Due to circumstances beyond my control [sort of], I have been unable to spend much time on the computer lately. So I apologize for the lack of updates. Also, I am now juggling three fics (Would somebody please go read Bless the Broken Road? It's getting virtually no traffic.) and school is back in session starting Wednesday. Boo.

So, FINALLY, another Layla chapter :) Enjoy.

I paced my living room, chewing on my thumbnail nervously. In my other hand was my cell phone. My eyes stared at the small LCD screen until they stung so much that I couldn't resist the urge to blink anymore. Then half a second later, my eyes flashed open again, hopeful to see the screen lit up with Mark's name. It didn't happen.

Just when I decided to give up and go to bed, the vibration shook my hand and caused my body to jerk involuntarily. The bright light from the cell phone illuminated my now dark apartment. Relief flooded through my body so fast it nearly knocked me to my knees. I sat on the couch, flipping open the phone as I did so.

Just bring it to work tomorrow. Pretend you found it in the on-call room or something.

Well that was disappointing. And frustrating. I snapped the phone shut and threw it into the cushions beside me. I had been very hopeful that Mark would choose to come back and get the shirt. Too hopeful, perhaps. I had let my mind wander to the moment where he would walk through the door and I would feel his heat as he pressed himself against me, desperate to get inside. I had envisioned the moment so often in the past few hour that I almost forgot that there was a possibility that it wouldn't happen. The thought had lifted me so high that now I crashed harder than ever.

I sat in the dark for I don't even know how long, wondering why the hell not being able to see him until tomorrow brought me down so far and hard. And then I sat for even longer wondering why the hell it had caused hot tears to fall from my eyes. I couldn't stop them, hard as I tried to. I bit on my lower lip until it bled, trying to stop it from quivering so that I could focus on getting my breathing under control. Eventually I gave up, wrapping my arms around my knees and letting my head fall onto them. I could hardly breathe, but the comfort of the position I was in, curled up in a ball of warmth, was too great to move. I fell asleep on the couch, tracks of tears drying on my flushed cheeks.

I brought his shirt to work the next morning. I had a plan in my head that kept the tears at bay and put a smile on my face. I was going to smoothly and discreetly make him pay for letting me down last night. No one else would know that I had done anything, but it would hit him hard and that's all I cared about at the moment.

I froze momentarily when I saw him with Lexie. That was exactly where I wanted him to be to carry out my plan, but something snapped inside of me, causing me to slow to a sudden stop. The way his hand was intertwined with Lexie's, their fingers snaking together. The way he looked down at her, admiration in his gorgeous eyes. The way she returned the look. All of it made me sick until I wanted to drop, the pain almost too much to handle.

But I knew I was stronger than that. I took deep breaths, bringing myself slowly down to the point where I could walk up to Mark and talk to him normally. I reached into my purse and the feel of his cotton tee-shirt gave me the extra push I needed. It was time to make him hurt. And hopefully it would get him in trouble with Lexie too.

"Hey, Mark!" I called, hurrying to catch up with him and Lexie. I smiled as his hand dropped Lexie's as if it were on fire at the sound of my voice. Feeling a little guilty Marky?

"Yeah?" Mark asked shortly.

"I have something that I think may be yours," I answered, digging in my purse and extracting his tee-shirt. I saw a glimpse of shock and anger on his features before he smoothed them over.

"Uhm, yeah. Yeah, that's mine. Where'd you find it? I've been looking all over for it," Mark said quickly. His voice had an edge in it, silently asking me what the hell I was doing and if I was insane. I grinned in response.

"In one of the on-call rooms. It was on the floor when I went in there. I wasn't sure if it was yours or Derek's, but I figured I'd ask you first." Don't worry Marky, I thought, I'm not out to destroy you completely. Just wanted to give you a little heart attack. Mark breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh…good. Yeah, I thought I left it in there, but it wasn't there when I went back in. You must've found it already. Well, thanks. See you around." Mark hurried off, pulling Lexie after him. I was very delighted to see that she was staring him down and that he was silently freaking out. A little while later, I received a text message from Mark.

You're a bitch.

A thousand responses swam through my mind. I searched through them carefully, trying to find the perfect one to send back. Just a few days ago, I would have been able to find the right one in a matter of seconds. Now it was an effort to think of something flirtatious. And why did him calling me a bitch suddenly hurt?

So? I sent back a minute and a half later. It's amazing how hard it was to think of that one little word. This time yesterday, I would have thought of an entire sentence to respond with that wouldn't have rendered Mark speechless. Something was wrong with me.

In the past twenty-four hours, I've gone from sly temptress to…I don't even know what I've become. But I don't like it, at all. I knew the reason why. Deep down I knew that I'd developed feelings other than lust for Mark Sloan, but on the surface, I refused to admit it. I swallowed down those thoughts, tried to bury them in the darkest corners of my mind, because the truth is that I have fallen for Mark, and that scares the hell out of me.