Author's Note: Making us all wait until FEBRUARY is just plain cruel. But in the meantime, it's fun (?) to speculate.
I don't own Nashville.
I.
He has to sign forms, but his fingers are numb. He can't make them close around the pen they placed in his hand, or grip the clipboard, or make the motions he needs to put his initials where the harried receptionist that smelled like too much bad coffee marked with a highlighter and told him to sign.
He can't sign anything. He can't move his fingers because they're numb. He can't feel touch move grip reach, he can't do anything.
Maybe they're dying.
His fingers don't look like fingers. Like when you stare at a word on a page so long, or say your own name over and over again, until it sounds garbled and foreign and nothing that's ever been a part of you.
He needs to squeeze them to see if he can feel anything. He can't. Squeeze. Or feel.
They're so cold.
II.
Lights.
Lights everywhere. No more sound no more music no more party, but lights are everywhere. He sees them from corners of his eyes. Party Christmas house car pool police lights, red green gold white blue.
Hands move up and down on Layla's body, hands folded together, he watches them move. It's hypnotic, the rhythm, watching it – up and down, up and down, the way the woman's lips move as she counts under her breath, one-two-three-four-five, steady, even, mimicking the beat of a heart that's gone quiet. She's kneeling over Layla on the pool patio, wet and muddy in expensive party clothes, sweating through a slinky dress as she tilts Layla's head back, seals her lips on his wife's, breathes into her body.
A frown on the woman's pale, sweaty face. Fingers on Layla's neck and her chest too still until the woman in the dress starts the motion all over again, one-two-three-four-five –
The lights are still everywhere and he knows he's kneeling next to Layla's body, soaking wet, doesn't know how he got here or how long he's been here or where this woman came from, he's just here with his knees aching from the cement and his clothes dripping and Layla completely still like she was in the water the party lights flash across her freezing skin she's red gold blue her lips are blue she's white and blue not moving.
The woman in the party dress still breathes for Layla. Another round of hands on her chest. There's a sound like a twig snapping he'll later be told is his wife's ribs breaking from CPR. For now, it sounds like someone stepped on a fallen tree branch, or crunched a handful of potato chips in their fist.
It brings him back, just for a second.
One-two-three-four-five
Red blue white lights. Sirens cars people yelling running pointing kneeling touching reaching, he blinks and the lights are still everywhere and people are saying things like "sir, I'm gonna need you to step back for a moment" and "Is this the husband?" and "did she take anything?" and "you know how long she was underwater?" and "Bethesda's closest, ETA six, seven minutes tops." Layla's body surrounded by people hands everywhere wheels engines sirens lights the world's on fire about to explode.
"Sir?"
A cop. Her hand is on his arm.
"Are you the husband?"
Her voice sounds too slow. Muffled. Like she's speaking to him underwater.
"Sir? Can you please tell me what happened?"
III.
He tries to tell the woman at the receptionist's desk that he can't fill out the forms. He can't explain my fingers are numb I think they're dying but words are coming out of his mouth he doesn't know what they are and she won't LISTEN, so he keeps talking and eventually a nurse takes the forms and tells him to go into the waiting room, have a seat, or else they'll have to call security.
He stomps off when she frowns at him, like she's just looking for an excuse to throw his wet, chlorine-smelling self onto the streets. There's a security guard in the corner who Will can see is eyeing the whole exchange with one hand on his walkie-talkie, so instead he glares at the fat donut cop and the scowling nurse and goes back to the lobby, throwing the pen and clipboard against the wall. The thud they make isn't nearly loud enough.
When he walks back into the waiting room, he sees the woman from the party who was doing CPR. She's been waiting this whole time, along with her husband. In the harsh fluorescent light, he can see now that her party dress, undoubtedly worth thousands of useless dollars, is ruined, covered in dirt and grass stains from kneeling in the ground, and her fancy shoes are caked with mud. She has her husband's coat draped over her shoulders, and her head snaps up when he walks in the room.
"How is she?" she asks.
Will should tell her right now, but he spots Jeff in the corner, and something in his throat closes shut.
"They, uh…" He looks down at his boots. They're tracking dirty footsteps everywhere, his socks squelching water with every step. He thinks he should probably feel cold from being in wet clothes in an over-air-conditioned hospital, but he doesn't. Except his fingers are still frozen and numb.
He stares at the woman's ruined shoes, and realizes she's still expecting an answer.
"They didn't say much," he says. "They said they'll have to wait for some tests to come back. They don't – "
The woman leans against her husband, her face grey.
"They said they'd let me know. If anything."
He can't imaging what they see, when they look at him. Do they see a devoted husband? A man scared to death of losing someone he loves?
"I'm so sorry," the woman whispers, and isn't going to look at her because he can hear she's crying.
Do they see a good man?
