Find Layla

by Meg Elison

  She’s doing that right now. She licks her cracked lips and looks scared.

  But I think I’m the only one close enough to see that. To smell her. The scientific name for bad breath is halitosis. Knowing that gives me no feeling of control.

  “Those jeans have four hundred dollars in their pocket. Did you take the money? Did your brother take it?”

  Oh god don’t go to Andy’s school.

  “No, Mom. Nobody touched your jeans. Or your money. I need you to go. Right now. Can you go, right now, please?” I’m trying to keep my voice down, but I’m barely winning that fight.

  She looks at my pockets again, and I swear to god if she touches me this time I will start screaming, and I will maybe never stop.

  She walks away without saying anything else, just walks out of the room as if she didn’t just destroy my one small moment of peace, my one good day.

  All over the room, there’s the sudden sound of phones going off. Kristi’s beeps right beside me. Together, we sink down and try to disappear.

  “What are they saying?”

  Kristi doesn’t answer, she just hands me her phone.

  @angelface787: wtf was that thing

  @ryguyshyguy: well that just happened

  @macktheknife: u guys wtf was that im scared???

  @angelface787: ok now I get it #likemotherlikedaughter lmaooooo

  Wednesday 11:30 a.m.

  I never know when it’s going to be my last day. I never really have to say goodbye, but I never really get to, either.

  I remember before we moved to California. Andy’s too little to remember any of that; he was just a big baby when Dad left. Talking, but still in diapers. Totally useless.

  It’s hard to remember my last day at my school in Missouri, because I didn’t know it was going to be my last. I know that it was the day before winter break. I remember the white snowflakes we cut out and hung on the windows while real snow piled up outside. I remember taking the bus home, with all the kids talking about going to visit their grandmas and their cousins, or else taking off for somewhere warmer.

  We were going to take off, too. But not yet.

  I don’t remember Dad leaving, because at first there wasn’t any difference. He was in the Army, and he was never home. And then he was never coming home. I guess that matters, but I didn’t see how at first.

  The important thing was that we used to get money from him and we weren’t going to anymore. I heard Mom yelling about it on the phone, over and over. When the phone stopped working, I was glad. Then the lights went out and I was less glad.

  Mom stopped leaving the house. The dark windows had frost at the edges, and Andy had to wear his coat inside, all the time. Nobody stopped by to visit. Christmas came and went; I didn’t even bother asking. Mom had stopped talking.

  I think they’re not allowed to shut off your gas when you live somewhere that it snows. There’s no way we paid the bill, but the gas stayed on. That meant the water heater and the stove worked.

  We ate out of cans for a long time. I remember corn and soup at first, and then cans of pumpkin or beets, or jars of spaghetti sauce we’d just eat with spoons. Andy cut himself trying to use the can opener, and he cried and cried. I wrapped his fingers up and put a sock over his hand. Mom never even looked at it. She stopped looking at us, or at anything.

  I slept in Andy’s crib with him, with every blanket and towel piled around us, and we still froze. I have nightmares that we’re still there, the dark so complete that I can’t see him or my own hands, the cold so sharp that I have to cover our faces.

  One night we were so cold I thought we would die. I didn’t know anything back then; I don’t know if it was actually cold enough to kill. The window rattled and whistled in Andy’s room, and cold air came through. I didn’t know what to do about that either, but before the sun went down I could see our breath inside the house. When my hands and feet were numb, I climbed out and got Andy to follow. We went to the bath.

  Back then there weren’t even candles. We felt for the drain plug and the faucet; we turned on the water and waited for it to get hot. I climbed into the tub with him and we both stopped shivering. I picked up a bottle of shampoo, but it was frozen solid. We fell asleep in the water, only waking up when our hair dripped cold on us or when we had to warm up the bath again.

  When I thought dawn must be coming, I got out of the tub and wrapped a blanket around myself. I wondered how Mom was going to make it through the night all by herself. There was no one on the couch, but I knew right away by the glow.

  In the kitchen, the oven was on full blast—I could even see the flames coming up from the broiler. Mom was lying across three dining-room chairs, wrapped in her blankets and snoring.

  I didn’t have the words for it then, but that was the moment I realized we were enemies. Not just that she didn’t like us; that was always obvious. But that she probably flat-out hated us and maybe thought we could die quietly one of these cold nights.

  I got Andy dressed again and wrapped blankets around us both. Quietly, I led him to the kitchen and laid him down on the floor in front of the roaring oven. I lay behind him and we slept, warmer than we had been in weeks.

  At some point, we had our last night in that house. I don’t remember it. We moved here, where it’s never cold enough for that to happen again.

  Yesterday could have been my last day at my school, but I’d remember it forever.

  I still can’t believe she came to my school.

  It’s the first time she’s said my name in ages.

  And it’s the first time she’s put her hands on me since we moved to California. Of that, I am deadly sure.

  Today, Andy is in school but I’m not. There’s no way I was going after what happened yesterday. Mom hasn’t been home since then. I’m in my hideout, watching Auntie Mame, waiting for Kristi to text me that she’s done editing our project.

