Layla

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.