CHAPTER NINETEEN
Layla
Between hiking through the unplowed streets of half of Hoboken and waiting for the slow Sunday trains to carry me back across the Hudson and up to Canal Street, it takes me almost two solid hours to get back to the dorms. It’s past noon when I arrive irate, tired, and feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck. All of it makes me a little woozy when I stumble into the apartment. The girls, who are scattered about the place studying, look up at my entrance, their curious expressions immediately melting into concern as they get a good look at me.
“Layla!”
Quinn leaps out of the small dorm armchair and runs to my side. She dumps my bags next to the closet and guides me to the couch where Jamie is sitting. Shama comes out of her room, takes one look at me, and heads to the kitchen to make some tea.
“Dang,” Jamie says as she scoots over to make room for my dazed form. “You don’t look so good, Lay. Are you all right?”
I shake my head, the memories of last night and this morning replaying yet again. It’s all been on terrible repeat for the past two hours. I nearly went back to Hoboken twice, but stopped the second time when I realized I probably wouldn’t be able to find my way there on my own. With my friends surrounding me, it all comes crashing down one last time, and the dam inside me finally breaks. The tears start coming. And they just. Don’t. Stop.
“Holy shit, babe, what is it?” Quinn asks, rubbing my back. “What did that bastard do to you?”
I choke out a few more sobs and breathe heavily, trying to rein in my emotions enough to tell them what happened. “He’s…he’s great. We slept together. It was…(sob)…amazing. And then he told me…he’s…(sob)…leaving!”
Another flood of tears pour down my cheeks after that last word, and I can feel, rather than see, my roommates trading triplet looks of worry as they pat my back and murmur that everything is going to be all right. I know what they’re thinking. This isn’t like me. I don’t break down crying after one night with a guy. I barely cried after breaking up with Teddy, and he took my V-card and cheated on me. This is just different. I’m not even sure I can explain why or how. But I feel like my heart was made of porcelain and was hurled against a wall.
Eventually, I calm down and stop shaking enough to accept a cup of chamomile tea from Shama. She folds herself down onto the rug and hugs my knees while Quinn and Jamie wrap around me from either side. I’m so thankful that I live with these girls—who else has roommates who will literally stop whatever they are doing just to help you cry over a guy?
“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping the tears off my face with the back of my sleeve. “I’m better now. Really.”
“Bastard,” Quinn remarks as we sit back. “Fuck and run. Just like we said, right? Seriously. Guys are shit.”
“He’s not shit, Quinn,” I insist, maybe a little too vehemently. “He’s lost. There’s a difference. He didn’t have the opportunities we have, you know?” I stop, swallowing back the pain I feel. “He grew up with practically nothing, in a freaking one-bedroom apartment shared with five people. He’s barely ever left New York! Now that his siblings are all grown, he finally gets the chance to make a better life for himself. I’m heartbroken, but I can’t begrudge him that.”
It’s not until I say the words that I realize they’re true. I look out the window, which faces east. It only looks out to another brick apartment building, but beyond that, I can imagine the river, and beyond that, the brownstone. I wonder if Nico is still there.
“Well, he didn’t have to screw you on his way out,” Quinn says harshly.
Jamie nods on my other side, as does Shama from her spot on the floor, although I can see she’s a little less sure. Jamie tends to side with Quinn on just about everything, but since she started dating her DJ, Shama has been a lot more circumspect about the dramas of our love lives. Jason’s another local boy from Queens, and Quinn had plenty to say about him when he first came around, until Shama told her where she could stick her opinions. I do wonder, though, sometimes if he’s really as nice to her as she makes him out to be. I’ve heard her crying in the shower sometimes when she thinks no one can hear her.
I take a sip of tea with a brief smile at Shama before replying. She squeezes my knee.
“It’s not like that,” I say quietly, even though I know Quinn won’t believe me. “What I feel…I’m pretty sure he feels it too. I think he’s sad to leave me. I think…” I take another sip of tea to give myself time to sniff back the tears that are yet again on the edge of falling. “I think his heart is breaking just like mine.”
“Whatever.” Quinn’s pronouncement isn’t quite as tough as she’d like. “You’re done with him anyway. You can’t let him just crush your heart like this, so it’s better to let him go now than to get even more attached, right?”
