CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Nico
It’s dark that night when I take Layla back to her apartment. After finishing dinner with my family, I brought her to the police station and literally held her hand the entire time while she told the cops what happened. It was...hard. Harder than I expected to sit there and stay silent. She cried at least twice, and I practically ground my teeth into dust listening to her recount, again and again, the way Giancarlo cut his wrist and tackled her on the bed.
She wiped off that god-awful yellow makeup that Maggie painted on her face and let the officers photograph her bruises. I don’t know what’s worse––the yellow, caked-on crap or the blues and purples that make her face and neck look like a fuckin’ Jackson Pollock painting. But in the end, I think I’d take the latter. I want Layla, real Layla, however she looks.
I waited in the front of the station while she signed her statement. If I didn’t know I loved her before, I do now. I wouldn’t have sat in front of a suspicious row of cops for anyone else.
So, it’s close to eleven by the time she unlocks her door, me right behind her with the three garbage bags full of crap I got out of Giancarlo’s place. I’m guessing she hasn’t been home in a while––she wasn’t exactly moved in at his place, since her things were just sort of stacked in dickhead’s room, but there was a lot there. For whatever reason, she felt safer there than she did here. That’s how far this dude had his claws into her.
It just makes me that much more guilty.
When we walk in, Jamie and Shama are gone, out for the night to let off some steam after giving their own statements earlier tonight too. Quinn sits in the common area, surrounded by a pile of books. She pulls at a couple of the doll-like curls hanging around her face while she reads––her hair reminds me of the stuff they had on my sisters’ dolls when we were kids.
She turn around when the door shuts, and her expression turns ugly. “Oh. It’s you.”
In front of me, Layla stiffens, but keeps hobbling in.
I frown. “How you doin’, Quinn? How was the rest of your day?”
I’m not exactly sad when she shrinks a little at my sharp tone. This bitch is supposed to be Layla’s friend, and she skipped all of it. I might feel guilty about everything that’s happened, but this chick has no fuckin’ excuse.
She thinks she has the right to give me attitude? Yeah. Fuck that.
Quinn swallows when she catches my glare, then gets a better look at Layla when she limps into the kitchen for some water. “Jesus. Are you––are you okay?”
Layla turns around, and the fluorescent kitchen light reveals the real extent of her injuries. Quinn cringes. My grip on the bags is so tight I might pop a blood vessel.
“I’m fine,” Layla replies.
“You don’t look fine.” Quinn walks into the kitchen to examine Layla more closely. “You look like you just came back from a war zone. Have you seen a doctor? Called your parents?”
“I said I’m fine,” Layla repeats testily. She finishes her water and sets the glass in the sink with maybe a little more force than she needs. “No thanks to you.”
Quinn’s mouth falls open with disbelief. “Babe, you aren’t seriously mad because I didn’t join the cavalry to save you, are you? It doesn’t sound like they needed my help.”
“I’m not mad,” Layla replies coldly. “And don’t call me babe.”
They stare at each other, and it’s like the air between them is hard enough to smash. I’ve never seen Layla talk to her best friend like this before. Well, supposed best friend. I’ve heard enough about their banter to know that Layla and Quinn usually give each other as good as they get. Quinn’s goading her a little, probably trying to reestablish the pecking order. I heard enough last spring to know the score––Quinn usually talks to Layla like a big sister. Condescending, but caring.
But older siblings don’t leave their little sisters in the lurch when they need help. I should know.
Layla’s not having it either. Without responding to Quinn, she limps back to me, takes my hand, and pulls me into her room, where she shuts the door. I drop the garbage bags on the floor, and while I sit down on her bed, Layla immediately starts pulling things out of them and putting them away, despite her limp, moving in that fast, forceful manner I recognize clearly. They’re the same jerky motions my sisters use when they’re pissed off about something but trying to hold back. Human equivalents of a kettle put on to boil.
Slam, two pairs of boots hit the floor of the closet. Smack, smack, belt buckles flying into the door of the closet. A bag of makeup hits the desk hard enough to send stray papers flying.
“Hey, NYU?” I ask as I pull my hat off and set it on the desk. Her shoulders tense. “You, um, you sure you don’t want to rest or something? That stuff can wait.”
