Layla

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. They 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.