"Carla," her husband says. "We should go."
She nods, but before she follows her husband out the door she tears off the edge of a magazine on one of the lobby tables and grabs a pen out of her bag, jotting down a number. She presses the paper into Will's hand.
"Will you call us if you need anything?" she asks. "Please? Anything at all, I promise. Don't hesitate."
His head puppet-nods yes. The woman looks like she wants to hug him but doesn't and he's grateful. There isn't some big heartfelt moment. They just turn to leave.
On the way out, he sees the husband put his arms around his wife's slim shoulder. She leans into him as they walk out the door to the parking lot, hands clasped.
He can't breathe so he has to shut his eyes and squeeze them shut and focus on the blackness behind them instead of the fact that there's no air anywhere. He buries his hands in his wet coat pockets. He could punch break tear crush throw something but his fingers are too fucking dead.
IV.
"We pumped her stomach."
Doctor's mouth moving, words that he hears but doesn't think he heard –
"Pump her stomach?" His jaw moves but the words don't sound like him. They sound thin, too high. "Why – why would you do that? There's –"
"We found traces in her system of prescription medications." Doctor mouth voice words. "An extremely high dose. Mixed with the alcohol she drank, we needed to take care of the overdose before we could treat your wife for anything else."
Overdose.
"Sir. I'm sorry to ask, but I have to." The doctor peers down at him over the rim of his glasses. "Does your wife have a history of suicide attempts?"
His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. No words come out. No air comes in. He's a fish on land, drowning in the air and sky.
"But…" Will has to blink. He didn't realize he wasn't. "No, she, not ever…"
The doctor doesn't quite nod, doesn't quite not.
Is he blinking? Is he breathing? He can't tell anything. Something is catching in his chest, but he can't tell if it's air or vomit or fear or what.
"Look, when she wakes up – "
"Sir," the doctor says, and his face is so bland and firm, and Will wants to bash it in with fists and dead fingers because it's the expression of someone who knows how to deliver the worst kind of news without even blinking, knows how to steel himself against the blow the words will cause, "I think you need to prepare yourself for either outcome."
He's cemented to the ground. The world tilts he might be falling but he can't be everything else around him still looks the same maybe everything dropped out beneath him and he's falling, like when he saw the shape in the water and knew it was her before he even pulled the broken doll body into his arms.
The doctor is still talking.
"Is there anyone who can stay here with you? Family members? Close friends?" He tilts his head and the look on his face almost knocks Will over. "You might want someone to be here with you."
He thinks everything stops right now, time breath heart life.
V.
Jeff's still here. Sitting in the same chair, hands on his knees, feet drumming the floor as he stares at the ceiling.
When the doctor walks away, Jeff's knees go still, and Will knows Jeff wants him to come over and tell him everything but he doesn't want to move so Jeff gets up and comes over to him, hands tucked in his back pocket.
The first words out of his mouth are, "how is she?" and Will almost says "my fingers are dying" but it comes out more like "she's dying" and Jeff turns white.
"What does that mean?" Jeff presses. "She's dying. So, what, they can't do anything? At all?"
He glances around, face soaked with this expression that Will thinks he should call fear but doesn't know why, Jeff's never afraid.
"I mean," he hears Jeff saying, "who told you that, exactly? One of these bimbo nurses who made it through some backwoods nursing program? Some hillbilly country doctor? Maybe you should ask the janitor what he thinks, let him give you a diagnosis!"
Will can't make his eyes follow Jeff. He's one minute here, one minute across the room, legs eating the distance, pacing in circles, hands waving in the air, voice loud, words rushing out like a bursting dam.
"We need to get her out of here," he's saying. "Move her to a better hospital. Vanderbilt, or someplace better. Anywhere besides this backwoods hole-in-the-wall. They don't know how shit."
He whirls around to face Will. "Don't you dare make any decisions until you talk to someone who knows what the fuck they're talking about. Don't listen to anything."
"Jeff."
"I mean it," he says, voice dripping, and for the first time ever Will thinks Jeff actually sounds afraid. "Don't say anything to these people. Don't do anything until we get a second opinion."
"Jeff."
This time it's not Will saying his name, it's someone else. A man in a sweater who looks like he just rolled out of bed. He looks familiar somehow, but Will can't place him.
Jeff sucks in a breath. He hangs his head, then looks at the other man, tries to smile.
"Man, I am glad to see you," he says, and Will turns away, starts walking out of the room. He doesn't know who this guy is and doesn't care. Doesn't give a shit as to how Jeff is going to slime his way around this.
"Mr. Lexington."
He stops. Doesn't turn.
The other man comes up to him, looks him in the eyes. Now Will recognizes him – Teddy Conrad, mayor of Nashville.
Why is the major of Nashville here right now? Does Will care?
