4. Layla
— ? —
Layla
I stood in the foyer and couldn’t breathe.
Stefan’s jacket hung on the hook by the door where he’d left it that morning. His coffee cup sat in the sink, a ring of brown at the bottom. Our wedding photo smiled at me from the mantel, his arm around my waist, my head on his shoulder, both of us so stupidly happy.
I couldn’t look at it.
My phone rang.
Stella’s name flashed across the screen, and my stomach turned to ice. I stared at it for three rings, four, my hand shaking as I finally answered.
“Layla, darling.” Her voice was silk over steel. “I wanted to check on you. You left in such a hurry.”
“I’m fine.” The lie tasted like ash.
“Are you? You seemed quite upset when you ran out.” A pause. “Did you speak with Stefan?”
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. She was fishing. Trying to find out if her poison had worked. If I’d confronted him. If I’d destroyed my marriage the way she’d been hoping I would since the day we met.
I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.
“I went to his office.” I kept my voice flat. “He was in a meeting.”
“A meeting.” She repeated the word slowly, meaningfully. “With anyone in particular?”
“Cut the shit, Stella.”
Silence on the other end. I’d never spoken to her like that before. Not directly. Not without Stefan as a buffer.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” My free hand curled into a fist at my side. “You knew, didn’t you? This whole time. You knew what he was doing, what he was saying, and you just kept quiet.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me.” My voice rose, cracking at the edges. “That recording didn’t appear out of nowhere. You’ve had it. You’ve been sitting on it. Waiting for the perfect moment to blow up my life.”
“Layla.” Her tone shifted, hardening. “I showed you that recording because you deserved to know the truth about your husband. About what he really thinks of you.”
“Bullshit.” I was pacing now, my heels clicking against the hardwood. “You’ve hated me since the day Stefan brought me home. You’ve been looking for a way to get rid of me for two years. This is just your latest scheme.”
“My latest scheme?” Stella laughed, and the sound made my skin crawl. “Darling, I didn’t make Stefan say those things. I didn’t force him to compare you to your sister. I simply gave you the information you needed to make an informed decision about your future.”
“When did you find out?”
“Find out what?”
“About Pippa. About him wanting her instead of me. When, Stella?”
Another pause. Longer this time. When she spoke again, her voice had lost its pretense of warmth.
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
“Fine.” She sighed, like I was a child asking tedious questions. “I’ve suspected for months. The way he talks about her. The way his face changes when her name comes up. A mother notices these things.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I did what I had to do to keep my son happy.” The words came out cold. “If that meant staying quiet while he worked through his feelings, then that’s what I was willing to do. Stefan’s happiness has always been my priority.”
“His happiness.” I laughed, but the sound was hollow. “What about my happiness? What about our marriage?”
“Your marriage was never going to last, Layla. I knew that from the beginning. Stefan may have been infatuated with you, but infatuation fades. Eventually he was going to realize he’d made a mistake. I simply accelerated the timeline.”
“You’re a monster.”
“I’m a mother.” Her voice was ice. “And I will do whatever it takes to protect my son. Even from himself. Even from you.”
“I never did anything to hurt him.”
“You existed.” She said it like it was obvious. “You walked into his life with your pretty face and your common background and you made him forget who he was. Who he was supposed to be. The kind of woman he was supposed to marry.”
“Someone like Vienna, you mean?”
“Someone with breeding. With class. With the ability to navigate our world without embarrassing him at every turn.” Stella’s voice dripped with contempt.
“Do you know what people say about you, Layla? Behind your back, at every party? They laugh at you. They pity my son for being saddled with a wife who used to serve champagne at their events.”
My throat closed. The words hit every wound she’d been picking at for two years, and she knew it. She knew exactly where to aim.
“I don’t care what they say.”
“Yes, you do.” She was relentless. “You care desperately. I can see it in your face every time we’re in public together. The way you second-guess yourself. The way you dress wrong and speak wrong and hold yourself like you’re waiting for someone to throw you out.”
“Stop.”
“The truth hurts, darling. That’s why it’s called the truth.” Her voice softened, but not with kindness. With victory. “Now you know what your husband really thinks of you. What are you going to do about it?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The tears were streaming down my face now, and I refused to let her hear me cry.
“Layla? Are you still there?”
I ended the call.
The phone sat in my palm, and I stared at it for a long moment before dropping it onto the couch. Then I walked to the bedroom and yanked open the closet.
My hands grabbed clothes at random, shoving them into a bag without looking at what I was taking. Shirts. Pants. A dress I’d never wear again. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
The bag wouldn’t zip. I forced it closed, breaking the zipper, and didn’t care. I grabbed my purse, my keys, my wallet.
The last thing I did was twist my rings off my finger and set them on the bathroom counter, side by side, where he couldn’t miss them.