“Right,” I say glumly, even though I don’t really feel it.
It is why I left like I did. I just don’t know how I’m going to deal with seeing him every day. The assistants are going to think it’s weird that I have to go to the bathroom every day at exactly six p.m. Shit, should I look for another job?
I shiver suddenly, pulling my jacket tighter around me and rocking into it as I sip my tea.
“Are you feeling okay, Layla?”
Shama looks at me from her spot on the floor, and I can see in her eyes that it’s not just my emotional state that has her concerned. She’s looking over my entire body like there is something wrong with me.
“Actually, no,” I admit, realizing that my head is suddenly pounding and my hands feel really clammy. “I started feeling kind of funny on my way home. I thought it was just because I was so upset.”
Quinn immediately slaps her hand over my forehead while Shama twists her lips to the side, considering.
“Oh my God,” Jamie says next to me, even as she scoots a bit away. “You know the juniors at the end of the hall? Like, four apartments are all down with mono. I bet you have that.”
Quinn’s eyes roll so far into the back of her head I think they might stay there.
“Well, since Layla hasn’t been sticking her tongue down any of their mouths or using their toothbrushes, I doubt she has mono, J.” She looks back at me. “Wait, you haven’t hooked up with any of them, have you?”
I swipe her hand off my forehead and give her a pointed look. “Do you really think I wouldn’t have told you if I had been hooking up with our neighbors? Or used their toothbrushes?”
Jamie giggles, earning a sharp look from Quinn, who immediately puts her hand up to my forehead again. I roll my eyes. Shama smirks.
“Okay, so you don’t have mono. But you do feel warm, Lay,” Quinn announces after she removes her hand. “I think you might be getting sick.”
I nod. “Well, something is definitely wrong. I thought I just had a stuffy head from crying so much, but I’m starting to get chills.”
I let them shuffle me into my room and tuck me into bed with tea. The sound of them squabbling about the best way to get me better while trying not to infect themselves with whatever I’ve got is actually kind of comforting. Quinn, of course, suggests that the three of them disinfect the apartment while I’m sleeping, but that’s quickly vetoed by Shama and Jamie, who are both studying for a marketing exam tomorrow. Jamie suggests getting some wonton soup and having Quinn sleep in her and Shama’s room, all suggestions that are given serious consideration while they fluff my pillow and tuck me in.
“That’s too many blankets, J,” Quinn scolds Jamie, urging her to take one off.
“Dude, she says she has chills,” Jamie says, but she folds the extra blanket down by my feet anyway. If there is a pecking order in this apartment, Quinn is definitely at the top.
I smile. It’s not quite my mom’s chicken soup and the down comforter in my old bedroom, but it feels good to be babied by my roommates. I promise each of them I’ll take care of them the next time they get sick too. They hush me with more tea and extra pillows before leaving me to sleep off my cold.
Just as my eyes are starting to close, my phone buzzes on the desktop. I pick it up—it’s a text from Nico. He doesn’t usually text much––neither of us do, since it’s an extra cost on top of our cell phone bills.
Nico: just wanted to make sure u got home ok
I should just leave it alone, but I can’t help it. Quickly I text him back:
Me: Imhome thx.
A few minutes later, the phone buzzes again. My eyelids are really heavy by this point, but like an addict, I pick it up again.
Nico: Im sorry Layla please.
Please what? Please forgive him? Please take him back? Please believe that he’s sorry? I don’t know what he’s trying to say, and my brain feels too thick to figure it out. Without sending a reply, I set the phone to silent and place it back on the desk, letting the fog roll over my senses until I fall asleep.
~
In the morning, the fog is still there, and everything feels about ten times worse. My throat is sore, and my fever remains along with a pounding headache. After more than fourteen hours of sleep, I still feel completely exhausted; even the trip from my bed to the bathroom is tiresome.
The girls are all asleep still, so I shuffle into the kitchen to make another cup of tea, moving as quietly as I can. A knock at the door tells me it’s seven-fifteen—the time I normally catch the shuttle up to campus with Vinny for our eight o’clock classes. Shit. There is no way in hell I’m going to class feeling like this.
I trudge to open up the door, and sure enough, Vinny is standing there, looking particularly lanky in a pair of skinny jeans under his puffy jacket.
“Whoa,” he says, looking at me still in my t-shirt and yoga pants.
