29. Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
She shrugs, her shoulders rising stiffly. “I’m not.” Her serious face falters for a moment, revealing a vulnerability I don’t think I’ve ever seen in her before.
“But you…” I stammer, trying to process this revelation, “…you sleep with people. For money,” I whisper.
“I do,” Layla replies calmly. “I’m not sure how it’s any different from half the Tinder dates people go on.”
“It’s different.”
She looks up at the dim glow of the restaurant sign, avoiding my gaze for a moment. “Yes. Mine pays better,” she says, her tone flat. She turns her large golden bracelet once—then again.
I look behind me, then say, “If it’s about the money, I could have—”
“You could have what?” Layla cuts me off, her voice rising before she catches herself. “Let me borrow money when you yourself were in college, buried in loans and jobless?” Her words hit a raw nerve.
“Why not take out a loan?” I ask, still trying to process this. She’s sleeping with people for money. Isn’t it dangerous? Doesn’t she put herself at risk by doing so?
“Because I don’t want to be in debt,” she snaps. “Plus, unlike you, I didn’t have a mom to co-sign my loan.”
A slight shiver passes through my body as the feeling of being watched creeps over me. On the other side of the street, a group of inebriated women passes, chanting “Suck for a buck,” while one of them wearing a white “bride” sash holds a bouquet of suckers in front of her.
“Wait. Did Sergei…” My voice falters. Layla connected me to him. Did he hire her? Did they hook up? Did he sleep with her?
“No,” Layla says quickly, likely sensing my fears. “We met at an event I was working. I overheard him firing his previous nanny and thought this might be a better opportunity for you.”
I pace on the sidewalk, my nails digging into my scalp. Everything I thought I knew is turning out to be false. The world seems flipped—up is down, down is up. My best friend is a call girl, and the man I’m falling in love with…
That word again.
“It’s not fair,” I mutter, sinking onto the curb and letting the weight of the backpack settle over me.
The sharp click of Layla’s heels echoes on the sidewalk as she sits beside me.
“I don’t understand. How did this happen to you?” I ask, burying my face in my trembling hands.
Layla exhales deeply. “Aurora. This didn’t happen to me. I chose this.”
I glance up at her and find her face calm and cold. The red velvet hair is strange, like armor shielding her from the world.
“You have this notion that things happen to us. You think that because bad things happen to you, it makes you a bad person. But guess what? Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people,” she tells me.
“The world isn’t just, it isn’t fair. You live under this illusion that if we work hard and play by the rules, everything will magically”—she snaps her fingers—“turn out right. But that’s…
” she hesitates, choosing her words carefully, “…naive. You worked hard, and yet you didn’t get the internship. ”
I stand, trying to distance myself from her harsh truths.
But she quickly follows, her voice firm. “So what? It doesn’t mean you’re not worth it. You can’t just crumble and hide away. Shit happens. Life goes on. We get up and keep moving.”
I spin around, eyes wide with shock. “How am I supposed to ‘keep moving’?” I add air quotes, emphasizing the absurdity of her suggestion. “How am I supposed to keep going when things don’t… don’t…” I struggle to inhale, as though my lungs have betrayed me.
Layla steps in, and as she reaches to grab my hands, I recoil away from her. The movement is slight and involuntary, but our eyes meet for a brief moment. The shock and hurt pass through her eyes in a way I’ve never seen before. Embarrassed, I drop my gaze to the floor.
Layla schools her face and holds her hands out in front of me.
“Breathe,” she commands, and to my surprise, I comply.
“You adjust, you change, you make different choices and learn from their outcomes.” I open my mouth to argue, but she cuts me off, “And sometimes, the outcomes have nothing to do with your choices. Sometimes, they come from others’ decisions or the universe flipping us off, and we have no control over that.
But we do have control over our reactions.
We can choose how we respond to not getting the internship, to being stood up on a date, or to discovering that the man we love might not be who we thought he was. ”
My eyes lock onto hers as she finishes. “Do you think he—”
“No.” Her voice is firm. “I don’t think Sergei killed his wife.
I’m honestly shocked I’m the only one who believes this.
You’ve been hanging out with Casper so much he’s got you questioning Sergei.
But you know him. The way you talk about him.
You. Know. Him. Do you really think he could have killed his wife? ”
The thought of Sergei pushing Alessia in some alley and simply walking away is unfathomable.
He can be cold and calculating, justifying the means if the end is what he wants.
Nadia even admitted he could hurt someone if the situation demanded it.
But to leave Alessia, the mother of his child, like that? No way.
“No.” This time it’s my voice that is firm and unwavering. He didn’t. He couldn’t have. I’d bet everything that Sergei Chernov didn’t kill his wife.
I peer over my shoulder, my eyes scanning the chaotic street behind me.
“Listen,” she says, “I need to head back inside.” She starts to walk away but pauses, turning with a sincere look. “I hope you figure things out.”
I’m left standing there, my mind racing with the overwhelming flood of new information.
I grip my phone as if channeling my anxiety into it.
Layla’s right. I can choose how to respond to this.
I can decide my next steps. Acknowledging that I can’t sort everything out outside this bougie restaurant, I unlock my phone and start devising a plan.