The recording played on loop in my head. Stefan’s voice. Saying things I couldn’t unhear.
I was in the car before I knew where I was going. The engine started and I pulled out of the driveway, tires squealing against the pavement.
I didn’t know where I was going. I only knew I couldn’t go back.
My phone lit up on the passenger seat. Stefan’s name flashed across the screen.
I stared at it. Let it ring.
It stopped. Then started again. Stefan.
Then Stefan again.
The phone rang over and over again, but I couldn’t look at it anymore. I reached over and held down the power button until the screen went black.
I pressed my hand against my stomach without thinking.
The baby. Our baby. The secret I’d been holding onto, waiting for the perfect moment to tell him.
What was I supposed to do now? Raise this child alone? Raise this child knowing its father had never wanted me in the first place?
The tears came without warning. I could barely see the road through the blur. I pulled off at an exit, parked in an empty lot, and sobbed until my throat was raw.
My sister. My own sister.
Had they been together this whole time? Had they laughed about me behind my back? Had Stefan held me at night while thinking about her?
The baby kicked against my palm. Too early for movement, I knew that, but I swore I felt something. A flutter. A reminder that I wasn’t alone in this body anymore.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to my stomach. “I’m so sorry I brought you into this mess.”
I started the car again and pulled back onto the highway.
I stopped for gas somewhere in Indiana, or maybe Ohio. I wasn’t paying attention to the signs anymore.
Inside the gas station, my stomach lurched.
I barely made it to the bathroom before I was doubled over, retching into the toilet. Everything came up. Bile, and the nothing I’d eaten since morning.
“Oh, honey.” A woman’s voice came from behind me. “Let me help you.”
Hands gathered my hair, pulling it back from my face. Another hand rubbed circles on my spine.
“That’s it.” The voice was calm, soothing. “Just let it out. You’re okay.”
I wasn’t okay. I was the furthest thing from okay. But I couldn’t say that to a stranger, so I just kept heaving until there was nothing left.
When it finally stopped, I slumped against the wall of the stall. The woman pressed a damp paper towel to my forehead, and I looked up at her for the first time.
She was maybe fifty, with kind eyes and graying hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Easy now,” she said softly. “Just breathe. Easy.”
“Thank you.” My voice came out hoarse. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
“I do.” She handed me another paper towel. “You need to be careful, sweetheart. How far along are you?”
“What?”
“How far along?” She nodded toward my midsection.
“How did you know?” I stared at her. “I haven’t told anyone. No one knows.”
“You keep touching your belly.” She smiled gently. “The whole time you were sick, your hand never left your stomach. That’s what mothers do. We protect without even thinking about it.”
I looked down. She was right. My palm was pressed flat against my abdomen, cradling the life inside me. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it.
The sobs came out of nowhere.
Ugly, raw, animal sounds that I couldn’t control. I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe, and the stranger just held me. She wrapped her arms around me and rocked me gently, asking no questions, expecting no explanations.
“I don’t know where to go,” I choked out between sobs. “I don’t know what to do. My husband... my sister... I can’t go home. I can’t face them.”
“Then don’t.” Her voice was steady. “Don’t go back until you’re ready.”
“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Everyone has somewhere to go.” She pulled back and looked at me. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Layla.”
“I’m Marie.” She stood and offered me her hand. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
She helped me to the sink and waited while I splashed water on my face. I looked at my reflection in the grimy mirror. Red eyes. Blotchy skin. Mascara smeared down my cheeks. I looked like a woman whose life had just fallen apart.
Because I was.
“Where are you headed?” Marie asked.
“I don’t know.” I dried my face with paper towels. “I just started driving. I didn’t have a plan.”
“Then keep going.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a crumpled napkin. “Keep moving until you figure it out. That’s what I did when my first husband left.”
“What happened?”
“I drove until I found a place that felt right.” She pulled a pen from her pocket and scribbled something on the napkin. “My sister runs a bar down south. It’s a good town. No one asks too many questions.”
She pressed the napkin into my hand. A phone number and a single word - Savannah - were scrawled across it in blue ink.
“Call her when you get there.” Marie squeezed my fingers. “Tell her Marie sent you. She’ll give you work. A place to stay. No questions.”
“Why are you helping me?” I stared at her. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know what it looks like when a woman is running from something.” Her eyes were soft. “And I know what it feels like to think you’re all alone in the world. You’re not, Layla. Remember that.”
I hugged her. I couldn’t help it. I threw my arms around this stranger who had shown me more kindness in ten minutes than my mother-in-law had shown me in two years.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Take care of yourself.” She patted my back. “And take care of that baby.”
I walked out of the gas station with the napkin clutched in my fist.
I put my hand on my belly.
“Just you and me now,” I whispered to the life growing inside me. “We’re going to figure this out. I don’t know how, but we will.”
I pulled onto the highway and kept driving.