her again, hoping to ease her nerves. But that’s hard to do when I know she can feel my rapid heartbeat against her chest.

  I’m just as worried as she is. If not more.

  “I think you should tell her now,” Layla says. “Maybe if she realizes what she’s done, she’ll stop fighting you. Maybe she’ll help us figure this out.”

  Layla has always seen the best in people.

  The problem with that is I’m not sure there’s enough good in Sable that would make her want to help us. She is, after all, the reason we’re here right now.

  “Okay,” I say. “But I have to tie you up first.”

  Layla crawls onto the bed. After I tie her up, she says, “I know you’re angry at her right now. But don’t be mean to her.”

  I nod, but it isn’t a promise.

  Angry is an understatement.

  Layla closes her eyes and takes a breath. When her eyes open and I can tell it’s not Layla looking back at me, I feel nothing but resentment. I don’t feel remorse when she starts to quietly cry. I don’t feel guilt when she starts to plead with me to untie her. I sit on the edge of the bed next to her feet, and I just stare at her.

  At least she’s not hysterical or screaming this time. We might actually be able to have a conversation about this.

  “Are you going to let me leave now?” she asks.

  “I want to ask you some questions first.”

  “And then you’ll let me go?”

  “Yes.”

  She nods. “Okay, but . . . can you please untie me first? I’m sore. I’ve been in this position for hours.”

  She’s been tied up for one minute. She doesn’t realize she walks around freely most of the time. “I’ll untie you after you answer my questions.”

  She adjusts herself on the bed so that she’s sitting a little farther away from me. She pulls her knees in and looks at me nervously. “You look angry,” she says quietly. “Why are you angry?”

  “What do you remember about the night you were shot?”

  “I don’t like talking about that. You know that.”

  “Why? Because you don’t remember it like I do?”

  She shakes her head. “No. It’s because I don’t remember it at all.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” I say. “I think you just remember it in a way that’s confusing to you.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I continue to speak, despite her pleas for me to stop. “I know what’s going on inside your head. You say you have amnesia, but I’m not so sure you do. It’s just harder for you to access Layla’s memories because they’re mixed in with other memories. It’s why . . . sometimes . . . when I bring up something from the past, you don’t have that memory right away. It’s like you have to sift through them. Dig them up.”

  I can see her breath catch.

  I lean forward and look her directly in the eye. “Do you sometimes feel like you have too many memories? Memories that don’t even belong to you?”

  Her bottom lip begins to tremble slightly. She’s scared, but she’s trying to hide it.

  “Do you remember opening the door when Sable knocked on it that night?”

  She nods. “Yes.”

  “But you also remember being the person who knocked on the door.”

  Her eyes widen. “Why would you say that?” she says immediately.

  “Because . . . you’re Sable.”

  She stares at me for several long seconds. “Are you crazy?”

  “Your memories are confusing because you’re in the wrong body.”

  Her stare becomes threatening. “You better let me go right now, or I will have you arrested so fast, Leeds. I will. Don’t think I’m going to forgive you for this.”

  “Have you known this whole time that you might be Sable?”

  “Fuck you,” she hisses. “Let me go.”

  “Why did you punch the bathroom mirror when we got here? Do you see Sable’s face sometimes when you look in the mirror?”

  “Of course I see her face sometimes! She shot me, Leeds! I have PTSD!”

  She didn’t deny punching the mirror. “You don’t have PTSD. It’s an actual memory.”

  “You sound like a lunatic.”

  I keep my voice steady when I say, “You shot me. And you shot Layla. And I know you remember doing it.”

  She shakes her head. “I shot Layla? I AM Layla!”

  I shake my head. “I know it’s confusing. But you aren’t Layla. You’re only able to access some of her memories, because you’re inside Layla’s head and you have access to them. But when I shot you, you died. And when you shot Layla, she died. But only for a few seconds. Long enough for your soul to end up in the wrong body. And Layla’s soul ended up stuck here, in this house.”

  She’s crying now. “You’re scaring me.” Her voice is timid. “You aren’t making any sense. I am Layla. How could you possibly think I’m not Layla?”

  I would begin to list all the proof, but there’s too much. Instead, I try to think of a question only Layla would be able to answer right away. One Layla has already answered, but that Sable would struggle to remember.

  “What song did I sing to you the first night we met here?”

  She says, “I . . . that was a long time ago.”

  “Which song did I sing for you? You have three seconds to answer me.”

  “‘Remember Me’?” She says the name of the song like it’s a question.

  “No. I sang ‘I Stopped.’ Layla remembers.”

  “Stop talking about me like I’m not Layla. This is insane.” She’s crawled more toward the head of the bed, like she’s trying to get away from me.

  I don’t blame her for being scared of me. If someone had tried to explain this to me a month ago, I wouldn’t have been able to believe it. I attempt to come off as levelheaded as I can because I know she thinks the opposite of me right now. “I can’t expect you to accept this any easier than I did, but it’s true. It’s just going to take time, and maybe proof, before you fully comprehend what’s happening. For that, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you leave now. Not until I figure out how to fix this for Layla.”