My hair is still in a messy bun, flyaways probably rioting around my face like a lion’s mane the way they do when I’ve been rolling around in my sleep. At this rate, I’m going to have dreadlocks by the end of the week. It’s a far cry from my normal school attire, which is usually office-appropriate for the afternoon.
“I take it you’re not ready for class,” he says with a smirk. “Rough night?”
“You could say that,” I say, turning my back to retrieve the boiling kettle from the stovetop. “And yeah, I’m not going.”
When Vinny makes to enter the apartment, I hold a hand out to stop him. “You don’t want to come in here, dude. I’m sick.”
Vinny’s a total hypochondriac, so that halts him in his tracks, and even sends him a few steps back from the doorway. He immediately starts searching through the pockets of his messenger bag for hand sanitizer.
“Bummer,” he says as he digs through the bag. “Sorry, man. You want me to talk to your professors or anything?”
It’s a nice offer, but I shake my head as I pour my tea. “No, I’ll just email them. They probably won’t believe me anyway without a doctor’s note, so I’m not going to stress about it. I’ll be better by tomorrow, I hope.”
“Okay. Ah, yes! I knew I had this in here!”
Triumphantly, Vinny pulls out a bottle of sanitizing gel and squeezes a much larger amount than necessary onto his hands. The smell of alcohol stings my nostrils all the way inside the apartment.
“Dude,” I say as I watch him. “Going a little overboard, aren’t you?”
“Don’t nobody want your germs, L-Boogie,” he says as he finishes rubbing his hands together.
He sticks the sanitizer back in the front pocket of his bag, then takes a few more steps back into the hallway. I can see the desire to cover his mouth and nose with his jacket sleeve flickering across his features.
“I guess I’ll see you later. Feel better.”
“Thanks,” I say as I walk up to the doorframe.
Vinny dances a few more steps down the hall, clearly focused on keeping a perimeter. I roll my eyes and shut the door. I don’t have time to be sick, so I really hope I’ll be better tomorrow.
~
Unfortunately, I’m not better at all. In fact, I’m much worse, tired to the bone and feverish. I can hardly talk because my throat hurts so badly, and for the second day in a row, I have to skip classes and call in sick to work, much to Karen’s obvious irritation. I don’t even have to fake the sick voice on the phone—my sore throat gives me an inimitable scratchiness that I couldn’t have created better if I’d tried.
At six-thirty the night before, right after he would have dropped off the packages at Fox and Lager, Nico texted me again.
Nico: everything ok? where have u been?
I didn’t respond. I don’t have the energy to deal with how he makes me feel. All day I’ve been falling in and out of feverish sleep and trying my hardest to gulp down glasses of water and zinc-vitamin C supplements. My stomach is starting to act up too, so I’m not always able to keep everything down. In short, I’m in hell.
Sometime around nine o’clock the next night, there’s a light tap on my bedroom door, and I stir out of another restless nap as it opens and Quinn pops her head in.
“Hey sickie,” she says. “You look like the prettiest picture of death I’ve ever seen.”
“Thanks,” I croak and yank my covers over my head.
“No hiding, Sleeping Beauty. There’s someone here to see you. You up for some company?”
“Tell Vinny that hand sanitizer isn’t going to solve this problem,” I grumble. Oh, the dark feels good on my eyes.
“Vinny? That skinny kid down the hall?”
The sound of the deep voice has me batting the comforter from my head with energy I didn’t know I possessed. Quinn enters the room gingerly, having avoided it for the last two days while sleeping on the couch. She’s followed by Nico, who’s still dressed in his FedEx gear. The sleeves of his navy uniform are rolled up to his elbows, exposing his powerful forearms. I sigh, amazed that I can even notice details like that in this state.
And then I remember that he’s leaving and pretty much taking my heart with him.
Lacking any shame about being a third wheel, Quinn flops down on her bed, clearly unwilling to leave me alone with the “shit-eating bastard,” as she’s called him since Sunday. Nico glances at her, then pulls his cap off his head and comes to sit in the desk chair next to my bed.