"I just wanted to say," the mayor says quietly, "that I know how it feels to be in your position. When my wife – "
He stops and puts his hands on his hips. Will blinks.
"I know how afraid you must be," he says, clapping a hand on Will's shoulder. "And I want you to know that I'm praying for your wife."
"Teddy." Jeff comes up behind him. "We need to talk. Right now."
The major squeezes Will's shoulder, then turns and walks away from Will over to Jeff, and the two of them huddle in a corner and start talking in hushed tones, Jeff's arms wrapped around himself and the major looking lined and tired as they talk, about what Will doesn't care, so he walks away and leaves them to do…whatever it is they're going to do.
VI.
The sirens are screaming along with the whirl flash blare of the lights, and his legs don't work but they're not numb like his fingers, they're just shaking and unsteady and they're not what's carrying him anymore. He doesn't know what is.
He has to get to the car.
They had parked all the way at the end of the street – Will hadn't wanted to stay at the party long, and he didn't want to get blocked in by the Porsches and Lamborghinis and Infinities – but when he spots his truck sitting in the same place he left it he reaches into the pocket of his jeans and realizes the keys are gone. They must have fallen out, maybe when he jumped in the pool, or when he took off his pants in the bedroom with the reporter.
Fuck.
He slams his hand into the windshield. It doesn't break. He hits it again. Nothing. His hand stings but fingers still numb fuck fuckfuck –
He doesn't realize he's screaming it until someone down the street looks at him. They stare a moment, but don't come any closer. They probably think he's drunk.
The sirens are gone. He can't hear them anymore. Can't even see the lights. They cut her shirt off. Her bra, too. She was topless and there were other people around watching and he wanted to cover her up and yell at everyone to look away but nobody was gawking. The paramedics strapped paddles onto her bare chest like her nakedness wasn't important and he'd seen plenty of TV shows to know what those paddles did but all the bad cop shows in the world couldn't prepare you for the sound a body makes as it thuds uselessly, nobody inside to control the jerky movements, the sickening thump of deadweight. Her tongue darts in an out of her mouth her arms jerk ragdoll limbs snapping her back arching they tried once twice three times –
A car pulls up beside him.
"Get in."
Jeff's Mercedes.
He stares at the not-broken windshield. The skin on his palms is bright red from where he smacked it against the freezing glass. "Fuck off, Jeff."
The car squeals right in front of him, inches away from making him a hood ornament.
"I said," Jeff snarls, "get in the car."
They could do this all night.
He gets in the car.
VII.
There's a kind-eyed nurse in the ICU who has a voice that everyone wants to hear after a bad dream. She touches Will's hand and smiles with so much warmth he wants to cry but he won't cry.
She's so gentle with Layla. With the other nurses, there was so much noise and bustle and fury, they were hurrying too much to be gentle. They had to do too much. So her body flopped and jerked and twisted and thudded, and even if she couldn't feel it Will jerked every time she was shoved into a different position.
Now, though, things are quiet, and the kind-eyed nurse comes in to check on his wife. She adjusts the blankets around her, smoothes the tangled hair out of her white, so-still face, and talks to her like she'll just sit up and answer back.
"Hey, Beautiful," she murmurs, checking one of the monitors. "Are you gonna open your eyes? Let us know you're okay?"
When Will sees her again, she's shaking his shoulder, and he jumps under her touch. It's gentle and firm and full of warmth, but he has to close his eyes. It's like being jolted with electricity.
The sick thump of an empty shellbody thudding on the ground, nobody home, eyes blank tongue lashing back arching arms twitching –
He wants to jump and push her away and make her leave. It aches and it feels too raw, rubbing sandpaper in an open wound. Like the touch of that reporter all over his body, closing his eyes wanting it to be over.
Even if the nurse is so gentle, and looking into her face makes Will want to fold himself into smaller and smaller pieces. Until he's small enough to be burned away on the head of a match because nobody should look at him with so much compassion.
So he can't handle anyone touching him right now. It's like his skin's one big bruise, except the parts where it feels numb. Like his fingers.
"You ought to get some rest, honey," the nurse says, as she checks one of the monitors hooked to Layla's body. "You been here all night?'
"S'alright," he murmurs, stretching out. He has a hell of a stiff neck, but he'll get over it. He needs to be awake. "I just need some coffee."
"Then go get yourself something from the shop down the street. Not that swill from the waiting room."
"Really, I'm okay."
"Sweetheart." The nurse looks at him, her face like someone who is used to being listened to. "Listen to me. She won't die because you look away. She's right here. And she ain't goin' nowhere anytime soon. So go get yourself a cup of good coffee and let yourself breathe."
The words are firm but her face is still so warm and caring. There are beeps and whirs from a machine he can't tell which ones, his wife's heart moves up and down on the monitors, her face limbs chest don't move.
