Layla

“You don’t like it?”

She stiffens when she realizes I’m watching her. “It’s good,” she says, taking a small bite.

She hasn’t had much of an appetite lately. She barely eats, and when she does, she picks out anything with carbs. Maybe that’s why she’s only taken three small bites—because everything in her bowl is a carb.

She weighed herself a week after she was released from the hospital. I remember I was brushing my teeth at the sink, and she stepped on the bathroom scale next to me. She whispered, “Oh my God,” to herself, and I haven’t really seen her eat a full meal since then.

She chews her food carefully, staring down at the bowl in front of her. She takes a sip of her wine and then begins scooting pasta around again.

“When are Aspen and Chad coming?” she asks.

“Friday.”

“How long are they staying?”

“Just one night. They have that road trip.” Layla nods like she knows what I’m talking about, but when I called Aspen to tell her about this trip, she told me she hasn’t spoken to Layla in two weeks. I checked Layla’s phone later that night, and she had several missed calls from both her mother and her sister. I don’t know why she’s avoiding them, but she sends their calls to voice mail more than she doesn’t.

“Have you talked to your mom today?” I ask her.

Layla shakes her head. “No.” She looks up at me. “Why?”

I don’t know why I asked that. I just hate that she’s avoiding most of her mother’s calls. When she does that, Gail starts texting me, wondering what’s wrong with Layla. Then she texts Aspen and worries Aspen. Then Aspen texts me, asking why Layla isn’t answering her phone.

It would just be easier for everyone if Layla updated them more often so they wouldn’t worry about her so much. But they do worry. We all do. Another thing that’s probably a setback for her.

“I wish my mother would get a hobby so she wouldn’t expect me to talk to her every day,” Layla says, dropping her fork to the table. She takes another sip of her wine. When she sets it down, she closes her eyes for several long seconds.

When she opens them, she stares down at her pasta in silence.

She inhales a breath, as if she just wants to forget the conversation.

Maybe she spent too much time with them when she was released from the hospital. She probably needs a nice break from them, much like I need a break from the rest of the world.

Layla picks up her fork and looks at it; then she looks down at her bowl of pasta again. “It smells so good.” She says good in a way that makes it sound like a moan. She actually sniffs the pasta. Leans forward and closes her eyes, inhaling the scent of the sauce. Maybe this is her newest trick to dropping the fifteen pounds she keeps talking about—smelling food instead of eating it.

Layla grips her fork and twists it in the bowl. She takes the biggest bite I’ve ever seen her take. She groans when it’s in her mouth. “Oh my God. It’s so good.” She takes another bite, but before she finishes swallowing, she’s shoveling yet another bite into her mouth. “I want more,” she says with a mouthful. She grabs her wineglass and brings it to her mouth while I take her bowl to the stove and refill it with more pasta.

She practically rips it from my hands when I sit back down at the table. She eats the entire bowl in just a few bites. When she’s done, she leans back in her seat and presses a palm to her stomach, still gripping her fork tightly in her right hand.

I start laughing because I’m relieved she’s finally eating, but also because I’ve never seen anyone so animated while they eat.

She closes her eyes and groans, leaning forward. She props her elbows up on the table and moves her hand from her stomach to her forehead.

I take a bite of my own pasta right when she opens her eyes. She looks straight down at her empty bowl and makes this horrific face like she regrets every carb she just ate. She covers her mouth with her hand. “Leeds? My food is gone.”

“Do you want more?”

She looks up at me—the whites of her eyes more prominent than I’ve ever seen them. “It’s gone,” she whispers.

“Not all of it. You can have the rest if you want it.”

She looks horrified when I say that—as if I’m insulting her.

She looks at the fork still in her hand and studies it as if she doesn’t recognize it’s a fork. Then she drops it. Tosses it, really. It slides across the table, hitting my bowl just as she scoots back and stands up.