Sydney tucks some curls behind her ears and looks across the cafeteria again. “But when we kissed, and I, like, felt something? I didn’t know what to do. I knew that I loved her as a friend, but after that I started falling for her for real. And like, with all the girls she hooked up with or dated or whatever, I never judged her for it. It was kind of what made us work. But after that kiss it started to feel personal. She kissed me and we didn’t even really talk about it, and by the next week she was talking about kissing someone else.”
I pick at the edge of my sandwich. I rip off a piece of crust just for something to do. What happened with me and Layla is really different from what happened with Sydney and Willa, but we both know the pain of feeling like we don’t matter to the person we love most—to these people who were supposed to be our everything.
“So I got mad one day when she was telling me about some new girl and basically called her a tease. Anyway, we had this huge fight right before winter break and we haven’t really talked since then.”
“Wow,” I say. “That’s…fucking awful.” I want to ask her if she still has feelings for Willa, but I don’t know if I’m allowed. What she told me already was a lot to share, so I don’t want to push for more.
“Do you…miss her?” I say instead.
“Yeah. I do. But I don’t know how to make it right.”
I open my juice and take a deep pull, and the table is quiet for a few minutes.
“I miss Layla too. And part of me has given up a little, on the possibility of that, of fixing things. So I’ve been…trying to make new memories,” I say slowly.
“Huh?” she asks.
“Like, there are all these places that remind me of Layla, and I don’t want to think of her every time I go to certain stores or hear certain songs or walk past freaking Washington Square Park, you know?”
“Oh, yeah. Totally,” Sydney concedes.
“So I’ve been going to different spots around the city and purposefully making new memories there,” I tell her. “My dad thinks it’s not going to work, and my mom thinks I should be honest with Layla, apologize and see what happens next. I have to tutor her tonight, and I have no idea what to do.”
My phone vibrates. It’s a text from Layla.
Sydney leans her chin on the heel of her palm, looking down at my phone. “Well, looks like you’re gonna have to decide soon.” She grabs her tray and stands up to go. Her earrings clink and ring, like bells.
“If you figure it out, let me know, will ya?”
WHEN YOU WERE EVERYTHING
Layla shows up beside my locker after last bell, and something about her standing there makes me more aware of all I’ve lost. I still remember when her meeting me here at the end of every day was normal.
“What’s up?” she says, and I kid you not, Layla has never said “What’s up” to me. This must be some piece of her new life without me—the way she greets the girls I hate.
“Nothing,” I say, and I sound more defensive than I mean to. Layla bites her bottom lip and pulls out her phone. “Whatever, Cleo. Let’s just g-g-get this over w-with, okay?”
I’m just about to say how this isn’t an ideal situation for me either, when Layla looks back up at me. Her expression softens the tiniest bit. “I know you were assigned to t-tutor me, and I know you d-d-don’t want to. I mean, I obviously don’t want you to. B-but I d-d-do need the help, and I, um. I appreciate you helping me. I know this won’t b-be easy.”
She says all of this while looking straight at me, and she sounds and looks like my best friend; like Lay; like the version of her I used to know. Something like hope flares inside me—a match being lighted in an endlessly dark room—and I think of my mom saying I should be honest, that only a few people in a lifetime are worth fighting for. I think of fate and Gigi and paying attention to the universe. Is this a sign that Layla is one of those people for me?
I try to put all the questions I have out of my mind, at least for now. I decide to try, for once, to let my heart lead me.
* * *
—
“You’re cool with studying at the big library, right?” I ask as we walk toward the exit. It’s what I call the Main Branch. It’s what Layla used to call it too.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Layla says. “And I mean, it’ll be g-g-g-good to see your dad. It’s b-been a while.”
On the street, I don’t know if I should talk to her, and if I do, I don’t know what to say. In addition to the air being thick with awkwardness, the threat of rejection is there too. It lingers in the footnotes of our story in a way that makes me too afraid to add anything new to the way we are now at all.
It feels a little better once we’re on a crowded train headed uptown. Here there’s so much other stuff to focus on besides the fact that Layla and I have nothing (or maybe too much) to say to each other: a baby crying, a teenager standing to let a pregnant woman sit down, a guy shouting that he’s sorry for disturbing our ride when he really isn’t. I can watch the people pushing their way onto or off our train car if I don’t want to read my book. And in the crush of bodies churning during rush hour, I don’t have to stand or sit with Layla, because I have to find my own pocket of space in this human game of Tetris; I have to go wherever I can make myself fit.
The tension and the speechlessness don’t let up until we walk into one of the library’s small meeting rooms. We enter the tiny space and take seats on opposite sides of the table. I pull out my copy of Macbeth, and Layla does the same. Looks like she got that extension from Novak after all.
“So. Was there anything about the play that stood out to you? Any conflicts or moments or things you thought were interesting or that you think someone else would have a different opinion about? We can piece together an argument from that.”
She opens her book to a dog-eared page pretty near the beginning of the play. “Well, there was this one p-p-part. Where Lady Macbeth is, like, convincing Macbeth to murder D-Duncan even though they b-b-b-both know it’s wrong.” Layla tucks her pin-straight hair behind her ears and says, “I g-g-guess I didn’t get why he listened to her.”
I flip to that page in my book too. “Well, she basically told him he wasn’t a man if he didn’t do it,” I say. I scan the passage and read the line once I find it. “When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.”
I look up at Layla and she seems kind of confused. I put the book down and point to the cover like I’m pointing to Macbeth himself. “I think his ego was too big to take being challenged like that.”