"It'll be better for her if you give yourself a break."
How could she know that?
Will needs to be here. Needs to see it all. He can't just get up and leave the room this time, or pretend like it's going to go away. He doesn't get to cut himself a break, not anymore.
The nurse gives him one last Look, but she doesn't say anything else. Just checks over the monitors again, makes a few more notes on the chart attached to the bedside.
"I hope I see you in the morning, Beautiful," she whispers, and tucks the blankets around Layla's body one more time.
At first, Will thinks she means that she hopes she's still working with Layla when she comes back for another shift. It's only after the nurse is gone and another one comes in to check on her that it hits him:
She meant that she hopes to see Layla here. In the ICU.
Instead of the morgue.
Nothing is moving. He can't sit up in the seat he slides downward and his hands grip for something but his fingers are too numb he can't feel anything. He's been scooped out.
VIII.
He can't remember ever shaking this hard, but he doesn't feel cold.
He doesn't feel anything.
Jeff guns the Mercedes through stop signs, through yellow lights, through busy intersections while other cars scream and twist and brake to get out of the way. He speeds through the night and doesn't stop.
"What did you tell the cop?"
Through the windshield, it's completely starless.
"Hey." Jeff reaches an arm over and touches his shoulder. Will sees it, anyway. Can't feel it. "Man, you gotta tell me right now. What did you tell that cop?"
He stares at the emptiness and sees Jeff putting the Santa hat on his wife's head, Layla's face as they talked and laughed, that reporter taking off her dress and batting her lashes and saying, "so the rumors ARE true" and then he fucked her and closed his eyes and moved away from her lips and felt like the dark was sucking him under.
"Will!"
Jeff says his name like he's been trying to get his attention for awhile now.
You've been with my wife.
"What?"
"What did you tell that cop? Tell me what you said, right now."
"I told them what happened."
If he closes his eyes, he sees the same thing he sees when they're open. He's spinning slipping sinking.
"Which is?"
Will tries to grab the legs of his jeans but his fingers are frozen.
"That I pulled her out of the water and – "
"And that's it? Nothing about how she got there?"
"I don't know how she got there."
"Did you tell them the last time you saw her?"
"I…no."
"You don't know, or you didn't say anything?"
"I didn't –" I pulled her out of the water and she was "I don't know what happened, after you talked –"
Jeff glances over at him. "You saw me talking to her?"
Party's downstairs. I thought we could have our own party. So the rumors are true.
"Upstairs."
Jeff takes his eyes off the road long enough to look at him.
"I saw you with that reporter," Jeff says slowly. "Talking to her, earlier. Tell me right now, Will – did you sleep with her?"
When he doesn't answer, Jeff shakes his head.
"Do us both a favor," he says, "and don't say that to the cops. Okay? If they ask you where you were, say you were upstairs, lying down with a headache. Do yourself a favor and don't mention that you were getting into some reporter's pants while your wife was drowning in a fucking swimming pool."
Something cuts through the blackness and now he feels how freezing he is all over, except he still can't feel his fingers.
"You think that matters right now?"
Jeff's voice is hard. "Every little detail matters right now."
Will could say something about how Jeff told him to basically fuck around with anything in a skirt but the words feel like they've been taken out of him and flung across the room and turned inside-out and stuffed back inside his mouth and he can't make them sound the way they're supposed to anymore.
There's a jolt that runs through him as Jeff slams on the horn, and swerves to miss a tow truck.
"Fuck," he says as he straightens the car out.
Jeff's hand smacks the wheel. Then he takes his hand and rubs his jaw, but he has to go back to driving with two hands because he can't hold the car steady; he barely looks like he's steady.
Then he says it again: "Fuck." Pause. "Jesus Christ." Sucking breath in. "I mean…"
That's not the smarmy response Jeff usually has. It's nothing and that makes Will's gut turn over.
He stares at his own hands his fingers his wedding ring.
IX.
"You should hold her hand."
One of the nurses – not the kind-eyed one he likes, a young one with mousy hair and braces, maybe he'd seen her before and maybe he hadn't, he can't remember anymore – says this to him when she comes in to check the monitors. She doesn't tuck Layla into the bed sheets or stroke her cold forehead with gentle fingers or call her Beautiful.
Will doesn't like her.
"Why?"
The nurse frowns.
"Thought you'd want to hold her hand. Talk to her."
She jerks her thumb at his still wife, like she's pointing out some flaw.
"You know, she might be able to hear you."
You can fuck off, is what he almost says, but the idea of Layla wanting to hear anything he has to say right now makes him want to laugh instead of say anything. His wife took a bottle of pills because he made her so unhappy. She wouldn't want to hear anything he could say to her now that he'd brought her back, waiting for her to open her eyes and see that she couldn't even die without him finding a way to ruin what she wanted, like he did with everything else.