  “But I am Layla,” she whispers, still trying to convince herself that this isn’t happening.

  I look behind me. “Layla, take over.”

  I wait a few seconds until I see the change.

  Layla opens her eyes. She relaxes her legs, but her expression doesn’t relax. She looks like she’s about to cry, and I don’t know if it’s because there isn’t a doubt left in her as to whether she’s Layla, or if she feels bad for the situation Sable is in now.

  I lean forward and untie her hands. When her wrists are free, she lunges forward and wraps her arms tightly around me. She starts to cry.

  It becomes real in this moment. Knowing that Sable struggles to access memories I made with Layla—memories that are front and center in Layla’s mind—has eliminated any shred of doubt that still hung between us.

  Layla grips the back of my head and presses her cheek against mine. Her voice is full of fear. “Please help me find a way back.”

  I close my eyes. “I won’t stop fighting for you until we figure this out. I promise.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I’m washing Layla’s hair in the shower. It’s an eerie duplication of the morning after we met, standing together in this shower. Only this time we’re quiet. I’m
not asking her questions because I feel like my need for answers has brought us nothing but gloom. It makes me wonder if she regrets me having shown up here. Had I not shown up, she wouldn’t be aware of just how much she doesn’t belong in her realm. She wouldn’t know how unfair it is.

  She wouldn’t know she might not be able to get back.

  We didn’t sleep at all last night. We spent hours searching for solutions online and skimming paranormal books in the Grand Room. We’ve found nothing so far, even though we searched until two hours after the sun rose.

  Today is a new day. After we get some much-needed sleep, we’ll start it all over again. I refuse to allow Layla to feel hopeless about this situation.

  When I’m finished rinsing her hair, I press a kiss against the top of her head. She relaxes into me with a sigh, her back to my chest, and we just let the hot water beat down on us as we stand together in silence. It’s not romantic. It’s not sexy.

  We’re just sad.

  “Her body is exhausted,” Layla says.

  “It’s not her body. It’s yours.”

  She turns around and looks up at me. Her eyes are hollow and tired. She needs to sleep, but now that she knows she belongs more in this body than she does in the spiritual realm, she doesn’t like the idea of going back to nothing. She told me earlier that it scares her now.

  That gutted me.

  I don’t want her to let Sable take over again, but it’s inevitable. It’s the only way her body can recuperate.

  “Take two sleeping pills,” I say. “Maybe she won’t wake up for a while.”

  Layla nods.

  We get out of the shower, and I grab two pills for her. Layla takes them with a sip of water and then climbs into the bed. I close the blackout curtains to shut out the sun. I crawl in bed with her, but this time I don’t hesitate to pull her against me. It finally feels normal again—having her in this bed with me.

  As normal as our situation can feel.

  I keep expecting to wake up from this nightmare. I don’t like thinking back on the last several months, and all the signs that were right in front of me. It makes me feel ignorant—like my closed-mindedness hindered us in some way. I never believed in ghosts or spirits, but if I did, would I have noticed Layla wasn’t actually Layla?

  Are there other people in this world who—like Sable—assume they’re suffering from some form of amnesia that makes memories hard to sift through, when in reality, they just don’t belong in the body they’re inhabiting? They’re merely a spirit trapped in the wrong body.

  “Leeds.” Layla whispers my name, but even through her whisper, I can feel the weight of it.

  “What is it?”

  She tucks her head against my shoulder. “I think there’s only one way to fix this.”

  “How?”

  She sucks in a heavy breath. And then, as she exhales, she says, “You’re going to have to kill me. And then hope to hell that you can bring me right back.” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to push her words away from me. I don’t even want to hear them, but she continues talking. “If I can flatline long enough for Sable’s soul to leave my body, then maybe my soul could take back over before you bring me back.”

  “Stop,” I say immediately. “It’s too risky. So much could go wrong.”

  “We can’t live like this forever.”

  “But we can.”

  She pulls away from my shoulder and looks up at me. Her eyes are full of tears. “It’s exhausting. I can’t live like this, day after day. And do you really want to hold a girl captive upstairs in this house for the rest of your life?”

  I don’t. It’s agonizing, but it’s better than the thought of Layla possibly dying. “This isn’t the solution.”

  “And living this way is? She won’t sleep unless we drug her, and then I’m left with the side effects. I’m tired. You’re tired. If this is the only way I can exist with you . . . then I’d rather not exist at all,” she says. She’s crying now, and I can’t take it. I don’t want to see her upset, but the selfish part of me would rather see her upset than not see her at all.

  “If we did it and it went wrong, I would never forgive myself. I can’t live without you, Layla.”

  “You can. You have for the past seven months.”

  I look at her pointedly. “And I’ve been fucking miserable.”

  She stares at me solemnly. Then, as if she somehow feels sympathy for me, she places her hand on my cheek and kisses me. Her kiss is sweet, but it’s also desolate. I don’t know what to do with it.

