Author's note: Thanks to ScarletSometimes and two guests for their super welcome reviews.

Chapter 5: Breaking down

Okay, letting Warren leave had been stupid. She had been calling him for hours now and he wasn't picking up. With the phone in her hand, Layla considered her next course of action. She needed advice. Normally, Will would be the one she called and she definitely wanted to talk to him to find out what the hell he'd told Warren, but that could wait. Right now she needed to talk to a friend. Layla pushed her tongue up against the roof of her mouth and called Magenta.

'Layla, hi! How's marriage?'

'It's not.'

'What's that…?'

'Warren thinks I slept with Will,' Layla elaborated. There was a brief silence at the other end.

'How did he react?' Magenta inquired. Layla loved her so much for not asking whether Warren was right.

'It was really strange. He just walked out. It was like he wasn't even angry, but he must have been.'

Another thoughtful pause followed.

'I'm gonna put you on speaker, so that Zach can listen too,' Magenta suddenly announced.

'Okay…' Layla agreed. She wasn't sure where Magenta was going with this, but Layla would take all the help she could get.

'Hi Layla,' Zach mumbled. He sounded embarrassed to be dragged into the conversation.

'Hi Zach. This is kind of awkward, huh?'

'Yeah. I'm sorry about, you know, what happened.'

'Not your fault,' Layla replied. 'So, ehm, not that I mind Zach also weighing in, but what's the point, Magenta?'

'Right,' Magenta said. 'When I'm angry, I'm angry. I scream. I throw with stuff. When I'm not angry, but trying to mould my emotions into something manageable it usually comes out as a quiet, scary form of anger. I whisper, I seem very calm. Was it something like that?'

Layla remembered how eerily composed Warren had been right before leaving.

'He pounded the table once, but otherwise... Yes. He seemed calm. Cold,' she told them.

'That's what I thought. Warren's not like you. Or like Will, for that matter. He's more like me. His anger burns. If it didn't, then something's wrong,' Magenta concluded. Well, of course, something is wrong, Layla thought. Warren thought she'd cheated on him.

'This is where Zach comes in,' Magenta explained. 'Honey, remember when we had a date, but you forgot and your phone was turned off so I couldn't reach you? Tell Layla what happened afterwards.'

'She didn't talk to me for a week.'

'Was I angry?'

'Furious. But mostly because she was worried sick.'

'See, Layla? People like me express our love – or any emotion, really – through anger. You say that Warren's anger was subdued? I think that underneath it all he wasn't angry; anger just felt more comfortable. But because he wasn't really angry, it came out sort of distorted.'

This glimpse into Magenta and Zach's relationship was beyond odd. It was uncomfortably intimate. Layla put that aside and contemplated whether Magenta's explanation made sense. It did. Except, Layla couldn't figure out what kind of emotion Warren had been trying to cover up with his weird, chilly anger.

'What is it then? What is he feeling?'

Magenta sighed and told Zach that he could go if he wanted to. There was a bit of undefined noise on Magenta's end before she spoke again.

'I don't know. What other emotion could he have been feeling? He thinks that you slept with another guy – a guy whom he's always considered a rival for your affections, a guy he's been jealous of all his life – the night before you married him. Hurt, Layla. He is hurt.'

It always seemed to come back to that even though Will hadn't been a rival for her affections for years. They had been over and done with a long time ago.

'That can't be...' Layla objected.

'Are you kidding? Will has got hero written all over him. Warren's more like your prototype villain. He feels inferior.'

'I don't believe that. But that doesn't matter. I want to know where to go from here. What should I do?' Layla asked.

'This isn't what you want to hear, but I think that you should wait. When I feel the way that Warren is probably feeling, I close down because I need time to process what has happened. I want to be left alone. If you push too much right now, he might turn away from you completely,' Magenta warned, adding, 'I'm just guessing here, you understand that, right?'

'Yes. Thank you. Bye.'

'Wait! What are you going to do?'

'I don't know.'

'Good luck. Bye.'

Layla barely had time to put the phone down before the doorbell rang. She walked to the door and peered through the peephole. It was Will. His face was a mess. Layla stepped back and considered her options. She was going to have to talk to him eventually. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. He attempted to step inside, but she didn't let him in. Pointedly, she left him standing on the porch.

'I'm sorry. I had to tell Warren,' Will immediately said.

'Why did you tell him we slept together? We didn't.'

Will blinked. He stared at her.

'Come on,' he protested, laughing awkwardly.

'No, you come on! You were drunk. I wasn't. Whatever you think happened, it didn't happen. We didn't sleep together,' Layla summarized.

'We kissed, though,' Will insisted.

'You kissed me and I let you for longer than I probably should have, but you know it didn't mean anything, right?'

Will looked absolutely crushed for a second. Layla, unable to look into his eyes, studied his nose. A little bandage appeared to hold it together. The skin surrounding the bandage was black and blue. Then Will's eyebrows knit together in an angry frown.

'It meant something to me. I love you,' he declared, defiantly.

'Don't be ridiculous,' Layla scoffed. 'Since when?'

'I never stopped.'

Reeling from this news – despite Warren and Magenta and everyone telling her over and over again that this was the case – Layla recoiled.

'But… we fizzled out,' she hesitantly replied. Will shook his head.

'Not on my end. I gave you everything I had for years. Got hurt multiple times. And he gets you? What's so special about him? I was there, the whole time, through everything. I love you more than anything. I try so hard, but still I am never good enough.'

'Warren didn't get me. No one got me, because I'm not a possession. I chose Warren. And why didn't you just tell me how you felt?' Layla snapped.

'Because you assumed that our break up was mutual. You sound mad. Are you mad?' Will asked, confused.

'Yes, I'm mad. All this time I thought that you were my friend, but apparently you had a hidden agenda.'

'Once upon a time you were also just my friend, but hoping for more,' he pointed out.

'Hoping, yes,' Layla admitted. 'I didn't expect anything. I didn't think that I'd earned the right to be with you. I didn't think that I deserved to have you simply because I was a good friend. That's bullshit. I'm not some sort of trophy for being a nice guy, Will. If you really believe that then you're not my friend.'

Layla closed the door in his face and went upstairs. In the bedroom, she slid Warren's sock drawer shut. She sat on the bed and started to cry. How could this have happened? How could this be her life? How could it be that, in the space of a few hours, she had lost the two people who were most important to her?