Chapter 152: Layla POV
Chapter 152: Layla POV
My phone rings at 8:47 AM on Wednesday morning, and I know before I even look at the screen that it's Xavier.
I've been waiting for this call since the hearing ended two days ago. The judge said she'd rule quickly—probably by midweek. Probably today.
I'm sitting in the library's quiet corner, pretending to study for my afternoon exam, when his name lights up my phone.
I let it ring twice. Three times. Then answer.
"Layla." His voice carries that particular controlled excitement that usually means good news in his world. "The judge issued her ruling. She's denying your mother's motion to compel the sale. The house stays yours."
The words should feel like relief. Like vindication. Like winning.
Instead, there's just... nothing.
A vast, hollow nothing that fills my chest where celebration should be.
"Layla? Are you there?"
"Yeah." My voice sounds strange even to my own ears—flat, distant, like it's coming from underwater. "I heard you."
A pause. Then, more cautiously: "This is good news. This is what we wanted."
"I know what it is." I press my forehead against the cool glass window overlooking the quad, watching students rush between classes in the morning drizzle. "Thanks for telling me."
"Layla—"
"I have to go. I'll talk to you later."
I hang up before he can respond, before that confused pause in his breathing turns into questions I don't want to answer. Before he asks me why I'm not dancing or crying happy tears or doing whatever normal people do when they win.
The iced coffee on the table beside me has left a ring of condensation on my notes. I pick it up, take a sip. It tastes like cardboard and defeat.
I won.
Legally. Factually. The house my father left me stays mine. My mother's attempt to take the last piece of him from me has failed.
So why does it feel like I just lost everything that matters?
---
I make it through my morning classes on autopilot.
The lecture hall feels too big, like an echo chamber where every sound—every cough, every page flip, every pen scratch—bounces around my skull with too much force. The professor's voice drones on about narrative structure and character development. Words that should hook into my brain just... slide off. Like oil on water.
My pen hovers over blank paper. The ink hasn't touched down in almost fifteen minutes.
Because I just realized something that makes my chest feel like it's caving in on itself.
I didn't win back my mother's love. I didn't win some grand reconciliation where she wakes up and remembers she's supposed to care about me. I won a legal battle against a woman who stopped being my mother years ago.
Maybe decades ago.
Maybe never was one at all.
The girl beside me—the one with the pink hoodie who's always kind—leans over and whispers, "You okay?"
"Yeah." I nod too fast. Too mechanical. The kind of nod that screams I'm lying.
She doesn't believe me, but she's smart enough not to push.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Once. Twice. Three times in quick succession.
Group chat, probably. Xavier told them.
My hand starts shaking. Just a small tremor at first, then worse. The pen slips from my grip and clatters to the floor with a sound that seems deafening in the quiet lecture hall.
I lean down to pick it up. My fingers won't quite close around it properly.
Cold sweat trickles between my shoulder blades.
The bell rings. I'm out of my seat before the professor finishes his closing remarks.
---
They're waiting outside.
Of course they are.
AJ leans against the stone pillar near the building's entrance, still in his practice gear, hair damp from exertion. Cade stands beside him holding a paper bag that I know without looking contains something from the coffee shop—probably those chocolate croissants I mentioned liking last week. Hunter's a few steps away, hands in his pockets, watching me with that quiet, knowing intensity.
And Xavier. Xavier's there too, his suit jacket spotted with rain, looking like he drove straight from his father's office because he couldn't figure out why I hung up on good news.
"Hey." Cade's voice is gentle, careful, like he's approaching a spooked animal. He holds out the bag. "Thought you might've skipped breakfast."
I take it automatically. Set it on the bench without opening it.
"Thanks."
The word comes out hollow. Mechanical.
AJ moves closer, doesn't say anything, just takes my hand. His thumb starts that familiar circular motion on my palm—grounding me, anchoring me, without requiring words.
Hunter steps forward and presses a protein bar into my other hand. His fingers brush the inside of my wrist, brief but steadying.
Xavier stands there looking lost. Confused. Like he's trying to solve an equation that refuses to balance.
"You won," he says finally, and there's a sharp edge of frustration in his voice. "The judge ruled in your favor. Your mother can't force the sale. So why do you look like someone just died?"
Cade shoots him a warning look. Hunter's jaw tightens. AJ's thumb stops its comforting rhythm.
But I just stare at Xavier—at his handsome, logical, utterly baffled face—and something inside me cracks wide open.
"Because someone did die," I hear myself say, my voice eerily calm. "Or maybe she never existed in the first place. The mother I kept hoping would come back. The one who'd wake up one day and remember she was supposed to love me. She's gone, Xavier. She was always gone."
His expression shifts through several emotions in rapid succession—shock, then understanding, then something that looks almost like pain.
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.
"I didn't..." He stops. Runs a hand through his hair, messing up that perfectly styled look. "I thought winning would make you happy."
"It did. Legally. Practically." I look down at the croissant bag in my hands, at Cade's careful handwriting on the side that says for our girl in his messy scrawl. "But emotionally? I just realized I never had what I was fighting to keep. Not her love. Not the relationship. Just a house. Just things."
The rain picks up, sending students scurrying toward covered walkways.
Cade's hand finds my shoulder, warm and solid. "Layla—"
"I need to go." The words tumble out before I can stop them. "I just need to not be here right now."
I hand the protein bar back to Hunter, the croissants to Cade. My hands are still shaking.
"Layla, wait—" AJ starts, his voice careful.
"I'm fine." The lie tastes like ashes. "I just need some space."
I don't wait for their response. I turn and walk back into the building, toward the nearest bathroom where I can lock myself in a stall and finally let this hollow ache in my chest transform into something I can name.
Behind me, I hear Xavier's voice, rough and low: "I fucked that up."
"Yeah," Hunter says quietly. "You did."
But I'm already gone, pushing through the heavy door, my footsteps echoing in the empty hallway.
---
The bathroom is mercifully empty.
I lock myself in the furthest stall, sit on the closed toilet lid, and press my palms against my eyes.
And I wait.
For tears. For anger. For something.
But there's just... nothing.
Just this vast, echoing empty where a mother's love should have been.
My phone buzzes. Once. Twice. Ten times in quick succession.
I don't look at it.
The fluorescent lights hum overhead, steady and indifferent.
I won the house today. I kept my father's last gift to me.
But I lost my mother years ago—or maybe I never had her to begin with—and sitting here in this sterile bathroom with harsh lighting and the faint smell of industrial cleaner, I'm finally letting myself grieve the woman who never chose me.
The woman who looked at me and saw a burden instead of a daughter.
The woman who would rather destroy me than let me have anything she couldn't control.
My phone buzzes again. And again.
I still don't look.
Because right now, in this moment, I need to sit with this emptiness. This loss that isn't really a loss because you can't lose something you never had.
I need to mourn the mother I deserved but never got.
And then—maybe tomorrow, maybe in an hour—I'll pick up my phone and let the people who actually chose me help me stand back up.
But not yet.
Not yet.