  I’ve still got the camera. I still like the idea that I might see something cool and capture it. Maybe put it on my Twitter account. Maybe distract people from the Instagram about me—if that really exists. I don’t buy it. Jane Chase doesn’t have that much time to spend on a prank like that. It isn’t even funny.

  In the afternoon, I hear Andy come through the window, and I’m about to slide back in and meet him when I hear something else. It’s the same sound Andy makes coming through, but confused. Longer. Clumsier. And then it comes again.

  “This is your house, Andrew?”

  My veins turn to ice. An adult woman, someone I don’t know, is in my house. I hit the power button on my TV.

  “Yeah, this is it.” He has no idea.

  “Where is your mommy right now?” An adult man, another stranger.

  “She’s at work right now.”

  A million things go quick through my head. Kidnappers, child molesters, those people who sell kids for money. They could be anybody.

  No. I know who they are. I just can’t deal with it.

  “Where is your sister? Where’s Layla?” The woman again.

  Andy sounds unsure. “I thought she was at school, but then I didn’t see her.”

  The man answers. “We went to her school first to talk to her. She wasn’t there.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Andrew. Can you show me the kitchen?”

  Their voices muffle as they walk to the other side of the apartment. I can tell they’re talking but can’t make out a word. I pick them back up in the living room.

  “Mommy sleeps there.” Andy sounds so, so small.

  “Your mommy sleeps on the couch?”

  “Uh-huh. She doesn’t like her room anymore.”

  “Can you show me her room?” The woman’s got a voice like a kindergarten teacher.

  They’re in the room right next to me now. My hideout is just below her window.

  I can hear the woman choking when they walk in. “What happened in here?”

  “Mommy used to have a waterbed, but it broke.
”

  There’s a little silence, and then I hear one of them say softly, “Water damage . . . rotted the . . . boxes.”

  Loud again, in that kindergarten-teacher tone. “Andy, can you show me the bathroom?”

  He gives them the tour. I hear them asking where the sheets are for his bed, or for my bed. I hear them asking who makes him dinner and where he keeps his clothes.

  Andy is completely honest with them, and patient, and sounds like he’s trying to get a good grade on a test. Trying so hard. I’m clawing at my jeans, but I don’t realize it until I hear the sound I’m making. I wish I could get my hands over his mouth, or he could hear me telling him with my mind to shut up.

  They’re not kidnappers. They’re not here to molest him. They’re from CPS and they came to take him away. The clipboard people. I’m holding on to myself with both hands. If I come up now, they’ll take us both. But if they just take him, I’ll never see him again. I’ve seen them take kids from our neighbors before.

  The woman talks to Andy very sweetly, like she’s afraid to scare him. “Andrew, we are going to take you somewhere. It will be somewhere safe and nice, and you’ll get to have some dinner there. Will you come with us?”

  There’s no answer.

  “Andrew, will you please come with us? To a safe place?”

  He’s crying. I can hear his hitching breath and his stupid baby voice. “I want my mommy. We should go to her work, it’s not even far! I can walk there!”

  “We—we are going to talk to your mommy. Mr. Evans here is going to go see her right now. But I’d like you to come with me while he does that.”

  “I want my mommy! I want Layla.” He stops talking to them and just yells out for me. “Layla! Layla!”

  My hands are pressed against my cardboard walls. I’m convinced he knows I’m there. He’s calling for me because he knows I can hear him. Oh god oh god.

  “Layla! Don’t let them take me away! Layla! I’m getting tooken away!”

  “Can you open this door, Julius?”

  “I’m trying. It really won’t budge.”

  “Jesus. Okay, you go through the window and I’ll pass him to you.”

  “Ugh. Alright, hold my jacket, at least.”

  I can hear them struggling with the window and with Andy. Andy screams and cries, and by the sound of it, he’s kicking all the way out the window, too.

  “Layla! Layla, don’t let them take me! Layla!”

  The sound of his screaming fades as they take him down the stairs and away, away, away.

  I can’t think. I know once he’s gone it’s all over. But I can’t think I can’t think I can’t think they took my brother.

  They’re going to be back for me.

  They already went to my school. They’re going to talk to my mom. They’re going to find me.

  I don’t hear another sound in the house until two days later.

  Friday 8:00 a.m.

  I get shocked awake by the banging and wrenching noises of the front door as it’s broken and opened up.

  I’ve snuck out of my hiding space a couple of times, but I’m glad I stayed in today. It sounds like five or six people coming through the front door after breaking it down.

  I charged my phone last night and the camera all day yesterday. I packed my backpack the night after they took Andy. I’m ready.

  I should have left before dawn. Now I don’t know how long these people are going to stay.

  I slide out of my cardboard tunnel and peek slowly up over the window into Mom’s room. They brought in big standing lights, with cords running out the door. My heart is in my throat for a moment when I realize they’re probably plugged in where I am. They might find my cord in the laundry room downstairs and follow it up. Find me.

  Someone walks into Mom’s room and I slip back down. For a second I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing. It doesn’t even look like a person.

  When I get the courage to look back up, there’s a blinding light in the room and now there’s two of them.

  Two big people. No, not that big. They’re just wearing some kind of big plastic suits with respirators. I can hear them talking, some in Spanish and some in English.

