Free Damaged, The Romance of Nick and Layla (Part 4) by Crystal Cierlak Page B

back still turned to him.
    “Oh, baby, I’m sorry.” And he really does sound apologetic. But I’m bruised by the term of endearment and confused by my own suddenly mixed feelings.
    “Nick, it’s fine,” I say at once, and turn around to smile brightly at him, though I think it is considerably dimmer than I’d tried for. “I just got caught up for a moment. I’m fine. Really.”
    “I’m still here. I’ll be here tomorrow and probably the day after that. I’ll do what I can to help you get settled back in, whether that’s at your parent’s house or some place on your own.”
    I nod at him politely and smile towards the messy room. “Yeah I need to make some decisions about that. And maybe put my clothes away in the meantime.”
    He’s looking at me like he feels sorry for me and I can’t stand it. He didn’t fly 3,000 miles for a screw down memory lane in the sack and up until a few hours ago I was barely speaking to the man.
    “Goodnight, Nick.”
    His smile is warm but not absent of some measure of guilt or disappointment, either in himself or in me.
    “Goodnight, Layla.”

Chapter Six
     
    I don’t even know what time it is. As soon as Nick left my room I set about organizing and folding and hanging up my newly acquired wardrobe, and I’m lost in distraction. There isn’t enough room for everything and barely room to hang a few items of clothing in the wardrobe. I’ve stacked each new pair of shoes carefully on top of their corresponding boxes and laid them out in a straight line against the wardrobe. I make a pile of underpants and their coordinating bras and lay them one on top of the other, matching them in pairs. I do the same with swimsuits, sorting them by style and cut, and pretty soon the carpeted floor of my beautiful hotel suite is littered in a colorful menagerie of silk, lace, and cotton.
    At my side is the bottle of Cristal and random hotel cup I’ve been drinking it out of, and the sound of Lana Del Rey is pouring out from the speaker of my phone.
    My feelings confuse me. The past few days have been like the most intense session of therapy of my life and for the first time in a long time I’m not burdened by the memories of the past. In fact I feel quite light in the body and fuzzy in the brain, no doubt from the champagne I’ve been selfishly drinking from without a damn care. On the one hand I’m free of pain, and on the other I’m dulling something else. Something new.
    Everything with Nick is out in the open and the anger is gone. It was awful to realize my part in his grieving process but I think it was what I needed to finally snap back into the real world. Maybe it means that life can find a way to truly go back to normal again? Not the normal of living with my parents and sullenly going through the motions of an empty life, but the kind of normal where I pay a mortgage and fill a home of my own with new experiences and memories.
    I went from home to school to Nick without any break, and it was only in our separations when I would live life on my own. Though to be fair, Nick was an interruption, a constant back-and-forth of every permutation of our relationship. I’ve never truly been on my own, just Layla. I hardly know where to start.
    Beside me the phone screen lights up.
     
    Can’t sleep. Still up?
     
    Nick. My fingers touch the rose gold locket around my neck and for a moment I relive the warmth and love and kindness of his beautiful gift..
     
    Still up. Folding expensive underwear and drinking champers to sad music. You?
     
    His response is immediate.
     
    Anyone I know?
     
    Probably.
    You shouldn’t drink alone.
     
    For Cristal I make an exception.
     
    I could come over? Maybe give you a hand with that expensive underwear?
     
    I can’t help the cheeky smile that spreads across my face, and imagine he’s got a similar one of his own right now. Just as I start to type back a response there’s a knock at the door. Rising to my feet I feel a prickly