Layla

“Leeds.” Layla whispers my name, but even through her whisper, I can feel the weight of it.

“What is it?”

She tucks her head against my shoulder. “I think there’s only one way to fix this.”

“How?”

She sucks in a heavy breath. And then, as she exhales, she says, “You’re going to have to kill me. And then hope to hell that you can bring me right back.” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to push her words away from me. I don’t even want to hear them, but she continues talking. “If I can flatline long enough for Sable’s soul to leave my body, then maybe my soul could take back over before you bring me back.”

“Stop,” I say immediately. “It’s too risky. So much could go wrong.”

“We can’t live like this forever.”

“But we can.”

She pulls away from my shoulder and looks up at me. Her eyes are full of tears. “It’s exhausting. I can’t live like this, day after day. And do you really want to hold a girl captive upstairs in this house for the rest of your life?”

I don’t. It’s agonizing, but it’s better than the thought of Layla possibly dying. “This isn’t the solution.”

“And living this way is? She won’t sleep unless we drug her, and then I’m left with the side effects. I’m tired. You’re tired. If this is the only way I can exist with you . . . then I’d rather not exist at all,” she says. She’s crying now, and I can’t take it. I don’t want to see her upset, but the selfish part of me would rather see her upset than not see her at all.

“If we did it and it went wrong, I would never forgive myself. I can’t live without you, Layla.”

“You can. You have for the past seven months.”

I look at her pointedly. “And I’ve been fucking miserable.”

She stares at me solemnly. Then, as if she somehow feels sympathy for me, she places her hand on my cheek and kisses me. Her kiss is sweet, but it’s also desolate. I don’t know what to do with it.

It’s torture, kissing her through her pain, because I know what’s going on in her mind right now. She thinks death is the answer.

I’m afraid death will be the end.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I say.

“We’re going to have to do something about this. And soon, while I still have the energy.”

“I’m not going to agree to it.”

Layla’s fingers trail down my arm until she finds my hand. She slips her fingers through mine. “It can work, Leeds. If we plan it out just right, it’ll work.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because,” she says. She presses a kiss against my jaw. “I love you more than Sable does. I’ll make it work.”

I want to believe her. But what happens if it doesn’t work? What if I can’t bring her back? If her body dies for good, her spirit will likely die right along with it.

And then what would I do? How would I explain her death to the police? To her family? To Aspen?

Layla reaches up a hand to smooth out my furrowed brow. “Relax,” she says. “We can worry about the details after we wake up.”

I nod, wanting nothing more than to put these thoughts away. I just want to think about Layla.

I trace my fingers delicately over her lips, and she’s gazing up at me with the same expression she was looking at me with when we were lying in the grass the first night we met. Right before I asked her why she was so pretty.

I trail my fingers over the freckles spilled over the bridge of her nose. “Why are you so pretty?” I whisper.

That memory makes her smile.

This is what I’ve been missing. These moments with Layla. The unspoken memories we share together . . . the looks we give each other. We had an immediate connection the night we met. A connection so strong it brought me back here to her when I didn’t even know I was searching for her. A connection that kept me here, even when I was convinced Willow was Sable.

Layla kisses me again, only this time our kiss doesn’t stop. It lasts for so long my lips feel swollen by the time I push into her.

She wraps herself tightly around me as we make love. I keep my eyes open the whole time because I’m amazed by how different it is now that I have her back. It’s exactly like it used to be. Intense and perfect and full of meaning.

When it’s over and she’s wrapped in my arms, I realize she might be right.

We found each other once—when we met.

Then we found each other again—after she died.

That makes me believe in us enough to think we could do it a third time.