Chapter 158

Chapter 158
The bathroom door won’t budge.
I try the handle again, gently this time, but it’s locked. “Layla?” I murmur, knuckles brushing the wood like that’ll make her respond. Nothing. Just the faint, persistent rush of water running behind it.
I head back to the bedroom, go through the drawers and find the keys, picking them up with a sigh before walking back. My hand hovers near the lock, but I don’t move. My forehead leans against the door instead, the cool wood grounding me even as my heart pounds like a fucking war drum.
I don’t know why I start talking. Maybe because this silence feels like it's stuffing cotton down my throat. Maybe because if I don't speak, all the memories will scream louder.
The water keeps running. My pulse knocks against my ribs.
“I was released,” I say. “After that.... As far as they were concerned, I’d killed two people. For no known reason...”
I pause. “My dad went to Olivia’s father. The man has power… sway. He said he'd help. They worked something out. I wouldn’t go back to prison.” I huff out a bitter laugh. “They called it a ‘facility.’ Said it like it was a hospital, a place to heal. But it was a psych ward. Sterile. Cold. Most times I hated it more than I hated prison itself.”
The faucet shuts off. My breath stills in my lungs...she’s listening.
“All the questions,” I go on. “All the sessions. Every day someone poking and prodding like I was a wound they could peel back and study.”
Four months in that place and I was ‘better.’ That’s what they said. Stamped, signed, released. A man with clean records and a sealed file. “My dad made sure it disappeared. All of it. I came back like it never happened. He never asked me why I did it.”
I let the quiet settle before I whisper, “But there’s always been this look in his eyes. Still is. Like he’s wondering what’s underneath my skin. Wondering if I’m more like my mother than he’d like to admit. If I’m harboring something dark. Something broken. He’s always waiting for me to snap.”
I let out a humorless chuckle. “But you got me through it. You didn’t know it… but you did. Jax had been released. He watched over you. Sometimes for hours. Every day. He’d update me, tell me how you were doing...”
I press my palm flat against the door. I feel like I’m speaking into a void, but then...
“Why?”
The word is so quiet I almost think I imagined it. A cracked whisper, her voice the ghost of something once bright.
“You only met me once,” she says, and I hear the way she’s choking on it. “You had no reason to care that much. To be that… invested.”
Her question comes jagged. “Did you pity me?”
My eyes shut. My chest tightens with the weight of everything I’ve ever felt for her.
“No,” I say. “Don’t do that. Don’t try to rewrite this into something less than what it is. I love you. That’s the one thing I won’t let you question.”
I drop my head back against the door and exhale slow.
“I could open this door, flower. I have the keys. You know I could.”
I pause, then soften. “But I don’t want to do it like that. I want you to let me in.”
There’s silence. A ragged breath, then sniffling.
“How am I supposed to face you?” she murmurs.
The words pierce, small and shattered.
“Same way you always have,” I whisper. “With that fire in your eyes that makes people forget you’ve ever been hurt. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, Layla. ”
I press my forehead harder against the door, like maybe I can will her pain into me, split it between us.
“I love you in spite of everything. Hell, maybe because of it. All the cracks and the jagged edges. You think it makes you harder to love, but it’s what makes you real. And you… you’re the only thing I’ve ever been sure of.”
My voice drops, low and aching.
“So let me in, flower. Please...because I can’t breathe right until I hold you.”
The silence becomes a second presence beside me.
I stay leaning against the bathroom door for what feels like hours.
Then I slide down. The floor creaks a little beneath me as I sink, spine against the wall, shoulder brushing the doorframe. I stretch my legs out in front of me and rest my head back, eyes to the ceiling. There’s a cobweb in the corner. I count the strands like it’s going to save me.
One, two, three... eight. Eight threads branching from a single anchor.
I start counting other things to keep myself here, grounded. The number of floorboards. The screws holding the hinges on this door. How many heartbeats between when I said "Let me in, flower" and when she actually will.
I think about leaving. About giving her space. But I don’t. I won't....I can't.
So I stay.
I’m prepared to stay all night if I have to. If it means she’ll open the door even an inch, I’ll sit here until morning turns the sky grey and the birds start scolding me for not moving.
Then I hear it.
Soft footsteps, feather-light against the floor. A quiet pause. A click.
The lock.
My heart climbs too quickly as I scramble up, knees cracking in protest. The door opens just enough for a sliver of light to spill out. She peeks out. Just a flicker of her eyes, before she drops her gaze and steps into the hallway.
No words, just her. And it's enough.
I step closer and wrap my arm around her shoulders, careful and slow, not pulling too tightly. I angle us so I’m beside her, letting her lean into me without pressure. She doesn’t have to hug me back. She can just be.
Her temple finds my chest, right over my heart. I feel her holding her breath like it's the dam between falling apart and holding on.
I kiss the top of her head, soft and slow. “It’s okay,” I whisper against her hair. “You don’t have to be okay tonight. But we will be. I promise you that.”
She’s stiff in my arms. Not pulling away, but not sinking in either. Her fingers twitch like they don’t know what to do, like they’ve forgotten how to ask for comfort.
I keep holding her. “We’ll get there,” I say,
because I mean it.
Even if she doesn’t believe me yet...I’ll believe enough for both of us.