Layla

by Colleen Hoover

  And maybe it’s the part of me that resents her that finds strength, or maybe it’s the part of me that wants Layla back more than I want air, but I do it. I shove her under. In order to hold her there, I have to use every part of me. I cage her body between my legs. I wrap my fingers in her hair for leverage.

  She thrashes in the water . . . claws at my arms and my chest. She tries everything to escape—to take in a breath, but she’s screaming just under the surface, her lungs swiftly taking in water.

  I stare up at the sky because if I look down at her, I’ll stop. I wouldn’t be able to look at Layla’s face and continue to do what I’m doing. And even though I know it’s Sable behind Layla’s eyes right now, if I looked into them, I’m afraid all I would see is a terrified Layla. I squeeze my eyes shut and tighten my hold.

  I wait and I wait and I wait for her to stop struggling. It feels like it’ll never end. I count as I hold her under. I get all the way to one hundred and eighteen seconds before she finally stops fighting.

  And even then, when I think it might be over, she claws at me again, her fingers seeking out a savior.

  She grips my left wrist, and she squeezes it with very little strength.

  Then . . . I feel nothing.

  The underwater screams have ceased for several seconds. Her hair begins to slip through my fingers. I keep my eyes closed and hold my breath until I’m certain there isn’t any air left in her lungs. Then I slowly drop my gaze.

  Her hair is covering her face, so I brush it out of the way. Her eyes are open, but they aren’t looking up at me. They aren’t looking at anything. There’s no focus to them. No life.

  That’s when I start to panic.

  I pull her up until her head is out of the water, and it’s obvious Sable is no longer inside this body. But neither is Layla.

  A wail escapes my throat when I see Layla’s lifeless eyes. Her arms are limp at her sides. I hook my hands under her and start dragging her toward the steps at the shallow end.

  “Aspen!” I scream. “Help!”

  It’s almost impossible to move her as fast as I imagined I would move her. The backs of her legs are dragging against the pool steps, then the concrete. When I finally have Layla on her back at the side of the pool, I grab for my cell phone. I dial 911.

  “Aspen!” I scream. I start administering CPR the exact way Layla showed me how to do it, but I feel like I’m doing everything wrong.

  The phone is by my side. When an operator picks up, I just start screaming the address into the phone while I try to resuscitate Layla.

  Five minutes.

  That’s all we have.

  “Five minutes,” I whisper. Her lips are blue. Nothing about her feels alive. I need Aspen because I don’t know if I’m doing this right.

  But I don’t want to leave Layla’s side.

  “Aspen!” I scream again.

  Before I’m even finished saying her name, Aspen is on her knees next to me. “Move!” she yells, pushing me out of her way. I fall backward and watch as Aspen leans Layla onto her side to clear her airway; then she pushes her onto her back again and begins chest compressions.

  Chad is here too. He grabs my cell phone and begins speaking with the 911 operator. I move around Aspen, toward Layla’s head, and I lean forward, cradling her head.

  “You can do it, Layla,” I beg her. “Please, come back. Please. I can’t do this without you. Come back, come back, come back.”

  She doesn’t. She’s just as lifeless as when I was dragging her out of the pool.

  I’m crying. Aspen is crying.

  But Aspen doesn’t stop trying to save her. She does everything she can. I try to help, but I’m useless.

  It feels like it’s been longer than five minutes.

  It feels like it’s been a fucking eternity.

  I once had the thought that minutes seemed to matter more when I spent them with Layla, but they’ve never mattered more than right now as we’re trying to save her life.

  Aspen is growing more hysterical, which makes me think she knows it’s too late. Too much time has passed. Did I hold her under for too long?

  Did I do this?

  I feel like I’m sinking lower . . . somehow melting into the concrete. I’m on my knees and my elbows, my hands clasped tightly behind my head, and I have never physically been in so much pain.

  Why did I let her talk me into this? We could have found a way to live like this. I’d rather live a miserable existence with her than not exist with her at all.

  “Layla.” I whisper her name. Can she hear me? If she’s not in her body right now, is she still here? Is she watching this? Is she watching me?