"I don't believe in that," is what he says to the nurse, who picks up one of Layla's arms and checks her IV, then lets it drop down on the mattress with no gentleness, like it's not a person she's handling but a damn piece of meat. He could hit her and he's never hit a woman in his whole life, never wanted to but he could rip this fucking bitch apart right now.
She straightens up at his words, making another note on her clipboard. Her face looks like she smells something bad.
"I'll send someone in to check on her," she says coolly, giving him the Stinkeye as she shuffles out the door.
If he had divorced Layla back when he first told her, his secrets would be all over the news and internet for everyone in the world to know. He'd be a faggot cocksucker rot-in-hell. Everyone would look at him and he'd be dirty and broken and unwanted and have nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
He wouldn't be here right now and Layla –
He tries to make his hands into fists. It's hard because his fingers are still dying.
X.
"Sir, do you know what happened?"
The cop's words are like mush. He can't see anything because the lights are everywhere.
"No, I just…" Hands won't make fists they just hang at his sides. "She was just…"
"So you found her in the water? Do you know how long she was submerged?"
He looks back at the ambulance.
"…no?"
"Had she been drinking?"
Had he seen her with a drink in her hand, earlier? With Jeff? He can't remember. Can't remember –
"Sir?"
"I don't…maybe. Look, please, my wife –"
"Sir, I understand, but please, just another minute."
He's on the patio, just breathing. Everything swims, like he's still underwater.
XI.
He doesn't know how long he's been here, but when he goes to use the bathroom down the hall it's raining outside, and there's a new receptionist sitting in the desk. The waiting room has mostly cleared out except for a few drunk-looking stragglers, and there's a new security guard standing by the door, one that ignores Will completely while thumbing through an old issue of some magazine.
He thinks Jeff's long gone, but for some reason he's still here, minus the mayor this time. Will's staring out the blurry window, and he sees Jeff walking down the hallway, which is empty and silent this time of night, the only light from the hospital chapel tucked in the back corner.
"Askin' for a favor?" Will asks.
Jeff frowns.
Will jerks his head down the hall. "Chapel's over there."
"I'm Jewish." He looks out the window. "And I don't believe in anything."
They stand that way for a moment, the glass turning their reflections a distorted bluegrey, like they're underwater.
The smell of chlorine is all around him. Will he ever smell it again without thinking about –
I pulled her out of the water and she was
This is the part where they're supposed to say something meaningful.
"Are you going home?"
Jeff looks at him like he's surprised Will would ask that.
"Don't see any reason you'd need to stick around here." There's a sour taste in his mouth. "Unless you're makin' sure I don't tell the cops you had me chasin' skirts."
"I never told you to sleep with that reporter."
"Right." He snorts. " 'Butch it up, Will'."
"I said let a groupie get handsy with you and then get photographed by Us Weekly," his boss says, disgusted. "Not fuck some tabloid writer looking to start a new rumor mill."
Jeff holds his hands up. "I'm just saying. You can't pin this on me."
In the life Will had where things like reality shows and radio chartings and selling albums mattered, he and Jeff never liked each other and Jeff liked Layla even less. If the world decided to turn upside-down, at least this part is still the same.
"Has the reality show called?" Jeff asks.
"No."
Jeff nods.
"Call Gina right now," he says. "If she hears this from anybody that isn't you or me, it'll be bad."
Will is pretty sure his phone's broken after jumping into the pool, but he doesn't say that, just rolls his eyes. "Things are already pretty bad, in case you haven't noticed."
"Oh, I've noticed," Jeff says. "I've definitely noticed. Which is why I'm doing everything I can to fix it."
"So that's why your buddy the mayor showed up?" Will laughs and it burns his throat coming up. "Wow, this is just another business proposition for you, isn't it."
His voice bounces off the walls. "This isn't some PR crisis! That's my wife!"
Jeff's face turns red.
"Who you were cheating on while she fucking OD'd," he snarls. "So don't play the whole 'grieving husband' angle. It doesn't suit you."
"And pretending like you care about Layla suits you?"
Jeff's lips curl. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
Then he adds, "It wasn't like that."
"Then what was it like, exactly, Jeff?"
For a long moment, all they do is stare at each other. The entire hallway is hollowed out, and their voices echo, like they're walking down a deep, dark nothing.
Jeff stares at the ground.
"I didn't," he says, after a beat, "expect to like her."
Will laughs in his face. Jeff looks furious.
"Something funny about that?"
"I don't know what you expect me to do with that information." He rubs his sandpaper eyes. That's the first time he's laughed in what feels like days. "God, you almost sound like you give a shit about her."
"Which is more than she was getting from you," Jeff says.
Will throws his hands up. "Right. Of course. I couldn't possibly understand your feelings about a one-night's stand."