My girl is about to drop. Her movements are sure, but her body droops. She pauses for a second at her closet. The only thing I want to do is curl up with her on this tiny-ass mattress of hers and fall asleep. I’ll hold her until she starts to forget this entire shit storm of a year. Forever, if I have to.
But forever is going to have to wait.
“What the fuck?”
Quinn marches into the room without knocking with a determined look on her doll-like face. I sit up straight. Fuck, no. This bitch is not about to start something with Layla. Not now.
Layla turns around wearily from the closet. “Quinn, what is it?”
“You just gave me the silent treatment, that’s what!”
“Quinn,” I warn from the bed.
“Hush, FedEx!” she snaps at me before turning back to Layla.
Her hands find her hips, making her look a little like Peter Pan. A curly-haired, imperious, crazy bitchy Peter Pan. I sort of want to toss her out the window. Be all like, you can fly, bitch.
“You’re unbelievable,” she snaps. “You waltz back in here with Special Delivery on your heels, looking like Night of the Living Dead, and expect me not to say anything? Give me the cold shoulder and expect me just to take it?”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from saying anything. This chick has always looked at me like that, unable to see past the day job. She’s the kind of person who likes to box people in. Layla was fine as long as she was willing to play her part: best friend, whatever. But she didn’t stay in her box, and Quinn isn’t taking it well.
“My ex-boyfriend just sprained my ankle,” Layla points out as she limps toward Quinn. “I hardly think that allows me to waltz in anywhere. I’m just tired. I was going to put my stuff away and go to sleep, if that’s all right with you.”
Quinn rolls her eyes. “This is my room too,” she continues. “And you need a reality check. I don’t think I’ve been out of line by asking you not to screw my life up with yours. Speaking of which, what’s he doing here?”
Quinn nods at me like I’m a fucking lamp or a coat rack. For real, this girl has always bugged me. She has that way about her, that thing rich people do when they treat everyone else like inanimate objects. Like they don’t fucking matter.
“Don’t talk about him like that,” Layla argues as she steps toward me. “He just saved my life.”
Without thinking, I take her hand and squeeze it so she knows I’m here if she needs me. I’ll save her ten times daily. And tossing this chick out would be no hardship.
“Look,” Layla tries again. “I’m sorry. I’ve just...this day has been really hard, okay? I need some space.”
“Because it’s about you, right?” Quinn’s tone turns nastier with every word. “I forgot. It’s always about you. So fucking selfish.”
Layla wilts into herself, wrapping her arms around her waist. It’s a posture that, if you know her at all, is a dead giveaway for when she’s feeling like shit. Unsure. Saddened. Worried. I glance between them, seeing clearly for the first time just what my girl has been going through all year. A family that basically checked out of her life, friends who chink away at her self-esteem, and a boyfriend who took advantage of that vulnerability.
You should have been here. The thought rages through my head.
Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t have. But I’m here now.
“Quinn,” I say as I finally stand up. I keep Layla’s hand firmly in mine. “Step off. She’s had a day. We’ve had a day, all right?”
“Oh, she doesn’t need this?” Quinn whirls around to me, her Peter Pan face twisted into a wicked witch. “Are you kidding me? You’ve been gone all year, Romeo. You have no clue what kind of ridiculous fucking drama she’s put the rest of us through.”
“I think I do.” I grit out, fighting like hell to keep my patience. “I think I know because I’m the one she called. And do you know why she’d call me instead of her supposed best friend? Because she knows I’m the one who will actually show up instead of judging her half to death.”
“Right,” Quinn says. “Showing up to jump into her bed. Half this shit is your fucking fault, FedEx! She was fine before you came around, and now you’re here, just like you always were, to fuck her and leave her!”
“You know what?”
Layla’s small voice behind me somehow breaks through the conversation. She hops in front of me, and instinctively, I wrap an arm around her waist from behind. I don’t want to admit it, but some of Quinn’s nasty words hit a little too close. Some of this is my fault. And I’ll carry that guilt for the rest of my life.
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Layla says to both of us. She presses gently on my chest, forcing my arm to unwind and let her free. “You’ve done enough fighting for me today.”
