Chapter 36 Layla
Layla
KIERAN
*picture of Emmy*
*missed FaceTime call*
earth to Layla
Emmy wants to show you the matching costumes she picked out for you two
My eyes are heavy as two gentle hands grasp my shoulders and shake me awake. My mouth feels like it’s full of cotton.
“Layla, sweetie.”
“Mom?”
She sighs, sinking beside me on the bed. “My god Layla, I thought you were dead.”
I’m slow to sit up, my mind a groggy mess, slow to realize my hands ache. “What time is it?”
“Eleven.” I look up at my mom, the worry on her face evident. “Layla, you slept through all your alarms.”
That has my eyes snapping wide open.
“I—what?”
The last time I slept through my alarms, I was at the peak of a lupus flare-up. That hasn’t happened since I left for Berlin, before the trial drugs began to work miracles on my immune system.
She reaches over, feeling my cheeks. “Sweetie, you’re burning up. You have a fever.”
My dad comes into the room then, his ears a supersonic radar for anything medical. “What’s wrong?”
My mom doesn’t let me answer. She turns to him, panic in her voice. “She slept through her alarms and has a fever.”
His brows furrow. “Did you have a late night?”
My mind is a messy fog, but I’m aware enough to realize that it takes me far too long to remember where I was last night. The pieces come back to me one by one. The chicken noodle soup. Kieran and his lingering touches. Bella and The Vampire Diaries.
I want to tell my parents I slept in because I was acting like a regular adult, that I stayed up partying or was out watching Kieran play and that we went for celebratory drinks after. That Cindy, Bella, and I went to Totti’s and had a late night, but the answer is no.
My voice is croaky as I whisper, “No, we had an early night. I fell asleep watching TV with Bella.”
My dad stumbles slightly as he reaches out and puts a comforting hand on my mom’s shoulder. Her eyes have taken on a glint of fear that won’t abate no matter how much she tries to blink it away.
She stands quickly. “I’m going to call your specialist and book an appointment.”
I snap my hand out, stopping her. “No! I’m fine.
I was out at the park in the rain with Emmy.
I think it’s just a regular cold.” I look from my moms stricken face and my dads concerned one as I ask tentatively, needing reassurance so badly in this moment I all but beg as I ask, “I can have regular colds…right?”
My dad gives my mom’s shoulder another squeeze, and his whispered words send a dagger through my heart. “Call the specialist.”
An hour later, Bella pops her head into my bedroom, startling me. Dropping the book I was reading, I sit up in bed, far more awake than I was earlier.
“Hey! What are you—” my words die on my tongue.
Bella holds her hands up in surrender. “Don’t be upset with her. She was worried.”
Patting the spot beside me, I place a bookmark in my book and set it on my nightstand. “My mom shouldn’t have worried you.”
Closing the door softly, she kicks off her shoes and sits beside me on the bed. “You promised I’d be the first you’d call if something was wrong.”
I blink, biting my lip. “I feel better than I did when I first woke up, but…”
“But…?” Bella probes.
Lifting my head, I say what I was too afraid to tell my parents and what I’m dreading telling my specialist. Even my favorite book couldn’t distract me from the tightness and tingling in my chest. “It feels different. This morning, something felt…wrong.”
Bella frowns. “Like one of your flare-ups?”
“Even stranger than what those felt like. I know it’s been a while but I can tell.”
“Did you skip a day of your meds?”
“God no, I’d never forget. I take it religiously at the same time every day.” The sound of my mom’s sniffling comes from down the hallway. Sighing, I turn to Bella. “Can you come with me to my specialist appointment? I know she wants to but I think we will both just send each other into a spiral.”
I’m already on the verge of pulling my hair out. My mind won’t stop churning, my body reacting as if a bear is chasing me through the woods.
Panic is my middle name right now.
Bella nods. “Of course, anything you want. Except—” She holds up her index finger. “I’m not going to tell her. You can crush your mother’s heart yourself.”
“Crush is a bit dramatic.”
Bella levels me with a blank stare.
Sighing, I lean back in bed. “Fine, I’ll tell her tonight. But B?”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t tell Kieran.”
She frowns. “Why can’t he know?”
How do I tell my best friend, the one who has supported me for years that, even as much as she loves me, even as much as she’s desensitized to my illness, she still looks at me sometimes with a pitiful expression?
Kieran has never looked at me that way before.
He looks at me like I’m the sexiest woman in the world—as if I hold the key to his heart, as if I hung the moon. I don’t want those cocky smiles, teasing taunts, and flirtatious glances to stop.
Because if they stop, then I really will feel like the sick girl again.
I want to remain as I am in his mind. But I feel like I can’t say any of that, so I settle instead on, “I don’t want him to think I’m incapable of taking care of Emmy.
I’m sure I’ll be fine after a good weekend’s worth of rest. Besides, the tests will take a week or two to come back.
I won’t know what’s happening for some time. ”
Bella nods along as if what I’m saying makes complete and total sense. I’m sure it does, but I’m just too busy feeling relieved that she buys it and moves on to ask, “When is the appointment?”
“My mom begged her to see me this afternoon.”
“On a Saturday?”
“At three.”
She whistles. “Never heard of a specialist agreeing to see someone on the weekend.” At my panicked look, she rushes on to say, “It’ll be all right, Lil, you’ll see.”
“And what if it’s not?” I ask.
“Then I’ll be here, every step of the way.”