Layla

I’ve gained almost a thousand followers since meeting Layla and releasing some of my own music, but that’s still only five thousand people total. I would assume with only five thousand followers, there would be less of a reaction to the picture I posted of us. Call me naive, but I honestly didn’t think I’d get much reaction at all.

Most of the comments I’m reading are from people congratulating us, but some of the comments are from other girls who are picking Layla apart. Luckily I didn’t tag her in the photo. I’d hate for her to see what people are saying about her.

The more I read through the comments and private messages, I’m tempted to just delete my account altogether. I know if I ever get to the point of being able to pay a bill with my music, I’ll be thankful for any followers I have. But right now, it’s disturbing reading comments like, Your girlfriend looks like a slut and You’re hotter when you’re single.

The internet is fucking brutal. It makes me nervous to leave her here for three days by herself. I don’t think she’s seen the picture yet, so I don’t even bother deleting the negative comments. I just delete the photo altogether and then set my phone facedown on the nightstand.

“You sure you’re okay staying here alone?” I ask her.

She lays the magazine against her chest. “Why? Do you want me to leave?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“We met two months ago and we haven’t even come up for air yet. Surely you’re sick of me crowding your space by now.”

She has no idea how not sick of her I am.

Well, I guess she would have no way of knowing how I really feel about her since I’ve never said it out loud. I show her, but I don’t say it.

I grab her magazine and toss it on the floor, then I roll on top of her. I love the look she always gets in her eye when she knows I’m about to kiss her. It’s a gleam of anticipation. There’s nothing better than knowing this girl anticipates my mouth on hers. “Layla,” I whisper. “I am not sick of you. I’m in love with you.”

I say it casually, but it only takes two seconds for my words to register. When they do, she covers her face with both hands. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her look shy. I kiss one of the hands covering her face right before she curls them into two fists against her chin. “I’m in love with you too.”

I immediately press my mouth to hers, wanting to swallow those words. I imagine them typed out in Arial font, slowly bouncing around inside of me, ricocheting off my internal walls, endlessly twisting and rotating inside my stomach and my chest and my arms and my legs until every part of me has been touched by them.

I pull away from her, and I love that her smile is so wide. “I guess it’s settled, then,” I say. “We’re in love, you’re staying here while I’m gone, and I think this means we just officially moved in together.”

“Wow. Maybe I should let my parents know I don’t live with them anymore.”

“You haven’t been home since your sister got married. I think they’re aware.”

She wraps her arms around my neck. “This is a lot in one day. We said I love you, we moved in together . . . and we’re Instagram official now.” She says the last part like a joke, but my stomach drops knowing she saw the picture.

“You saw that?”

I can tell by the way her smile fades that she also saw the comments that accompanied the picture. “Yeah.”

“Don’t worry, I deleted it.”

“You did? I didn’t mind it.”

“Either way, I don’t think I was prepared for people I don’t even know to have an opinion about us.”

“You’re not real to them. It’s just how people are on social media.” She kisses me. “It’s your own fault for being so damn hot,” she says with a grin.

I’m relieved she doesn’t seem to be taking any of it personally. “I don’t know if I want to post pictures of us together anymore. I don’t want them to find your account and start bothering you.”

Layla laughs. “Too late for that. You follow thirty people, and I’m one of them. They already found me.”

I roll off her and sit up on the bed. “What do you mean they already found you?”

“It’s just been one girl so far,” she says. “Sonya? Sybil? I can’t remember her name.” Layla says it so nonchalantly, but I know exactly who she’s talking about.

“Sable?”

She points at me with a wink. “That’s it. Sable. I already blocked her, though.”

I haven’t heard from Sable since I blocked her number several months before meeting Layla. The fact that she’s still looking at my posts confirms my concerns about her. “What’d she say?”