I open my mouth to tell her that I’d fight for her any day, all day. That I’ll fight for her for the rest of my life if she’ll let me. But her face is defiant, and for some reason, it sparks a little pride. She needs this, to stand up for herself, to say what she has to say.
So I step back, hands up. “Whatever you need, baby.”
Layla turns to Quinn. “You don’t need to worry about me anymore either,” she says in a voice that’s a lot softer than I think she wants it to be. If it were any other day, she’d be shouting. But right now my girl is tired. Broken. She needs a rest.
That Peter Pan fantasy starts to sound better and better.
“What?” Quinn balks. “Of course I do. We all do, clearly. You need to get your shit together and––”
“No,” Layla puts in again, her voice quivering. “I mean you don’t have to worry about me. You made that pretty fucking clear when Jamie and Shama walked into that room without you.” She shakes her head and pulls on the end of her ponytail. “I don’t blame you for what Giancarlo did or the choices I made with him. I really don’t. But, Quinn, you could have helped instead of pushing me away. You could have called my parents. Even just listened sometimes instead of telling me everything that I was doing wrong. In the last nine months, I have never felt more alone in my entire life, and a lot of that has to do with the way my best friend treated me.”
Quinn stills. I smirk a little. She was spunky enough in the beginning, with her little threats to me. What’d she say? That she’d feed my balls to the pigeons if I ever hurt her girl? I thought at first that she was that friend, the one who was protective, who wouldn’t let her roommates come to any harm. But where the fuck was she when Layla was hanging around a guy like El Tango Shithead? Where was she when her friend was in danger? I’ve watched and heard enough to know that Quinn’s the other type of girl––the catty kind my sisters cycle through from time to time. Layla’s better off without her.
Layla continues: “I learned today who my real friends are. Who will really be there for me when things get legitimately tough. Not tough the way we think of it, with tests and final papers and oh, my dad forgot to call me. But really, really fucking hard. Quinn, I’m sorry, but I just don’t have room in my life for people who can’t hack it. And I guess...that includes you.”
Her hand reaches for me. It’s a slight movement, maybe six inches from her hip, but I see it. She needed space before, but now she’s ready to take it back. And I thread my fingers through hers and squeeze.
I got you, baby. If there’s one thing I want her to know in all of this, it’s that. I got her back. Always.
Quinn’s mouth falls open, reminding me again of a creepy doll. The old kind with the eyelids that open and close and the porcelain skin that cracks over time. She looks between us, at our joined hands, then shuts her mouth, her eyes glazed and angry.
“You don’t want to be friends?” she asks finally. I don’t miss the way her voice quavers. “Fucking fine. I’m better off without your dead weight anyway.” She looks between us. “I’ll take the couch tonight. You two losers fucking deserve each other.”
She spins out of the room and slams the door behind her, leaving Layla to fairly collapse into me.
“Oh, God,” she whimpers into my chest. “That was hard.”
I wrap my arms around her slim form, pulling her as close as I can. “It was the right thing to do. She’s a bitch.”
“She’s my best friend.”
“Not anymore.” I tip Layla’s head up. “Best friends don’t say that kind of shit to each other. She should have had your back. She didn’t. Case closed.”
I kiss her, gently, if only because now I finally can again. She’s still, unmoving without a sound. Even with her red-rimmed eyes and banged-up face, she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
Layla sniffs. “You should probably go, huh? It’s getting late.”
I pause. “Do you want me to go?”
She doesn’t have to answer. Her blue eyes, so uncertain, so conflicted, spell it out. I brush some loose hairs out of her face so I can see it clearly, then tip her chin so she has to look at me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her solemnly. “I belong with you.” I nod at her bed. “Even if we do have to sleep in this tiny-ass bed of yours.”
She giggles. It’s small and sweet, and I wouldn’t have heard it if I hadn’t been standing inches from her face. But it was there, and the sound of it lights something inside me I haven’t felt in a really long time, and something the day’s events had doused like gallons of water on a campfire. But there it flickers in her smile: hope.
“Can we––can we turn out the light?” she asks quietly.
“Sure, why?”
“Because,” she says. “I’m tired of you looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m about to break.”
~