Layla
I roam around the dark hallways of the house I have been calling home for the past week. I have changed homes a couple of times these past few months, none of which had felt as right as I did at Aiden's. Not even in my own house before everything went wrong.
Aiden, in a way, was a positive energy I fed off. He was the anchor that kept me grounded and the pillar that always held me high. I trace my fingers on the beige walls as I mindlessly look over the paintings on the wall. Van Gogh, El Greco, Salvador Dalí and Raphael cover the walls alongside their Renaissance peers that I don't know much about.
I remember when he first kissed me. As cliché as it might sound, it's one of those moments I can never stop replaying in my mind. It's one of those moments that once I have thought about it too much, the sides of my lips curve and I wonder if I am as grown up as my age and education level tells me.
The breeze that pushed us together and the sound of the river's water that masked the roaring of our beating hearts. I like to think that we fell for each other for the right reasons and that a century old curse didn't put us together.
"I need to talk to you, Layla." Emmeline suddenly appears in front of me, in the hallway. With her, I can never know if I'm simply lost and didn't see her or is she is, simply put, constantly "appearing."
"God, you scared me," my heart's pace eases to more normal one, "A head's up would have been nice. " I walk closer to her.
"I've decided that I am going to do something for you. You can't tell anyone," there's genuine worry in her eyes, one that distracts me from her beauty.
"Who do I have to tell?" I say with a faint laugh, but it does hurt me to say it.
"You have Aiden, whom I was going to give you the permission to reveal the information to, so yes, my remark was useless. Nevertheless, I have some good news. Come with me."
She takes me down the stairs at the end of the hallway. We walk to the kitchen where I sit behind the counter and she prepares us cups of tea.
"I haven't talked about this with anyone on the counsel, so I'm hoping my powers won't be taken away as a punishment," she starts, probably thinking out loud.
"Tell me, Emmeline! What is it?" I almost yell, not being able to control my excitement.
This better be good.
"I'm giving you the chance to choose one person who can remember you again. Their life won't change and yours won't either, but that person will have you in their lives again. It'll be the old them and the new one merged together."
My eyes widen and a sudden rush of anxiety takes me over and the excitement as well. "I chose who can remember me?" I ask, hesitating.
"I know, it'll be hard. You can do it. You have good judgement."
My dad doesn't live anymore, my mom could never keep it from Dominic and same goes for him. God, I miss Ariel and I know that asking Aiden to remember me, the Layla he knew before the effects of the curse, would just reawaken the curse and make things worse, if that's possible.
"Ariel."
Her bold, red lips form a smile and she almost looks proud of who I chose. "Now, here's the tricky part, darling."
I hold the side of my head in my hand with my elbow resting on the counter. I think I know what she'll want me to do.
"You will have to convince her to see you here."
Arguments against the idea start rushing out of my mouth, "it's summer, I don't regularly see her. She probably has a different number. If I show up at her house, she'll kick me out for being a stalker."
"Try the number," she says nodding to my phone with a smirk.
I can't help but roll my eyes. "Oh, what? Lives completely change, but numbers don't?" I say picking my phone up.
I dial her number and wait for an answer. A hesitant Ariel answers.
Oh, God. This curse is unbelievable.
"Who is this?"
I cannot get myself to say a word. I fear the rejection.
"I don't have all fucking day."
"I don't know if you remember me," I start, mustering all the courage I have. "I'm Layla. I go to school with you. We had a class or two together last year."
"You're that weird girl who acts like she knows me and even knows where I live."
"Yes, but please don't hang up me," I blurt out once I hear her scoff. "I can show you why I act so weird around you. There's an explanation. Please, meet me at the address I will text you after this call. Please."
I pray to God and the creator of this curse to not have changed the way that curiosity always takes over anything else in Ariel. And when she answers, I hope that curiosity doesn't kill the cat and the cat's best friend.
"What time?" There's doubt.
"Any time you can."
"I'll be there as soon as possible."
"God, thank you. Bye."