  “So this is an abandonment, or what?”

  “Yeah, the tenant just split, so the place has been vacant for who knows how long. The owner came and looked at it after the cops got a hold of him.”

  “Man. What a hole.”

  “Yeah.”

  They’re wearing big gloves as they start to take apart the furniture. They’re getting stuff off the floor with a shovel and a rake-like thing.

  I’m recording.

  When these two walk out of the room, I decide it’s time.

  I’ve only climbed over the railing and down the outside wall twice before. Both times I trembled like a leaf and barely made it. This time, my backpack is heavy and I’m already terrified.

  I swing one leg over the railing and sit there a minute. It’s stupid, anyone can see me, but I just can’t get myself to do it.

  Today is my last day here. I know that now.

  I swing the other leg down and move my foot blindly to find the beam beneath the balcony. When I’ve got it securely, I bring my hands down to the bottom of the railing and push my feet out. I hang.

  This is the hard part. It isn’t that far to drop. About my height, I’m pretty sure.

  But the last two times I hit the ground like a sack of trash.

  I hear voices in the room above again.

  I let go.

  I guess if I was in sports I would know how to land right. I would drop in a crouch instead of a pile. But I never learned how to land on my feet. My knees go out and I am sprawled on my ass, my hands scraped and my ankles aching.

  I have to get up quick. I have to walk like everything is normal. I didn’t come from that house. I came from nowhere.

  But I know where I’m going.

  9:30 a.m.

  Kristi showed me a long time ago how she gets out of her room at night. It works just as well to get in. There’s a wooden trellis with little roses growing on it that reaches up to the eave under her bedroom window. She never locks it.

  Nobody is home. No black Mercedes, no white SUV. Total silence when I hit the floor in Kristi’s pink bedroom.

  I throw all my clothes in the washer, including the ones I have on. I put on a robe I find in the dryer.

  In the kitchen, I make myself a cup of tea and warm up some leftovers I find in the fridge. I sit at their table, in their silence, and I steal their life.

  It’s okay, they’ll never miss it.

  They will never miss these twenty minutes of silence and peace. They have so much clean order they’ll never know any of it is missing.

  I eat it all. The food, the light, the chair, the table. I eat Kristi’s safety and her mom’s love. I eat her stepdad’s job and her sister’s fancy college tuition. I’m stuffed with it when I put my clothes in the dryer. I eat like I’m never going to eat again.

  Because I probably won’t.

  I take a long shower, this time in Bette’s bathroom. I brush my hair all the way out, using her fancy conditioner and special comb. I shave my legs and armpits with her razor. I use her deodorant.

  I get dressed and roll the rest of my clothes into tight cylinders, fit them in around books in my bag. Looking in my backpack, I think about the fact that I have no money. Not a cent. Nothing I can really sell.

  I can sleep in my secret RV until I get caught or scared away. I know some places I can hide, and I can always find more. I will need money someday. I have no idea what I’ll do about that.

  I’m dressed. I’m ready. I’m sitting in Kristi’s room, and I can’t make myself leave yet. Not yet. Not without a better plan than running to nowhere.

  I think of Mom in the cafeteria the other day, and I wonder if that is the last time I will see her. I don’t even know how I feel about that.

  I stopped wondering a long time ago why some people ha
ve lives like Kristi’s while I have this one. I don’t think there are any rules on that. It’s just what we get.

  But today I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to change that. Today I am thinking about that stupid little girl in the bathtub who finally just brushed her own damn hair.

  It’s still wet from the shower. Sitting up, I can see myself in Kristi’s mirror. I’m clean. I’m dressed in clean clothes. My mom is gone, and nobody carried me off kicking and screaming. I did this. That’s worth something.

  Kristi’s laptop is on the floor again. I slide the SD card into the slot.

  Editing the video takes longer than I thought. The program is simple once I know where the tools are, but finding them takes forever the first time. I’m watching the clock. I turn my phone on and it’s full of messages from Kristi and Bette and numbers I don’t recognize. All of a sudden everyone’s looking for me.

  My Twitter account has a bunch of new mentions and DMs. There’s even a couple of nice ones, people asking if I’m alright or if I need help. I could spend the time replying to everybody one by one. Or I could just say this once and then drop the mic.

  Once the video is ready, I get into Kristi’s makeup bag. I don’t know what I’m doing at all, but I screw with it until I can at least put on mascara and eyeliner. I want people to be able to see my eyes. I sit on Kristi’s big pink bed and flip on her webcam.

  “My name is Layla Bailey, and this is my biome.”

  I cut to the footage of my house, turning up the audio so that I can be heard explaining my habitat. I added today’s men in plastic suits to the very end, and I narrate over it.

  “These people and CPS are the apex predators of my ecosystem, and I am an endangered species. The last of my kind. But the Sierra Club doesn’t make posters out of kids like me.”

  I add three screenshots near the end. The first is the only picture of my mom I could find, in profile and wreathed in smoke.

  “This is my mother, Darlene Thompson. She was born in captivity and released into the wild without any skills to care for herself. She is missing. If you see her, do not attempt to approach her, but please contact animal control.”