  I hear a gurgling sound.

  Aspen immediately turns Layla’s head to the side again. I watch as water spills out of Layla’s mouth and onto the concrete.

  “Layla!” I scream her name. “Layla!”

  But her eyes don’t open. She’s still unresponsive.

  “They’re eight minutes away,” Chad says, lowering the phone.

  “That’s not soon enough,” Aspen mutters. She resumes the chest compressions. And once again, Layla begins to choke.

  “Layla, come back, come back,” I plead.

  Aspen grabs her wrist to check for a pulse. It’s like all the sounds of the world are automatically put on mute while I wait for her response.

  “She has a pulse. Barely.”

  “You only have five minutes to save my life.”

  I immediately slip my hands under Layla’s arms and start to pull her up.

  “What are you doing?” Aspen asks, her voice panicked.

  “We need to meet the ambulance!” I yell. “Let’s go!”

  Chad helps me carry Layla to the front yard. We slip her into the back seat of my car, and Aspen and Chad both climb into the back with her. Aspen keeps her hand on Layla’s wrist to make sure she maintains a pulse as I peel out of the driveway.

  “Faster,” Aspen says.

  I can’t go any faster. The gas pedal is touching the floor.

  I drive for what seems like miles, but in actuality is probably only two, before we meet the ambulance. As soon as I see their lights coming over the hill, I start flashing mine. I bring the car to a stop in the middle of the highway so the ambulance will be forced to stop for us.

  I help Chad and Aspen drag Layla out of the back seat. She’s still lifeless.

  The paramedics meet us with a gurney. They pull her onto the ambulance, but when I start to climb in after her, Aspen grabs me and pulls me back. She pushes her way in front of me and climbs into the ambulance. When my eyes meet hers, she’s looking at me like I’m a monster. “Stay the fuck away from my sister.”

  The doors close.

  The ambulance speeds away.

  I drop to my knees.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It’s been thirty-eight minutes since I pulled her out of the water.

  I’m pacing the waiting room.

  Chad is several feet away on his phone, probably trying to call Aspen. We haven’t seen her since we walked into the emergency room. Chad had to pull me out of the road and drive the car here. I was too upset.

  No one is able to tell us anything.

  Thirty-nine minutes pass.

  Forty.

  Chad hangs up the phone. I rush over to him, hoping he got word from Aspen. He just shakes his head. “She’s not answering. I think she left her phone at the house.”

  I nod and resume pacing. I’m watching my feet move over the floor, but it feels like I’m floating. Like I’m not actually moving. This all feels like a dream.

  A nightmare.

  “What was she doing in the pool?”

  I spin around at the sound of Aspen’s voice. She’s standing behind me now, her eyes narrowed at me. Her cheeks are mottled and tearstained.

  “Is she okay?” I ask her.

  Aspen shakes her head, and my heart feels like it melts and leaks down into my rib cage. “I don’t know anything. The
y won’t let me in the room,” she says. “Why was she in the water, Leeds?” Her eyes are accusing.

  Chad walks up to her and wraps his arm around her shoulders. He tries to usher her to a chair, but she shakes him off and turns her attention back to me. “Why the fuck was she in the water, Leeds?”

  Her scream gets the attention of everyone in the room. She’s hysterical. Angry. She thinks I did this to her sister.

  “I don’t know,” I lie. “But I did not do this to her.”

  Aspen’s eyes fall, and when they do, they freeze on my arms. She just stares at my arms, and the way she’s looking at them forces me to follow her focus. When I look down at myself, I see that my arms are covered in scratch marks. Fingernail scrapes that have drawn blood. Fresh blood.

  I look back up at Aspen just as she starts to cry hysterically. Chad is forced to hold her up. He carries her to a chair, but the whole time he’s backing her away from me, she’s screaming at me. “Why? Why did you do this to my sister?”

  There’s nothing I can say or do to take that assumption away from Aspen. Too much has happened tonight to make her believe I’m innocent.

  And if Layla doesn’t make it . . . neither do I. Because no one will ever accept the truth. If this were last month—I wouldn’t have believed the truth either.

