Layla

It’s been two hours since we came upstairs to prepare for Layla’s drowning.

Two hours since it started to feel like my world might be coming to an end.

She has everything planned out. She even wrote down instructions and is making me study them like this is some kind of fucking college exit exam.

1. Hold me under until I’m no longer struggling for air.

2. Check my pulse. When it stops, call 911 immediately.

3. Wake up Aspen.

4. Start resuscitation.

5. You only have five minutes to save my life.

I let the paper fall to the bed. Five minutes. I can’t read it again.

“Do you need more time to look it over?” she asks me.

“I’m going to need years before I’m ready to do this.”

She lifts a hand and touches the side of my head. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. But the longer we let this go on, the weaker I’m going to be. We need to do it now before we have more slipups. Before Aspen becomes even more suspicious.” She grabs the sheet of paper and folds it up. Then she walks to the bathroom and flushes it in the toilet. On her way back into the bedroom, she grabs my laptop and sets it on her side of the bed. She clears her throat and then says, “I typed up a suicide note. I think it’s important to have, just in case.”

I cover my face with my hand. “A suicide note?” I can’t keep my voice down. “How are you so calm about this? You just wrote a suicide note, Layla.”

“I don’t want you to take the fall if this doesn’t work. I scheduled it to send as an email for four hours from now. You know the login to my email.

If I don’t make it . . . allow the email to send. But if I do make it . . . delete it. Because it’s going to everyone, Leeds. You, Aspen, my mother . . .” Her voice is even—mechanical, almost—as if she’s completely detached from the reality of what we’re about to do.

She grabs my hand, wanting me to stand up. Wanting me to follow her.

The next several minutes feel surreal. I follow her out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and to the backyard.

She walks calmly into the pool, and so much of this moment is wrapped in the night we met. The first time we spoke was in this pool. Our first kiss was in this pool.

Why does it feel like our final goodbye might happen in the pool?

My pulse is frantic. I can’t catch a breath. The reality of what we’re about to do may not be absorbing into her, but it has taken over every part of me.

She’s standing in the middle of the pool, in the same spot where I found her floating on her back that first night we met. And by some miracle, she has the same expression on her face. Serene. “I need you in the water with me, Leeds.” I realize she’s remaining as calm as she is because she knows if she doesn’t, I’ll talk her out of this. I’ll talk myself out of this.

But she’s right. We need to do it now, before she becomes even weaker from lack of sleep.

I’m reluctant as I make my way toward the pool. The water is warm when I step into it, and it hits me that she had me turn on the pool heater yesterday—not so we could swim but for this very purpose.

We keep our eyes locked together as I make my way to her.

When I meet her in the middle, I have to close my eyes, because I finally see a trace of fear in her expression. She snakes her arms around my waist and presses her face against my chest. “I know you don’t want this, Leeds. But I want my life back. I need it back.” Her voice is shaking.

“Every time I have to leave my own body, it’s like a brand-new heartbreak.”

I kiss her on top of her head, but I say nothing. I couldn’t speak if I wanted to. The fear is too thick in my throat.

“Listen to me,” she says, guiding my gaze to hers. “I’m going to have to let Sable take over. It’ll be better if she’s scared and confused when her heart stops. Because I’ll be alert and ready.”

She’s right. Layla will have the advantage if she’s waiting by the sidelines.

“As soon as I slip out of her in a minute, Sable is going to panic when she wakes up and sees that she’s in this pool with you. That’s when you do it. You shove her under, and you hold her down and you don’t let her up for air, no matter how scared you are or how guilty you feel.”

I imagine what that will be like for Sable. Being drowned with no knowledge of why. She’s going to be terrified. She’s going to fight back.

And I’m somehow going to have to look past the fact that it’ll be Layla’s body I’m drowning as I kill Sable for a second time.

“Hey,” Layla says, her voice sympathetic and gentle. She’s looking at me like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. She always does. She understands my thoughts as if they’re whispered into her head as soon as I have them. “You won’t be ending Sable’s life, Leeds. You’ll be saving mine. You can do this.”

That’s the perspective I needed to move forward. This is about what’s deserved. It isn’t about what’s moral. “Okay. You’re right. I can do this. We can do this.”

“Good. Okay.” She sucks in a rush of air, but it’s a fragile intake, marred by fear. “Are you ready?”

I shake my head adamantly because who could be ready for something like this? I take her face in my hands, and we lock eyes. She’s scared. Her lips are quivering. When her hands rest against my chest, I can feel her fingers trembling.

I owe this to her. She’s been forced to spend so much time here alone, waiting for someone she couldn’t remember. I press my forehead to hers, and we close our eyes. When I’m this close to her, I can feel an unfrayed connection not even death could break. We’re bound together for eternity, and if I don’t get this right—if I lose her—that tether will feel like a noose tightening around my heart until it stops.

I kiss her. I kiss her hard, and I don’t want to stop, because what if this is the last time I ever get to kiss her?

I kiss her until I taste tears. Both of ours.

I kiss her until she makes me stop.

She presses her forehead against my chest, and I can feel the sadness in her sigh. “I love you,” she says.

I wrap my arms tightly around her and press my cheek against the top of her head. “I love you, Layla.”

“Thank you for finding me,” she whispers.

And then she’s gone.

It’s no longer Layla I’m holding, but Sable. I can feel the change in the way she jerks against me and then lifts her head from my chest, wide eyed.

I have my hand over her mouth before she can even scream.

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.