Layla

That was back when I thought the hardest part of life was playing bass in a slightly successful band I couldn’t stand.

So much has happened since then. I’ve changed as a person in more ways than one. That happens when you’re forced to take another person’s life.

I don’t allow myself to think about it a lot. I did what I had to do, but it still doesn’t take away that guilt, no matter how justified it was.

I sink back under the water, hating that my thoughts have gone back to that night. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about anything right now. I just want Willow to enjoy being able to feel water for the first time.

I push myself off the bottom of the pool and break the surface. She’s still sitting in the same spot, staring at the water surrounding her calves. “You getting in?” I ask her.

She looks at me and nods. “Yes, but I’m kind of scared. What if I can’t swim?”

“Only one way to find out.” I swim closer to her and reach out my hand. “Here. I’ll help you.”

She hesitates before taking my hand. She slips slowly into the water and sinks down to her chin before she squeals and grabs hold of my shoulder with her other hand. She starts moving her feet to try and stay afloat, but she’s too scared to let go of me.

She’s smiling, though, so I know she isn’t scared. This is just new to her. She releases my shoulder and starts to move her arm, but she’s still holding on to my hand.

“You got it?” I ask.

She nods, taking in accidental gulps of water as she barely keeps her head above the surface. She spits it back out and says, “I think so.” She’s breathless in a giddy way. It’s like watching a child try to swim for the first time. I release her hand but stay near her. When she doesn’t immediately sink, her eyes grow wide with excitement. “I’m doing it!” she says. “I’m swimming!”

Her pride makes me laugh. She stretches her arms out in front of her and parts the water. Maybe swimming is a natural instinct, even for ghosts, but she pushes off the wall and dog-paddles to the middle of the pool by herself. She spins and then swims back. She’s already got the hang of it, which proves she’s done this before.

“It’s like riding a bike,” I say.

She laughs. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done that either.”

“You probably have—you just don’t remember being alive.”

My words make her smile disappear.

She stays in the same spot, moving her arms and legs to keep herself afloat. “You really think I died?”

She asks me in a curious way, not an offended way. “If theories about ghosts are accurate, I feel like maybe you had a life before this. You just don’t remember it.”

She watches me for a moment before swimming back to the ledge of the pool. She holds on to it. “Do you think I’m a stereotypical ghost, stuck between death and an afterlife?”

“I’m not sure why else you would be here. What do you think?” I ask her.

“I don’t know. I never really thought about it until you showed up here and started trying to figure me out.”

“Do you wish I’d never showed up?”

She doesn’t answer that.

Instead, she looks away from me and presses her back against the concrete ledge. She tilts her head back until she’s staring up at the stars. “I’m kind of scared to find out why I’m here. It’s why I’ve never left this property to search for answers, or to search for others like me. Because what if you’re right? What if I’m stuck between life and death?” Her eyes seek mine out again, but she looks scared when we make eye contact this time. “What if I find answers and then it’s over?”

“And then what’s over?”

“This. Me. What if I find a way to leave this existence, only to discover there’s nothing after it? What if I just . . . disappear? Forever?”

“Would that make you sad?” I ask. “You talk like it’s a miserable existence.”

She stares at me for several long seconds. Then she says, “It used to be.” She lets herself sink below the surface as soon as she says that.

Her response was heavier than I expected it to be.

When she comes back up, she’s closer to me. She regards my shoulder with curiosity, reaching out to touch it. She runs her finger over the scar from the wound I was left with six months ago. “Is this where you got shot?”

“Yes.” It feels odd—her touching my scar. Layla has never touched it. Not once. Every time we make love, she deliberately runs her hands around it, near it, but she never touches it. I’ve always wondered if it brings back bad memories for her, or if she’s just scared it might hurt me if she touched it.