Layla – Present
I take a moment before closing the door and look around.
Everything’s gone except the blue couch that was here when Ben got the keys.
Our short lived life together is packed away in boxes in Clark’s parents’ garage.
I grip the handle of my suitcase and scan the apartment, making sure I haven’t forgotten anything.
I try not to get emotional. I try not to think about that stupid blue couch and how I want to drag it with me. I try not to think of all the memories these four walls hold. I feel like I’m leaving behind Ben, because he’s in everything here, he is everything.
It feels cruel to leave behind the only home we ever had together.
I’m jealous of all the times I won’t get to spend with him.
All the moments he was alive, and I wasn’t there.
Most of all, I’m jealous of the people who will never understand the suffocating depth of this kind of grief.
That’s the kind of brutal honesty no one wants to hear.
I close the door and slip the keys for Max under Ben’s Star Wars doormat.
When I get outside, the taxi I ordered is already parked out front, waiting. The driver gets out and helps me load my luggage into the trunk. I sit in the back and focus on the road ahead.
We pass the park. It’s early morning and none of the children are out playing yet. A man walks his dog alone around the circle of grass. The town is slowly waking as we drive by.
At the airport, I check in. The last time I was in this airport was with Ben and a few of our friends during spring break. We were all heading to the coast, laughing and excited for a break. How such a short about of time can change everything, I’ll never understand.
I walk by a coffee shop and stop, picking up a can of Mountain Dew and an orange soda. I sit down by the window, pop the lid on the Mountain Dew, smell it, then set it aside and drink from my own soda. Planes come and go.
I pull out my phone, deciding it’s finally time to call my brother.
He answers on the second ring. There’s some shuffling and static before he speaks.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s me.” When I’m met by silence on the other end I clarify, “Layla.”
“What are you calling for?”
I roll my eyes. Five years and he still hasn’t grown up.
“I need a favor.”
“I’m busy, Layla. Can it wait?”
“Not really. I’m about to get on a plane to Rockport. Can you pick me up?”
“Why are you coming home? Do you think that’s a good idea–”
“Rhett, please, can you for once not argue with me?”
I hear him sigh.
“What time does you flight get in?”
“Nine.”
He curses. “I have work at nine. Why are you only calling me now? Couldn’t you have at least given me a heads up?”
“It wasn’t exactly planned. Can you do it or not?”
“Fine.”
He hangs up.
That went better than I thought it would.
I hear the call to board and throw away the two drinks.
I hand the flight attendant my boarding pass, and she points out the row my seat is in. There’s an old lady in the seat beside mine, holding a Dolly Parton memoir. I’m thankful I have the aisle seat.
I sit down next to her, and she smiles at me as she rustles the wrapper off a candy. As the plane starts to position for take off, she holds the bag out to me.
“Would you like one, dear?”
I don’t like the type of candy she’s offering, but she’s smiling at me like it might solve all my problems, and I don’t want to offend her. I take one and unwrap it. I pop it into my mouth and cringe. It’s worse than I thought, banana flavored.
The plane takes off, and she starts pointing out to me where her daughter’s house is.
I notice she has three rings on her wedding finger.
She tells me where she grew up and where her and her husband bought their first home.
He’s in a retirement home in Rockport now.
She spends six months a year with her daughter here in Louisiana, and the other six in an apartment in Rockport to be close to him.
“He likes it there, it’s where his folks are from,” she says. “He can’t remember me anymore. He thinks I’m a staff member.” She laughs. “At least he thinks I look young enough to work there.”
She passes me another candy, and I take it. It’s my third one. They are starting to grow on me.
“What about you, dear?” she asks, nodding to my wedding ring. “How long have you been married?”
I don’t know how to answer that. Do I tell her Ben died? Do I say we were married for two months, or do I count all the months that have passed without him? I take a breath.
“Two months,” I answer.
“Ah, newlyweds,” she says, her eyes glimmering with her own memories. I feel envious of them. I won’t tell her that though.
“I bet you were a beautiful bride.”
I smile. “I bet you were too.”
She laughs. “I like you.” She picks up her purse and takes out a small folded album, about the size of a passport photo, and shows me a picture from her wedding day.
“I was right,” I tell her, and she smiles.
“What does your husband look like?” she asks.
I take out my phone and show her the screen. Her eyes widen, and her smile spreads across her face, the corners of her mouth wrinkling.
“Now that is a man,” she says, making me laugh.
I sit with her as we skim the surface of conversation. She does most of the talking, and I like that. I rest my head against the seat and listen to her stories of her full life. She makes me laugh more than once, and I can’t remember the last time I laughed.
When the plane lands, she writes down her name and number.
Mabel.
“If you ever want to rescue me from my husband,” she laughs, “I’d be grateful for some company.”
I tell her my own name, and we part ways after collecting our bags.
Rhett is leaning against a pillar when I walk through the sliding doors. His arms are crossed. He looks oddly the same as the last time I saw him. I try to push away that thought. The last time I saw Rhett, I hated everything about him.
Five years, I remind myself. I’ve changed a lot in that time and maybe he has too.
“Hi,” I say, forcing a smile.
“I need to get to work, Layla. My boss is already mad at me.”
I quicken my pace to keep up with his large strides. “Why is he mad?”
“None of your business.”
Apparently five years for Rhett wasn’t as long as it was for me.
We reach his car. He gets into the driver’s seat while I struggle to lift my suitcase into the trunk.
“Will you hurry up?” he snaps.
I slam the trunk shut and get into the passenger seat. The air conditioner is blasting; it’s freezing. I reach to turn it down, and he glares at me. I place my hands on my lap. He turns the music up loud and keeps it that way until we reach the ferry.
While he stays in the car, I get out. There’s a raised platform with a few steps.