"And I'm sure your sham marriage was so profound and meaningful," Jeff replies. "I was there for her. You weren't."
"Sure," Will replies. "Sleeping with another man's wife. Makes you a real saint."
He steps right in Will's face. His breath is sour and too sober and everything is too sharp and there are too many edges and there are lines in Jeff's face Will never remembered seeing before because Jeff never looks anything but 100% sure of himself.
"And what were you doing for her, hmm?" His face is bright red "Except destroying her chance at happiness because all you ever do is fuck people over?"
"Fuck you," Will says tiredly, turning away and walking down the hall.
"Go fuck yourself," Jeff calls at his retreating back. "And while you're at it, maybe you can sit there and remember your wife killed herself because of you."
He pushes his boss against the wall before Jeff even knows what's happening. The punches fly one after the other, automatic. He doesn't feel anything as Jeff's head bangs over and over again against the wall. He hears bones crunch snap break feels warm blood ooze like paint onto his freezing hands. It cakes under his nails and in the rivets of his skin makes a slurpy sucking sound when it bonds like glue between his fingers.
Nurses rips them apart. They bend over Jeff, clutching his face in his hands. They hold Will back and call for security.
Poetic – at least now, he literally has blood on his hands.
XII.
He can still hear the thud of the bass, feels it in the fillings of his teeth the tips of his fingers every cell of him and beating beating beating too loudly even though no more music people sirens yelling. Gold lanterns from the trees silver lights around the porch red police lights the eerie glow of the pool still quiet greenblue water.
He looks around but can't see it anymore. The hat. The silly, stupid little red hat. It's too bright and cheerful to fit in here, with the stars and the dying and otherworldly glow of the water.
Party people have scattered the cops are packing up he needs to go ambulance hospital Layla.
I pulled her out of the water and she was
Doubles over. Throws up. Nothing in his stomach but it rushes out.
XIII.
Beating up Jeff should have earned him a one-way trip out on his ass in the freezing cold, if not arrested right then and there, but a few of the nurses talk to the security guards on duty, and after a few rounds with the orderly he's permitted back into the ICU, this time with an armed police escort. He's warned that any more "funny business" and he'll be out, but they let him stay.
Apparently, being the husband of the girl clinging to life has some perks.
Doesn't know how long he's been sitting in the hard-backed chair next to Layla's bed, head swirling in the mundane rhythm of the machines beep click tapping around her body. There's a nurse he doesn't recognize checking on them. She barely looks at Will, slumped and pale and still damp from the pool in the chair next to the bed, just busies herself writing down something on a chart and then bustles out of the room, onto the next crisis.
Will stares at his hands for a long time.
The blankets have down to Layla's waist since the last time he was here, probably with nurses checking on her. He wants to move them back up to her neck, tuck her back under the scratchy covers. Like the kind-eyed nurse did, the one who would touch Layla's cheek and call her Beautiful. But he's afraid of what will happen if he touches her.
He doesn't believe in spirits or magic or any of that. But he remembers what one of the nurses said, about how Layla might be able to hear him. And if she could hear him, that meant she would know he was there.
And what if she was in that quiet shell in the hospital bed? Wouldn't she just want him to finally do what he never did for her – leave her the hell alone, and let her be in peace?
He wants to tuck the blankets around her. He slides his hands under his knees.
He's been staring at the heart monitor without blinking for so long his eyes start to tear. The whoosh of the ventilator in out in and dull beep of the other machines make him feel like he's in a trance. He looks at her closed eyes and can't see her dreaming under them.
She was always such a heavy sleeper. He never slept much and he'd be awake in the space next to her all night, but she'd conk out and stay that way until morning. He'd either get up and work out at the 24-hour gym nearby, or drive around Nashville in circles, or stay home and flip through the channels with the volume down so low so he could barely hear it, but it didn't matter what he did. Layla always slept through everything.
And she always had such cold hands and feet. A million years ago, whenever she curled next to him in their bed, she'd dig her toes into his calf, and he'd shiver and pull away from her because it was like someone running an ice cube against his leg.
She'd laugh, whenever he told her that. Poor circulation was her answer, with a bat of her lashes and that coy signature smile.
Why don't you get under the covers and warm me up.
He clenches his hands under his knees but his fingers protest. They're still numb.
She was dead when he pulled her out of the pool. She was dead and he had a hold of her. He had a dead body in his arms and that dead body was his wife. Was Layla. Dead, holding her, gone. Limp and freezing and still, no motion no voice no fight no breath no pulse no life, so cold all over, he was shaking her and his head was on her chest and he was screaming in her face and she wouldn't wake up.
