Layla - Colleen Hoover Page 0,103
front and center in Layla’s mind—has eliminated any shred of doubt that still hung between us.
Layla grips the back of my head and presses her cheek against mine. Her voice is full of fear. “Please help me find a way back.”
I close my eyes. “I won’t stop fighting for you until we figure this out. I promise.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I’m washing Layla’s hair in the shower. It’s an eerie duplication of the morning after we met, standing together in this shower. Only this time we’re quiet. I’m not asking her questions because I feel like my need for answers has brought us nothing but gloom. It makes me wonder if she regrets me having shown up here. Had I not shown up, she wouldn’t be aware of just how much she doesn’t belong in her realm. She wouldn’t know how unfair it is.
She wouldn’t know she might not be able to get back.
We didn’t sleep at all last night. We spent hours searching for solutions online and skimming paranormal books in the Grand Room. We’ve found nothing so far, even though we searched until two hours after the sun rose.
Today is a new day. After we get some much-needed sleep, we’ll start it all over again. I refuse to allow Layla to feel hopeless about this situation.
When I’m finished rinsing her hair, I press a kiss against the top of her head. She relaxes into me with a sigh, her back to my chest, and we just let the hot water beat down on us as we stand together in silence. It’s not romantic. It’s not sexy.
We’re just sad.
“Her body is exhausted,” Layla says.
“It’s not her body. It’s yours.”
She turns around and looks up at me. Her eyes are hollow and tired. She needs to sleep, but now that she knows she belongs more in this body than she does in the spiritual realm, she doesn’t like the idea of going back to nothing. She told me earlier that it scares her now.
That gutted me.
I don’t want her to let Sable take over again, but it’s inevitable. It’s the only way her body can recuperate.
“Take two sleeping pills,” I say. “Maybe she won’t wake up for a while.”
Layla nods.
We get out of the shower, and I grab two pills for her. Layla takes them with a sip of water and then climbs into the bed. I close the blackout curtains to shut out the sun. I crawl in bed with her, but this time I don’t hesitate to pull her against me. It finally feels normal again—having her in this bed with me.
As normal as our situation can feel.
I keep expecting to wake up from this nightmare. I don’t like thinking back on the last several months, and all the signs that were right in front of me. It makes me feel ignorant—like my closed-mindedness hindered us in some way. I never believed in ghosts or spirits, but if I did, would I have noticed Layla wasn’t actually Layla?
Are there other people in this world who—like Sable—assume they’re suffering from some form of amnesia that makes memories hard to sift through, when in reality, they just don’t belong in the body they’re inhabiting? They’re merely a spirit trapped in the wrong body.
“Leeds.” Layla whispers my name, but even through her whisper, I can feel the weight of it.
“What is it?”
She tucks her head against my shoulder. “I think there’s only one way to fix this.”
“How?”
She sucks in a heavy breath. And then, as she exhales, she says, “You’re going to have to kill me. And then hope to hell that you can bring me right back.” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to push her words away from me. I don’t even want to hear them, but she continues talking. “If I can flatline long enough for Sable’s soul to leave my body, then maybe my soul could take back over before you bring me back.”
“Stop,” I say immediately. “It’s too risky. So much could go wrong.”
“We can’t live like this forever.”
“But we can.”
She pulls away from my shoulder and looks up at me. Her eyes are full of tears. “It’s exhausting. I can’t live like this, day after day. And do you really want to hold a girl captive upstairs in this house for the rest of your life?”
I don’t. It’s agonizing, but it’s better than the thought of Layla possibly dying. “This isn’t the solution.”
“And living this way is? She won’t sleep unless we drug her, and then I’m left