34. Layla
layla
. . .
Reed sits next to me on the porch steps, his shoulders slumped, as his fingers trace the condensation on a glass of sweet tea.
He hasn’t said much tonight, and neither have I. Everything between us already feels like a ghost.
Tomorrow, I’m gone.
I whisper, “Say something.”
He looks at me, his eyes shadowed in the porch light. “What do you want me to say, Layla? That I hate this? That I’d stop time if I could?” His voice breaks halfway through. “You already know that.”
I stand before I can lose my nerve. “Dance with me.”
He looks at me for a long moment, his jaw clenched, throat working.
Before he can think better of it, he nods once, setting the glass down, and goes inside.
A minute later, music flows through the screen door as the opening chords of Fade Into You by Mazzy Star drift into the night.
He steps back out, walking towards me, his eyes never leaving mine.
When he reaches me, he slides his hand to the small of my back and the other to mine.
I press my palm flat against his chest, right over his heart, feeling it beat beneath my touch.
We begin to move, barely, just enough to call it dancing. The grass feels cool beneath my feet as the wind tickles my bare ankles beneath my jeans.
Rain begins to trickle on us, soaking us in the night, but we don’t care as we continue to sway to the beat.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I whisper.
“Me neither,’ he says, “I keep thinking maybe if I hold you tight enough, the universe will take a hint.”
I laugh, the tiniest, most broken sound, and it turns into a sob before I can stop it. “Don’t make it harder.”
He cradles my face in his hands, pressing his forehead to mine. “Then stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you might stay.”
My throat burns. “Maybe I would if you asked me to.”
“Layla, I can’t ask you to stay when I only have parts of you,” he says, his voice trembling as his hand continues to hold my cheek.
His calloused thumb traces the curve of my jaw, and I feel the rough edge of his palm trembling against my skin. “I want every part of you,” he breathes. “I want mornings with you. I want more dates.” His voice breaks, and a tear slips free before he can stop it. “I. Want. Everything.”
The tears come quickly, and I reach up to cradle his face as he holds mine. “You’re not supposed to make it easy to leave.”
“I’m not trying to.” His breath stutters as his hands fall to his sides. “I’m just trying not to fall apart before you do.”
I meet his eyes, wet not from the rain but from him holding back tears.
He’s blinking quickly, trying to hide it, but I notice everything—the tremor in his jaw, the way his mouth keeps forming words he can’t speak.
“Reed…”
He tilts my chin with a shaky hand as his thumb traces my bottom lip. “Every time you see the moon,” he whispers, “I’m looking at it, too. Waiting for you, love.”
The sound I make isn’t human. It’s grief and want, tangled into one.
I place my hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat sync with mine. “Don’t say that,” I beg. “Please don’t.”
He leans in closer, his thumb brushing my knuckles. “I need you to know it,” he says, his eyes flickering between mine.
His chest rises with a shaky breath, then he adds, “I’ll wait for you until you’re ready to leave him so you can come home to me.
I’ll wait years if I have to.” His jaw tightens, but his tone stays soft.
“So when it gets hard out there, you’ll remember someone’s still here, loving you quietly, even when you can’t hear it. ”
I kiss him desperately before he can say more.
Every tear, breath, and unformed memory burns between us.
When we part, our foreheads stay pressed together, the world spinning too fast to catch up.
“I don’t want to go,” I whisper.
He shakes his head, his eyes red from tears. “I don’t want you to go, either.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. I sob into his chest, trembling from tears, cold wind, and rain.
We stand there, his arms around me, the night heavy with everything we didn’t say, but I desperately wanted to.
He presses his face against the crook of my neck, his shoulders trembling with every breath.
I press a kiss into his hair. “Come on,” I murmur. “It’s getting cold.”
He nods as he wraps his fingers around mine.
The door creaks open behind us as we walk hand in hand down the dark hallway, the boards creaking under our steps, every sound too loud in his quiet house.
I reach his room, and we both sit gently on the edge of his bed.
Moonlight spills through the window, cutting silver across his face and illuminating the scars on the left side.
He looks at me, his eyes red-rimmed, his mouth trembling, and the sight of him makes it damn near impossible for me not to leave.
I brush the hair from his face, my fingertips trailing down his jaw. “You look at me like this is the last time,” I whisper.
His voice cracks. “Isn’t it?”
I shake my head as my thumb traces his lower lip. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us breathes.