He put his fingers on her neck and there wasn't a pulse. And when he realized it, his fingers froze, they couldn't move, they were numb, clinging to the collar of her shirt, where nothing moved underneath, fingers gripping the fabric, and when the woman in the party dress knelt down next to him and started doing CPR she'd had to shove him out of the way so she could work, had to pry each of Will's fingers off of Layla so he would get out of her way, because he couldn't let go ever since he knew she was dead.
They may have shocked her back to life but she might go again. She might never wake up. Might never live off of these machines. And then she'd go into the ground like he carried her out of the water. Eyes closed body stiff skin cold chest quiet heart dead everything dead Layla dead.
I pulled her out of the water and she was –
XIV.
Where are they taking her?
"Bethesda," the cop answers, and he realizes that he asked that out loud. "They're doing all they can for her, I promise. Just one more question. Had your wife been taking any drugs?"
He's on the patio, just breathing. Everything swims. Like he's still underwater.
"No, no Layla doesn't do drugs."
"So she had only been drinking?"
"I think. I have to go."
"So you don't have any more details about what happened?"
"No, I just – I pulled her out of the water and she was –"
"Is that all you need from him?" a voice from behind him calls.
Jeff walks up beside Will and the cop, his hands on his hips.
"Because," he says with a scowl, "in case you haven't noticed, his wife is being rushed to the hospital. Maybe it would be better if he was by her side."
The officer glares at Jeff, but dismisses it with a shake of her head.
"It's all right," the officer says to Will. "We're done here."
Will doesn't move.
I pulled her out of the water and she was
Dead
"What was that?"
Jeff and the cop both turn to look at him.
Will doesn't realize he's spoken again. He didn't even feel his lips move.
I pulled her out of the water and she was dead.
XV.
His feet are moving he doesn't know how they're moving he can't feel them move at all. They walk away down the hall past the window past the closed patient rooms past the chapel.
He doesn't know where he is. It's so hot here suddenly he feels like he's burning up. There are chairs to sit in against the plain white walls and flyers lining the bulletin boards and nurses pushing past him without seeing and all the sound is warped.
He doesn't know how to stop or keep going and so he keeps walking and that's how he ended up here, right now. Not knowing how to stop what he was doing to Layla and not knowing how to keep going on as himself.
There were things he could have done but they seemed impossible, because it meant he'd finally be forced to look at himself and deal with himself and be himself and –
He can't.
Live with himself.
How does he, after this?
It was something he didn't think about until certain times, like Brent and Echo Ridge and Gunnar and after he was beat up in the park. When Layla stood on that hillside and told him that she hated him. When he had to stand back and wonder how he really was like as a person, how he functioned, what made him work in step with the rest of the world. And every conclusion he ever came up with was that he was just wrong all the time; that he couldn't ever make it right because HE wasn't right and was never going to be. But he couldn't live like that, being so wrong all the time, so he kept acting like he wasn't, acting like everyone expected him to be, whoever they wanted him to be, and that meant being the opposite of…whatever the hell he is.
And he's so good at pretending, or thought he was. He convinces people. Gets caught up in his own hype. Maybe starts to believe it, a little. Until faking it feels like such a part of him that maybe someday he'll forget there was any other way to be.
And then maybe he'd never been wrong, ever.
So he throws everything he has into being this person. And then there are slip-ups and mistakes and fuck-ups and you realize that no, you're still wrong, it's always going to be wrong, you can never NOT be wrong, so you just take a breath and smile wider and flirt harder and try harder and be somebody you think might be you because it has to be you and then maybe –
The wrong stops feeling so real.
Did he ever stop wanting to die, after Echo Ridge?
Layla wanted to die and she did and he feels like crying he might be crying his chest is so tight he can't breathe there's no air his heart beats too fast, he can't feel this bad but he can't do anything to make it stop, he has to feel it, the only thing he can do right now is stand here and feel this and drown.
He did this.
She wanted to die because of him and he did this.
He killed Layla.
"Sir? Sir? Please, sit down, okay? You need to sit down. Now."
He doesn't realize he'd made a noise. A nurse is tugging on his arm. Voices somewhere.
"Sir? Can you hear me?"
She's half his size but holding his arm in an iron grip. Somehow he's on the ground can't remember how he got there on his knees gagging nothing comes up he's burning hot. Someone is in his face trying to talk to him he doesn't hear it face blurs world fuzzes vision turns grey at the edges. He sucks in there's no air he can't breathe.
" – here with you?"
Her words don't sound like any language he knows.
He's going to be sick. He closes his eyes and waits for it but it doesn't come and when he opens his eyes people are staring. Like he's the one who should be in the hospital he's the one who should be dying who should be dead he killed Layla.
Lights are everywhere like they were back at the party and he thinks he hears the boom of the bass thudding in the back of his head like the music's still cranked up everything is so crowded so tight so airless so loud everything is spinning spinning spinning –
"Sir?" The nurse repeats. "Can you hear me?"
