Layla - Colleen Hoover Page 0,73

a bit. “It was little things at first. I’d slam doors, turn off lights. Your typical ghostly encounters. It was fun watching him try to explain it all away. But the more I’d witness his asshole behavior, the bigger I went with the pranks. One night, after I decided I didn’t want him in this house for another day, I moved all the furniture around in the Grand Room. I moved the couch against the opposite bookshelf. I moved the piano to the other side of the room. I even moved books from one shelf to another.”

“What was his reaction the next day when he saw everything had been moved?”

Willow presses her lips together tightly. She moves her head from side to side with a sheepish look on her face. “Well . . . that’s the thing,” she says. “I moved everything while he was still in the room.”

I try to imagine what that must have been like for the guy—seeing an entire piano move across the room by itself.

“He put the house on the market that day, and he hasn’t been back since.”

“Holy shit,” I say, laughing. “That explains the rush to sell.”

She falls back onto her pillow, and she’s smiling proudly. Her smile is infectious. I lie down on my own pillow, smiling right along with her.

The moment makes me think back to the few things that happened when I first arrived here. Willow saving me from burning down the kitchen. Her cleaning up the wine spill. That’s hardly a haunting.

I roll my head until I’m facing her. “Why didn’t you try to haunt me when I showed up?”

Willow loses her smile, gently facing me. “Because. You aren’t an asshole. And I felt sorry for you.”

“You felt sorry for me? Why?”

She shrugs. “You just seemed sad.”

I seemed sad?

Am I sad?

I tear my gaze from hers and look up at the ceiling.

“Have you always been sad?” she asks.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean when you say sad. Give me an example.”

“It’s mostly when Layla leaves a room,” Willow says. “You stare at the door for a long time with this distant look in your eyes. Sometimes you seem sad even when you’re with her. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I get. I’m probably wrong.”

I shouldn’t be shaking my head, but I am. “You aren’t wrong.”

She sits up again, holding the sheet up over her breasts. I tilt my head on the pillow and look at her.

“Do you not enjoy being with her?” she asks.

“I used to. But now it’s . . . complicated,” I keep my voice low because for whatever reason, it feels like less of an admission if I say it quietly. “A lot has changed between us since that night. Since the shooting. We aren’t the same couple we were in the beginning. She’s been through a lot, physically, emotionally, mentally. And of course I would never give up on her, but . . .” I don’t know how to finish my sentence. I’ve never admitted any of this out loud.

“But what?” Willow asks.

I exhale. “Sometimes I wonder, if I would have met her today . . . how she is now . . . would I have fallen in love with her as easily as I fell in love with her in the beginning? I don’t know. Part of me thinks maybe I wouldn’t be able to fall in love with this version of her at all. And when I have those thoughts . . . it makes me feel like shit. Because I’m the reason she is the way she is. I’m the reason she’s so unhappy now. Because I failed to protect her.”

Willow’s expression is sympathetic. Almost regretful—like she didn’t mean to open up this can of worms. She inhales a soft breath and releases it into the silent room. “Maybe things will eventually go back to exactly how they were in the beginning between you two. If it’s any consolation, you don’t seem as sad now. Not like when you first showed up here.”

I look at her pointedly. “That has nothing to do with Layla and everything to do with you,” I admit.

Willow doesn’t react to that with anything other than her eyes. They flicker a little, as if she wasn’t expecting me to say it.

I shouldn’t have said it. As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt the guilt. But I said it, and I said it because it’s the truth. I look forward to