She doesn't answer and hangs up. I quickly send her the address where I stay. I can't contain the excitement and the stress that I have jumping around in me.
Ariel will remember me.
-
"Ari- Alexandra, this is Emmeline," I tell her once she is through the front door.
They greet each other before Emmeline gets to the real deal.
"So, we can start by the proof and then the explanation to what we'll show you or we can go the other way around. The only thing is that the showing of proof needs us to have your trust. Do we have that?"
"You have my curiosity, that's for sure," her eyes shine.
My Ariel right here. Just with black hair.
"Well, that's enough for now. Follow me."
She leads us down to the basement and the door she once performed magic in front of me making me believe everything she explained about the curse.
Ariel looks at her with wide eyes once she sees the door open after Emmeline pronounced the few Latin words.
"Trust?" Emmeline asks.
Ariel nods, her mouth agape as she unconsciously stares at the now open door. We walk in the room where I first read all the journals.
"You've just seen me do magic. I won't keep you waiting for an explanation, I'll make this quick. Layla and I's blood line has a series of casters with powers sent down from generation to generation. A very old curse was put on our family and another's. This curse, that I'll elaborate later on, made everyone forget who Layla was. Her family doesn't know she exists which, eventually, led her to living with me."
"How does that make sense?" Ariel starts.
"Every single person who knew her forgot her. Including you. You were both best friends."
"We were what?" Ariel looks at me, a sea of lost possibilities flooding her eyes. "No. I don't-I've never had any friends. I'm my only friend."
"Yeah, we were," I say getting closer, cautiously.
"Look," I tell her taking out my phone and looking for a picture of us. She stares down to it.
Her eyes widen. "I had red hair?"
"That's why you went by the name of Ariel."
"This girl, she's happy. She looks happy," her hands tremble slightly, "You won't like me now."
I frown and shake my head. "You're still the Ariel I knew. Just one who's been through more."
"What we plan to do," Emmeline says, "is to make you remember. You won't become Ariel, but a merge of her and Alexandra. If you're willing to do it, you'll remember your past together and what has happened to you in this life. You will only have memories of you and Layla from the other life, nothing else. Though her presence brings other things."
"Other things?" she asks, hesitant, putting a strand of her hair behind her ear.
"Her presence might bring back old likes and dislikes or things that happened to you because of her."
She looks at me. Her eyes still have a certain darkness in them and there's a certain fierceness to her movements, but she is willing to go through this. And I'm glad.
"Let's do this."
I can't believe it. This version of Ariel that wanted nothing to do with me, the one that only saw me like a strand of hair that was unwanted, but kept hanging on to her clothes, was here, believing our story of sorcery and family curses. She is willing to undergo this spell to remember me again with the chances of changing things from her own life.
Emmeline, carefully, eyes closed, performs the ancient words with such grace that I don't care picking up the words, just the sound. Alone, it sends goosebumps throughout my body.
Ariel shuts her eyes and her head slowly falls back. Her whole body is carefully and slowly raised in the air as Emmeline's tone gets more intense. I wrap my arm around me, shielding myself from the illusion that a gust of cold air just haunted us all.
Once Emmeline yells the last word, Ariel falls to the ground. When I see Em wipe a trail of blood from under her nose, I rush to her with a water bottle in my hand. Once she takes it from me, I quickly turn to my best friend.
"Ugh, Lay," she says, holding her head in her hands. "Did your mom actually have a bakery or is my mind making this up so I can think the spell worked?"
"You're back!" I yell throwing myself in her arms.
"I am so happy I can stop racking my goddamn brain for a memory of you. I remember the party now, and people being drunk and people being mean to you. Everything is so vague. Effects from the spell, huh?"
I laugh, "actually, you were just really drunk."
She gasps," me? Drunk? You crazy."
"No, you were."
"I'll leave you both to catch up," Em says leaving the room.
"Tell me what happened," Ariel says as we make ourselves comfortable on the floor.
"Calum happened. "
"Wait, let me see, the guy you have had a crush on forever. We had a code name for him and everything."