He closes his eyes. They're wet his cheeks are wet tears leak between the lashes he remembers Jeff saying all he ever did was fuck everybody over and he doesn't get to play the grieving husband. He just keeps his head down and closes his eyes and more tears come out and it doesn't change anything he still killed Layla but it stops, everything stops spinning, and he just holds still while it stops.
XVI.
Nothing's changed when he makes his way back to the ICU. He doesn't know how long he spent on the ground but he's up now, eyes dry and breathing steady, thanks to a Dixie cup of stale water and waving off the nurse's offer to give him a shot or a pill to calm down. Somewhere in the time he was sitting on the ground he realized what he needed to do and he couldn't sit there and cry about it anymore.
There's a sad pink Christmas tree about a foot high sitting on the reception desk. He didn't notice it before. It winks at him coyly as he walks to Layla's room.
The room is empty. No nurses, no doctors. Just the body in the bed that is Layla, eyes closed, no life underneath, the steady press of the ventilator and the beepbeepbeep of the monitors. The blankets have been tucked back to her shoulders. He wonders if that one nurse he likes came back on her shift and did that, the one who calls her "Beautiful".
For the first time since he pulled her body onto the patio and checked for a pulse that wasn't there, Will reaches out and touches his wife.
He doesn't feel anything.
His fingers just graze her cheek. She's still so cold, and it doesn't feel like he's touching skin on skin. Her face feels more like rubber, or a cut of raw meat. It's not warm and soft and alive, like skin is supposed to feel.
He glances at the monitors, but nothing beeps, nothing startles. Nothing changes. He wants to cry again so much he thinks he's going to explode but he can't.
He knew nothing would change. This isn't magic. There is nothing he can control.
The truth is that Layla dying or living is not up to him. He can't fix this and he doesn't know what happens next and he can't bullshit his way out of it with a smile or a flirt or fucking some nameless girl or stepping in front of a train. There is nothing he can do and he's so scared and he's all wrong and bad, he's a bad person.
.
The truth is that he met Layla Grant at the Edgehill stockholder's showcase and she started a trend on Twitter that bound him to her, and then he stayed where he was, being with her, because then he could hide in plain sight. Then he married her and made her his reason, so nobody could touch him. And he had to keep pushing, keep pulling, keep trying to make things the way he needed them to be, because he had to protect himself no matter what.
The truth is he's the reason for every horrible thing that happened last night and he wishes he could get up and walk away from this like when she was playing that song about how much he broke her but he can't because running away from this is the reason he's here and Layla's in this bed right now and it's the breaking point.
The truth is that he loved his wife. He cared about her. He was so, so sorry he hurt her, and always would be. But not enough. Not enough to let her be happy. To let her find peace. To let her be free.
Not enough to undo anything.
He can't change this or make things better. He was too late. He pulled her out of the water and she was dead. He would always be too late.
The truth is he is careless and selfish and messed-up and broken and cruel. And because of it, Layla Grant died. Maybe not permanently, not yet, but she had, briefly, and it was because of him.
This is his fault. It will always be his fault
He has to remember it.
Coda
He asks the receptionist if they have a phone he can borrow, since his was destroyed by the water.
"No worries," she tells him, and pulls her own cell out of the pocket of her scrubs. "Go ahead & use mine. Just make sure to go out in the waiting area to call; you can barely get any service in here."
"Thank you," he tells her.
She gives him a gooey smile. He notices the way her eyes widen whenever she sees him, how she's been whispering to some of her co-workers when she thinks he isn't listening. A few times, he's heard the words "Love & Country" spread like a rumor in hushed tones.
He tries not to scowl as he heads out to the waiting area, finding a secluded corner by a window that looks out at the hospital courtyard. This early in the morning, it's too cold for anybody to be sitting out there, though he does spot one maintenance worker raking some of the dead leaves into a plastic garbage bag.
He reaches a hand into his pocket, pulls out a phone number. One he found when he was looking through the only phone book he could find, which was sitting in the hospital waiting room by a payphone that looked like it hadn't been used since 1991. Amazingly, though, the phone book was current – 2011, technically, but he'll take what he can get – and he jotted down a few different numbers, in case some of them had been disconnected or had since gone out of business. When he checked the heading in the phone book, this was the first name that popped up, along with a phone number to call for a consultation.
He hopes it works.
"Good Morning," a voice chirps in his ear. So loud. "Sayers & Alvarez. How may I direct your call?"
The rest of the tears he's held back since he saw Layla floating in the water come rushing to the surface. This might be the first thing that's gone right for Will since he can't remember how long.
"Hi," he says, trying to sound like he's not about to sob into the phone. "I'm not really sure who I'm supposed to ask for, but I need some help. I'm trying…"
He takes a deep breath. Tries not to let his voice shake.
"I need to file for divorce."