  But the idea that Aspen will never trust me again, even if Layla makes it, is still not an outcome I’m okay with.

  Chad is doing his best to calm Aspen, but she’s hysterical. I walk over to them and kneel in front of her. “Aspen,” I say, my voice firm and low. “She had a seizure in the water. I was trying to help her, but I couldn’t do it on my own. I couldn’t keep her above water. That’s when I called you. I didn’t do this to her.”

  She doesn’t believe me. I can see the distrust in her eyes.

  “Why did Layla say you were keeping her tied up earlier?” Aspen asks. “Why would she say that?”

  I open my mouth in an attempt to explain, but I have no answer. I clamp it shut and my jaw hardens.

  “Leeds?”

  The voice comes from behind me.

  I stand up and spin around at the same time Aspen jumps up out of the chair. A doctor is standing at the entrance to the waiting room. “Leeds Gabriel?” he says.

  I can’t help but feel relief that this man is sparing me from an explanation I wasn’t able to give Aspen, but I’m terrified he’s here to deliver news I’m not prepared for. I step forward. “Is she okay?”

  The doctor pushes open the door behind him. “She’s asking for you.”

  I don’t know how I have the strength to even take a step, because those words knock the breath out of me. But somehow, I make it across the floor, to the door, down the hallway, and into a room where Layla is on a bed, covered in a blanket, her hair still wet and piled over her shoulder.

  I pause when I enter the room, because I don’t know exactly what I’m walking into. It’s hard to tell just by looking at her.

  Is she Layla?

  Aspen pushes past me and rushes to her bedside. Aspen is crying. Hugging her.

  But Layla isn’t looking at Aspen. She’s looking straight at me.

  There’s no emotion on her face. No way to tell if I’m staring at Layla right now or if I’m staring at Sable. I want to believe it’s Layla, because I feel like it’s Layla. I’m just too scared to trust my instinct right now.

  I need her to say something.

  “Layla?” My voice is a whisper. A question.

  A single tear falls out of her eye and rolls down her cheek. She nods . . . barely. “Leeds,” she says. “Do you know what you look like right now?”

  I shake my head.

  Her mouth curls into a smile. “You look like you’re dying inside.”

  That statement becomes the only proof I need. I rush to her, slipping between Aspen and the bed. I lower the rail and I crawl into bed with her and I hold her while she clings to me. I kiss her over and over, all over her face, her hands, the top of her head. She’s crying, but she’s also laughing.

  “We did it,” she says.

  I sigh, pressing my cheek to hers. “We did it, Layla.” I wipe tears from her cheeks.

  “Say that again. Say my name again.”

  “Layla,” I whisper. “Layla, Layla, Layla.”

  She kisses me.

  Layla kisses me.

  Layla.

  EPILOGUE

  Layla and I came out of this experience knowing one thing for certain, and that is the simple fact that we now know nothing for certain.

  This life and whatever comes after it are more than we can comprehend, so we don’t even try. All we can do is appreciate that we figured out how to get a second chance together. And with that second chance, we’re doing everything we can to make sure we don’t need a third.

  We don’t know if Sable moved on to another realm or if her spirit is now stuck somewhere that could be tied to a memory of me, so Layla and I decided the best course of action would be to start over. Completely.

  We never went back to the bed and breakfast in Lebanon, Kansas. We never even went back to our temporary apartment in Tennessee. When Layla was released from the hospital, we drove straight to the airport and asked where the next available flight was heading.

  That’s how we ended up here in Montana.

  Neither of us has ever been here before, and that gives us a sense of comfort. We stayed in a hotel for a few weeks until we closed on a house. We made sure we purchased a new construction. We figured it would be better if there was no history tied to the home we bought. There would be less chance of us encountering an entity that isn’t of this realm.

  The house is probably more than we need, but as soon as Layla laid eyes on it for the first time, I could tell by the way she gasped that this would be our home. The house sits on ten acres of rolling hills with unobstructed views of the Beartooth Mountains from our backyard.

