Layla

A message appears on my phone. I’m very good with technology.

I can’t help but smile at the message.

This is surreal. It is so much bigger than anything I’ve ever imagined would happen in the span of my lifetime. The idea of marriage, having kids, building a music career—it all seems like filler now. What if I have some sort of sixth sense? What if I’m supposed to do something with that? What if I’m meant to be something else besides a musician?

The keys on my laptop are being pressed again. She’s typing something else.

I know things—like how to cook. How to use a computer. How to use a cell phone. But I have no idea how I know those things.

I don’t use my phone to respond to her. I just speak out loud since Layla is still asleep upstairs. “I wonder if that could be a clue to how recently you died. I would assume if your death happened decades ago, you’d speak differently, or act differently.”

You seem so sure that I used to be alive. What if I’ve just always been here?

“Maybe you have, and you’ve just picked knowledge up along the way. You say you watch television sometimes, right?”

Yes.

“There are things we could do to try and pinpoint a timeline.”

Is that important to you? Knowing if I was once alive?

“Is it not important to you?”

I don’t know. Not really, I guess. What would it matter?

“If you knew what your life was like, maybe you could figure out why you’re stuck here.”

I don’t necessarily feel stuck.

“But are you happy?”

No. I already told you what it’s like here. You and Layla showing up is the most exciting thing to happen to me.

“What if I’m here to help you? Do you even want help figuring this out?”

That’s pretty egocentric of you to assume I’m the one who needs the help. What if I’m here to help you?

I stare at that comment for a moment, allowing it to get tangled up in all my other thoughts. “I’ve never thought of it like that.” I lean forward on the table, bringing my fingers to a point against my chin. “Maybe you’re right—maybe we’re both where we belong. But if that were the case, why would you be crossing into this world? You’re the one who misses things I still have. Food. Water. Sleep. You’re never satiated where you’re at. Everything tangible is in this realm, and it seems like you miss those things, which means maybe you had them at some point in the past.”

My laptop slides several inches across the table until it’s sitting directly in front of me. The sudden movement causes me to flinch.

“Why’d you let me sleep so late?” Layla asks. My eyes dart up, and she’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, stretching her arms above her head. She yawns as she heads for the coffeepot.

“It’s not that late,” I say, slowly closing the lid to my laptop.

Layla pours coffee into a mug. “It’s eleven o’clock.”

“The deadliest time of day,” I say teasingly.

She eyes me curiously. “It’s what?” She has both hands wrapped around her coffee mug now as she sips from it. I walk over to her and kiss her on the forehead.

“Eleven in the morning—the deadliest time of day,” I say, repeating one of the many facts she’s told me.

Her eyes squint in confusion. “Weird. You’d think it would be nighttime.”

A blanket of guilt feels like it drapes over my shoulders. There are so many things I take for granted that Layla is still slowly recovering—the conversations we’ve had, the memories we’ve made, all the perfect moments we’ve spent together. It’s like someone took a pair of craft scissors and cut slivers of her life out of her mind, leaving them in scraps on the table.

I feel like I sometimes don’t appreciate the severity of her injuries. I’ve spent the last six months since it happened walking on eggshells, trying not to point out the obvious, not wanting her to feel like she’s lost as much as she has. But what if indulging her desire to avoid talk of that night has inadvertently made it all worse?

A brain injury has to be similar to a physical injury. You exercise a physical injury. You work harder to gain back all the strength you lost. I went through three months of physical therapy for the wound to my shoulder, but we did the exact opposite with Layla’s injury.

We didn’t exercise her brain . . . we put it on bed rest.

We’ve avoided the damage—put her wounds on respite in the hopes everything would heal on its own. But it hasn’t. Physically, yes. But mentally—I’m not so sure.

“Were you on the phone just now?” she asks.

“No. Why?”

“I thought I heard you talking when I was coming downstairs.”

“I was,” I say quickly. “To myself. Not on the phone.”