  It’s torture, kissing her through her pain, because I know what’s going on in her mind right now. She thinks death is the answer.

  I’m afraid death will be the end.

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I say.

  “We’re going to have to do something about this. And soon, while I still have the energy.”

  “I’m not going to agree to it.”

  Layla’s fingers trail down my arm until she finds my hand. She slips her fingers through mine. “It can work, Leeds. If we plan it out just right, it’ll work.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because,” she says. She presses a kiss against my jaw. “I love you more than Sable does. I’ll make it work.”

  I want to believe her. But what happens if it doesn’t work? What if I can’t bring her back? If her body dies for good, her spirit will likely die right along with it.

  And then what would I do? How would I explain her death to the police? To her family? To Aspen?

  Layla reaches up a hand to smooth out my furrowed brow. “Relax,” she says. “We can worry about the details after we wake up.”

  I nod, wanting nothing more than to put these thoughts away. I just want to think about Layla.

  I trace my fingers delicately over her lips, and she’s gazing up at me with the same expression she was looking at me with when we were lying in the grass the first night we met. Right before I asked her why she was so pretty.

  I trail my fingers over the freckles spilled over the bridge of her nose. “Why are you so pretty?” I whisper.

  That memory makes her smile.

  This is what I’ve been missing. These moments with Layla. The unspoken memories we share together . . . the looks we give each other. We had an immediate connection the night we met. A connection so strong it brought me back here to her when I didn’t even know I was searching for her. A connection that kept me here, even when I was convinced Willow was Sable.

  Layla kisses me again, only this time our kiss doesn’t stop. It lasts for so long my lips feel swollen by the time I push into her.

  She wraps herself tightly around me as we make love. I keep my eyes open the whole time because I’m amazed by how different it is now that I have her back. It’s exactly like it used to be. Intense and perfect and full of meaning.

  When it’s over and she’s wrapped in my arms, I realize she might be right.

  We found each other once—when we met.

  Then we found each other again—after she died.

  That makes me believe in us enough to think we could do it a third time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Layla has spent the last two days meticulously planning out her death.

  I’ve spent the last two days trying to find alternative solutions.

  Sadly, I’ve found nothing.

  She’s growing weaker. The longer she continues to take over Sable, the less sleep Sable gets. And when Layla does leave her body long enough for Sable to sleep, Sable sleeps very little. Only when the meds kick in, and even then, not for long.

  Sable continues to try to escape, which has resulted in her wrists suffering even more damage. The marks are too prominent to hide. I keep them bandaged up, but I worry because Aspen and Chad are due to show back up today and we aren’t sure how to hide Layla’s wrists from them. Right now, she’s wearing one of my long-sleeved shirts because there wasn’t anything with sleeves long enough to cover her
wrists in her wardrobe.

  Hopefully Aspen doesn’t notice the bandages.

  Hopefully Aspen doesn’t notice anything.

  Layla’s legs are across my lap, and we’re mindlessly watching TV when we hear their car pull into the drive. We’re not actually paying attention to the TV. We’re just attempting to appear normal, which we’ll be attempting to do for the next twenty-four hours while Aspen and Chad are here.

  Layla stands up and pulls the sleeves of her shirt down. She tucks them beneath her thumbs and heads toward the door. I follow her.

  Aspen is already peeking her head inside when we make it to the foyer. I open the door all the way and take Aspen’s bag. Layla hugs her as soon as she walks through the door.

  The hug catches me off guard. It isn’t a casual greeting. She hugs her tightly, like she’s missed her. I guess she has. Layla was confused the last time Aspen was here. She thought all her feelings belonged to someone else, so she probably didn’t acknowledge that the pull she felt toward Aspen was real.

  “Well, hello,” Aspen says, laughing at Layla’s affection. Layla releases her, and Aspen tilts her head, looking at her curiously. “You look exhausted.”

  Layla shrugs it off. “I’ve been sick for a few days. Feel much better now, though,” she lies, smiling brightly.

  Chad nods his head toward me and grabs Aspen’s bag. “Please tell me you have beer. I’ve been driving twelve hours, and I need beer.” He walks toward the stairs to take their bags up to their usual bedroom, but Layla stretches her arm out, ushering Chad toward the hallway instead.

  “Y’all get the downstairs bedroom this time,” Layla says. “The upstairs bathroom is broken.”

  She’s lying, and I’m not sure why, but I help Chad take their things to the downstairs bedroom. Then the four of us congregate in the kitchen as Chad searches for something to drink.

  “What’s for dinner?” he asks. “It smells good.”

  Layla and I threw a casserole together about an hour ago. In the wake of everything happening, it was a nice reprieve. We’ve had a few moments over the last couple of days that I’ve somehow managed to enjoy, despite our circumstances. It’s hard not to let the reality of our situation remain front and center in our minds, but in the few times we’ve been preoccupied with something else, it was a welcome reminder of how things used to be between us. Before Sable.