“Hey,” I squeak out, sitting up on my elbows. I know I probably look like a gargoyle, but I’m honestly too tired and too shocked to care. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard you were sick,” Nico replies softly. “Karen was all bent out of shape because her assistant had to man the front desk.” He reaches out a big hand to touch my forehead briefly with his knuckles. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”
I squirm uncomfortably under my sheets, suddenly feeling even hotter under his gaze. God, how could I have forgotten how gorgeous this man is in two days? Oh, right, a hundred-and-three-degree fever might have had something to do with it. I reach up to smooth back my hair, which is still tied in a bedraggled knot, frizzy tendrils sticking out from my temples and around my neck.
“Stop,” Nico says, pressing my hand back down. “You’re beautiful.”
Behind him, Quinn’s expression softens at his words before she re-hardens her sharp features. She is really determined to dislike Nico. But it’s difficult to hate a guy who’s taking the time to visit a girl on her sickbed.
“How did you get up here?” I ask. Visitors have to be signed in by residents of the building; otherwise they aren’t even allowed in the front doors of the building.
“He called me,” Quinn says behind him, clearly disapproving. “About thirty times until I finally agreed to go down there. How did you get my number anyway, you wily bastard? Drug the security guard?”
Nico smirks over his shoulder at her. “I asked around until I found someone who knew you. You poor college kids’ll do anything for twenty bucks. Some blonde girl was very helpful.”
“I’ll bet it was Darla,” Quinn says as she lies back on her pillow to ruminate. “That bitch has been trying to stick it to me since first semester last year, when her boyfriend hit on me at a party.”
I have to smile at the idea of Nico stalking the kids entering and leaving Lafayette until he met someone in the building—which probably houses about two thousand students—who knew me and my roommates and who would give one of our numbers to a complete stranger. No doubt his charm helped tremendously.
He looks back at me and flashes that smile I just can’t resist, and it’s then I recall why I left Hoboken to begin with. He’s leaving. There’s nothing I can do about it. And there’s no way I can avoid getting hurt if I keep seeing him until it happens. Underneath the fever, the sore throat, the headache, my heart breaks all over again.
“Well, as you can see, I’m sick but on the mend,” I say a little too curtly. “I’m tough. I’ll be better soon.”
I lie back down on my pillow and turn my head away from him as if I want to go back to sleep. Behind him, Quinn looks on with concern.
“Listen, Layla,” Nico says. “I don’t want to keep you from getting better. I just wanted to say hi, and—” He cuts himself off, suddenly aware of Quinn’s imperious stare behind him. He turns around to face her. “Uh, Quinn? Do you think I could have a second alone with your roommate?”
Quinn doesn’t answer, just looks at me for a reply.
I nod. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
She stares back at Nico purposefully and stands up, brushing imaginary creases out of her jeans. “Okay, Casanova, you get your way. But I’m warning you—you make her cry again, and I’ll cut your balls off and serve them to the pigeons for breakfast.”
She strides out of the room without waiting for a response, leaving Nico and me watching the door close with our mouths hanging open. I’m the first one to laugh, and Nico looks back at me with a sheepish smile.
“You know, I think she’d really do it.”
We share a laugh that almost immediately gives way to awkward silence. Things aren’t easy between us anymore. They’re weird, I’m weak, and I want him to go.
“Soooo…” I say. “I’m kind of tired, you know.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” he says. “I just…I didn’t have the time to tell you this before you left K.C.’s, but listen. I might stay. It’s a long shot, but I sent in another application to the fire department. So, you know, maybe three’s a charm, right?”
He looks so hopeful as he says it, his eyes shining, obviously willing me to smile and be hopeful with him. And I can’t lie—some small flicker of hope does alight inside me. But he knows and I know that that same application has already been turned down twice already, and he’s already committed to the job in LA My head still feels cloudy, and I don’t know what to think.
I snuggle farther into my sheets. Is he expecting me to invite him into my bed with open arms for this? Hope. What does that even mean?
My head hurts so much.
“I can’t really think about all of this right now,” I tell him, effecting a yawn and closing my eyes a few times. It’s not an act—I’m incredibly tired.
Disappointment plays over Nico’s dark features, but he just gives me a smile and a nod.
“Sure, baby,” he says, standing up. “I’ll see you at work, okay? Feel better, beautiful.”
“Mmm,” I answer, barely cognizant of the fact that he is leaving as I fall headlong back into another feverish dream.
I was so tired I forgot to tell him not to call me “baby” anymore.
~