The rain has quieted to a soft, steady murmur outside, but inside his home, everything feels suspended; time, sound, and the ache that’s been living in my heart for years.
His eyes are locked on mine, brimming with a longing so raw it makes my chest ache. His hands rest on my waist, thumbs tracing slow, absent arcs over the wet denim of my jeans.
He leans in first, brushing his nose with mine before kissing me.
The kiss begins so softly it barely registers; just the warm press of his lips to mine, a question wrapped in tenderness.
He then deepens it slowly, as our tongues meet in a gentle, searching rhythm that tastes like rain, salt, and everything we’re trying not to say goodbye to yet.
My fingers slide into his damp hair as his hands tighten on my waist, pulling me forward until I’m straddling him on the edge of the bed.
We finally part, pressing our foreheads together, breathing each other’s air.
He doesn’t speak right away as he just looks at me, until I feel the weight of his gaze settle deep behind my ribs.
So quietly, I almost miss it over the sound of the rain.
“I’m going to miss touching you like this.”
His hands slide up my sides as his thumbs brush the wet fabric over my ribs.
He lifts my tube top, slipping it off my shoulders one at a time, then loops it off my neck.
The soaked cotton clings stubbornly for a second, reluctant to let go, but he peels it down gently, exposing the swell of my breasts.
He exhales, shaky, almost pained.
“God, Layla…” His voice cracks on my name. “Look at you.”
His palms glide up my arms, over my shoulders, down the sides of my breasts, never squeezing, just tracing, memorizing as his thumbs brush the undersides, circling the tight peaks of my nipples with the lightest pressure.
Goosebumps race across my skin despite the warmth of his house.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, eyes tracing every inch he’s uncovered. “Every single part of you. I still can’t believe you’re real sometimes.”
Tears prick my eyes again. I reach for him as my fingers tremble, tugging at the hem of his soaked T-shirt.
He helps me lift it over his head, his arms flexing, his muscles shifting under skin marked by the years he’s lived before me.
His shirt lands beside my tube top.
I trace the old scars across his chest, my fingertips following them slowly, reverently.
“You’re beautiful as well,” I whisper, my voice carrying emotion. “Every scar, every mark, they’re evidence of you surviving everything that once threatened to take you from me before I even knew you existed.”
He swallows hard as his hands come up to cup my face, his thumbs brushing the tears that have slipped free.
“I’ve got a lot of scars,” he says softly. “But none of them hurt anymore, not when you touch them like that.”
He helps me out of my jeans, as he steps out of his, kicking them aside until he’s as bare as I am.
As he presses his lips to my temple, he whispers into my hair, “I’ll love you quietly, even when you’re gone.”
Love?
That word doesn’t scare me because he said it.
I won’t say it back; I want to save it for when I finally leave Brian, when I can claim it without the weight of secrets pulling me down. But hearing it from Reed, like a promise he’s kept buried too long, wraps around my heart.
“Come here,” he murmurs.
He leads me into the ensuite bathroom, turning on the shower until steam curls out of the glass doors. He steps inside with me, pulling me under the spray.
Warm water hits us both, cascading over my back, shoulders, and hair.
It streams down his face, catching in his lashes, and runs in rivulets over the scars I just traced.
He turns me so my back faces his chest, his arms wrapping around me from behind as his chin rests on my shoulder.
His hands slide up my arms and down my sides, cradling my breasts once more.
“I’m going to miss the way your skin feels under my hands,” he whispers into my ear.
“The way you shiver when I kiss the back of your neck. The little sigh you make when I hold you like this. I’m going to miss waking up to feel your heartbeat against my palm when I rest it right here—” His hand flattens over my chest, covering my heart. “—just to make sure you’re still real.”
A sob catches in my throat.
He turns me in his arms until I’m gazing up at him again.
His hands slide up to cradle my face, his thumbs stroking slowly along my cheekbones as he searches my eyes. “I’m going to keep every promise,” he continues, his voice cracking just a little, the words almost lost beneath the hiss of the shower.
He leans down, pressing his forehead to mine so our noses brush. “I’m going to be patient.” His thumbs keep moving in gentle arcs, wiping away water, or maybe tears, I can’t tell anymore.
“I’ll be here waiting for you, baby.” He says, as his hand slips to the nape of my neck, his fingers thread through my wet hair, holding me close.
My sweet Reed.
“I’m going to be the place you come home to, no matter how long it takes.” His other arm wraps tighter around my lower back, pulling our bodies flush.