  It’s a unique and modern home, unlike any other house in the area. So much so the house feels a little out of place in the midst of all the nature surrounding us. I think we were drawn to it because it’s reminiscent of how Layla and I feel in the world now. It’s like we don’t quite fit in because we’re living with this huge secret we can’t share with anyone.

  How would we even begin to tell someone what happened to us? People would think we’re crazy. Layla doesn’t even feel she can explain her experience to Aspen. She’s afraid it would make Aspen believe Layla’s head injury is worse than we initially thought.

  It’s going to take time to win Aspen over. She doesn’t trust me after everything that happened, and now that I’ve whisked Layla away to a secluded home in Montana, it’s only heightened Aspen’s concern for her sister. I’ll win Aspen’s favor back eventually. I’m confident of that. Layla is my soul mate in every realm of life.

  Layla and I have spent the last few days getting settled into our home. Because we didn’t bring anything with us, this move mainly consisted of shopping for furniture and everything else the house needed that we didn’t have.

  We’re both exhausted. As soon as the sun began to set earlier, we collapsed into a new patio chair together and have been sitting here quietly for the last half hour, listening to music playing through the Alexa device.

  Layla is tucked against my side with her arm draped over my stomach and her head against my shoulder. My hand is in her hair, twisting its way through her curls, when one of the songs I wrote begins to play.

  This must be a playlist of Layla’s.

  She immediately perks up and flashes a smile. “My favorite,” she says. And she means it. She listens to my songs so often I’m starting to get sick of my own voice.

  Layla slides out of the chair and begins swaying flirtatiously to the music. She spins around, lifting her arms in the air as she dances in front of me. “Alexa,” she says. “Volume max.”

  The song gets louder, and Layla closes her eyes and continues dancing. She’s out of sync and not at all
graceful.

  She’s still a terrible dancer. It was the first thing I noticed about her . . . and it’s the absolute last thing I would ever want to change.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I had so much fun exploring a genre I’ve never dabbled in before, even though I spooked myself a few times. Thanks to those of you who gave it a chance, especially if paranormal isn’t your thing. It was a huge stretch of the imagination for me, but that’s what I love about writing.

  A huge thank-you to my agent, Jane Dystel, and everyone at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret literary agency. You all work hard to get my books in the hands of readers, and I appreciate each of you so much.

  Thank you to the entire team at Montlake Publishing. You all have been a dream to work with, and I look forward to many more books to come.

  I’d also like to thank the entire Goodreads staff. We authors are so lucky to have a platform dedicated to books and you guys have always been so responsive and pleasant to work with.

  Thank you to my early readers, Tasara Richardson, Maria Blalock, Melinda Knight, Anjanette Guerrero, Vannoy Fite, Lin Reynolds, Brooke Howard, Karen Lawson, and Susan Rossman. You always get the worst versions yet somehow still ask for those versions. I appreciate all you do for these books.

  To Stephanie and Erica, my two main gals. Without you both, I’d not be living my dream. We have the best job ever.

  Thank you to everyone who works or volunteers for the Bookworm Box and Book Bonanza. I am so grateful for all you do to make these charities a success.

  A HUGE thank-you to every member of CoHorts, and the wonderful admins, Pamela Carrion, Chelle Lagoski Northcutt, Kristin Phillips, Laurie Darter, Murphy Rae, and Stephanie Cohen.

  Thank you to my wonderful family. My mother, my husband, my sisters, my boys.

  But most of all, thank you to you, the reader, for reading this book. This year has proven to be a challenging one for the world, so thank you for continuing to turn to art for comfort.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © Chad Griffith

  Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including the bestselling women’s fiction novel It Ends with Us and the bestselling psychological thriller Verity. She has won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance three years in a row—for Confess (2015), It Ends with Us (2016), and Without Merit (2017). Confess was adapted into a seven-episode online series. In 2015, Hoover and her family founded the Bookworm Box, a bookstore and monthly subscription service that offers signed novels donated by authors. All profits go to various charities each month to help those in need. Hoover lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys. Visit www.colleenhoover.com.