I stand next to some tourists taking pictures of the island.
I lean over the barrier. I can’t see Rhett or his car from here, just miles and miles of blue coast. Rockport looks even more beautiful than I remembered.
I breathe in the salt air. Even my lungs have missed it.
The tears start as soon as the dock comes into view. I spent five years pinning for that sight, and all I can think about is how Ben will never see it. A car horn blares. I know it’s Rhett. I take a few more seconds to wipe my tears, then head back to the car.
The parking attendant waves us down the connecting bridge and onto the dock.
“Dad says you haven’t been living in campus housing for a year,” Rhett says, lowering the music.
“How does Dad know that?”
“He called the college when they refunded his payment.” He pauses at a red light. “So where have you been?”
I fight the childish urge to say none of your business, just like he did. Instead, I take a breath and look out the window.
“I have an apartment off campus.”
He laughs and it’s everything a laugh shouldn’t be. “How can you afford that?”
I shrug and press my lips together.
His eyes narrow as he focuses on the road. “Are you living with someone?”
“I’ve been gone for five years, Rhett. You haven’t so much as called me. Why do you suddenly care about my life?”
His knuckles whiten around the steering wheel. “Because, like always, what you do affects all of us. But you never seem to understand that, do you? I hoped you wouldn’t be as selfish as you were when you left.” He glances at me. “Guess I was wrong.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I exhale and glance at the door handle. The urge to jump out of a moving car has never been stronger.
“How does living off campus have anything to do with being selfish? Sometimes I swear you’re delusional.”
“I’ve never made the mistakes you have,” he mutters, jaw tight.
I almost laugh. “If the ‘mistake’ you’re talking about is Jacob Evans, then you’re wrong. He was never a mistake.”
He pulls into the driveway. Dad is standing at the front door. I get out before Rhett can say anything else.
“This is a nice surprise,” Dad says.
I swallow. His happiness confuses me.
“Yeah, well. It’s been too long.”
“That it has.”
He doesn’t move to hug me, not that he ever did. I’m glad. He was never affectionate, and starting now, at twenty-two, isn’t the time.
I hear Rhett’s car door slam. Dad looks past me.
“I thought you had work?”
“We need to talk,” Rhett says through gritted teeth.
Dad steps aside, and Rhett pushes past me, walking in first. Dad doesn’t say a word.
When I told Max that Dad’s house wasn’t an option, it was for a lot of reasons, but Rhett was the biggest one. I had seventeen years of living with him. That was enough for a lifetime.
“I asked Layla about living off campus,” Rhett says.
“Okay,” Dad replies, glancing between us. Rhett is practically vibrating with frustration. I start to wonder if he’s still making the same mistakes he did as a teenager.
“She said she has an apartment. She can’t afford that on her own.”
“Lays?” I hate that nickname. “Who have you been living with?” Dad’s voice softens, that voice he always uses right before yelling.
I sigh and rake my fingers through my hair. “My husband.”
Dad’s eyes widen. I don’t even look at Rhett.
“You’re married?” Dad turns to Rhett, as if expecting confirmation. “To who?”
“You don’t know him.”
“What’s his name, Layla?” Dad sounds hurt, like he has any right to be. He’s the one who forced me to leave then decided to live by the out-of-sight, out-of-mind philosophy.
“Ben. His name is Ben.”
“And what does Ben major in?”
I should tell him the truth. Maybe if he were the kind of parent who offered comfort, I would.
But I don’t want anything from him, least of all his pity.
I plan to stay here just long enough to get a job, and then I’ll go anywhere that takes me away from both of them.
I’m not ready to open the most vulnerable part of me to the two people who hurt me the most. The two people that hurt the person I used to love.
I don’t want to share that with them. Not until I have to.
“Sports management,” I say. “He plays football.”
Dad can’t hide the smile. That’s part of the reason I never introduced him to Ben. I knew the second he found out he played football, he’d love him. And I didn’t want that. I didn’t want him to love Ben. I didn’t even want him to know about him.
I didn’t fall in love with Ben because he played football. I wouldn’t have cared, honestly, it made me not want to like him at first. The football players I used to know were all the same.
Like Rhett.
I don’t mention that Ben graduated, or that he went pro. The last thing I need is Dad searching his name and finding out the truth.
“He sounds like a nice young man,” he says.
“You know two things about him.”
“If you married him, he must be nice.”
“Oh, so now my opinion on men is valid?”
He lets out a heavy sigh and looks at me like he’s disappointed this is still a subject of contempt. I don’t know what he expected. That I’d get over it? That I’d somehow learn to be okay with what they both did?
“Jacob was not right for you,” he says. “He was too much like his father.” He pauses. “Ben doesn’t live in a trailer, does he?”
“Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter to me.”
Rhett rolls his eyes.
“It should matter. The people you spend your time with are how people will view you. You have no idea how long it took for me to wash the dirt off your name after you were with him,” Dad snaps, his words clipped and bitter.
I don’t care what they thought of me, or of us.
“If people had a problem with us, then their issues ran far deeper than two teenagers in love.”
I walk toward the stairs and start making my way to my room.
“I’m only glad you married someone decent and not a criminal, Layla,” Dad shouts after me.
Jacob was decent.
I drag my suitcase behind me up to my old room, glad I didn’t tell them the truth.
I close the door behind me. Everything’s the same.
The lilac walls.
The stuffed animals under the window.
The wall of photos.
I walk to it slowly. My eyes land on the one of me and Jacob, the first photo I ever took of us. I’m surprised they didn’t take it down.
He looks happy. I look happy.
But I know I’m not that girl anymore. And I wonder who he is now. If life was kinder to him after that night.
I hope it was.
I know all too well how cruel it can be.
How it can turn on you in a moment.
And Jacob did too.