"Exactly. He invited us to a party at the house. I brought Aiden, because I felt bad that I didn't wish him a happy birthday and I mean, all I gave him was a free cupcake!"
"A cupcake, Lay? That's cheap," familiar features of fake disappointment show.
"I know," I say with a chuckle.
"But anyway, I still went for Calum. He gave me his attention and I gave him my time. He pulled me in the woods, he tried to take advantage of me, I escaped before meeting a weird gypsy type woman who asked me what I wanted most right now."
"He's a bastard. Next time I see him, I'll-" She punches a fist into her open hand.
"Yeah, I know," I smile. "So I ran away from her just to come back to a house full of desperate teenage guys bashing on me, a hate fueled by Calum's rumors that I wanted him."
Her mouth drops, and a relief touches me. My friend is back, my rock is here, with me. I missed our girl talks. Overly dramatic and we were always on the same page.
"I know, right!"
"Anyway," I continue. "I held myself tall, but still ran away. I asked Aiden to help the drunk you falling on the ground and I went to the bathroom. I also fell on the ground and wished for them to forget and poof, this all happened."
"That's so weird."
"It gets better. The gypsy was actually Emmeline. She was trying to make me vulnerable. She didn't make Calum do what he did but she has been following me to find me in my weakest place. Once I'm there, she performs the spell and it works. I'm forgotten. The only person who believes my story is Aiden. He ends up having dreams of memories with me every night."
And I go on and on about our searches. and everything we found out and why Aiden was so far away. Obviously, she ends up asking me if I like him or not and I always end up blushing and looking away uttering a prolonged,"well..."
Ariel grins,"oh girl, you're in deep."
"He's so far away and I hate it. I cannot stop think about-" I look at her, and am brought back to the reality. "Yeah, I really am in deep."
She simply giggles, and brushes through her hair, as if it is red, with her friend.
"God, it's so great to have you back Ariel."
"And it's great not to see you as a sociopath, Layla," she says in the same tone, masking the emotion with a jocular voice.
She hugs me tightly. She runs to the door before running back and hugging me again. Tears gather in my eyes and I feel lighter, as if a little bit of the weight I carried was off.
After a few minutes of wall gazing, I go back upstairs in the kitchen.
"Em?" I call out. "I'll be going out for a walk, okay?"
"Okay, " she yells back without showing herself. "Just be safe."
"Okay!" I yell back. I grab my burgundy cardigan before closing the white door behind me and finally meeting the burning Floridian sun.
Ouf, on a second thought, I think, before going back in, throwing my cardigan on the velvet couch by door and going back out.
It is crazy how everything I see reminds me of him and I hate that I cannot act normal about this. He kissed me, told me he loved me, then left to Provence which I only knew about because I overheard a phone conversation.
Why should I be nervous at all?
"Excuse me?" a man-boy asks me. He must be somewhere in the age range of 17 to 23. I'm usually great at guessing ages, but he is hard to decipher.
"Yes?" I ask, slightly annoyed. I was really busy arguing with myself.
"I just wanted to know if you were okay. You were gesturing like a maniac."
Shit.
If I was gesturing at the same intensity I was thinking, it must have been quite troubling to see.
"Oh my God. That is so embarrassing."
"Hey, no, it is fine," he says with a shining smile as he touches my shoulder. I am shocked by the very sudden gesture.
"I'm Oscar."
"Layla," I say putting my hand in his extended one.
"Well, sorry to have scared you."
I start walking away when he grabs my wrist and turns me around.
"How about I take you out for coffee?" I stare him down.
Blond, I mean very blond, wearing a leather jacket in this heat, chained boots and an Ed Sheeran t-shirt. His music taste didn't match his jacket, but he managed to pull it off.
Who is this guy?
"I'd rather not, thanks."
He doesn't stop, "I'm heading to the coffee shop right down the street. You can be alone and I can be alone. We can be alone...together?"
From his appearance, he isn't menacing. I keep my guards up and shift further away from him. "Sure, Oscar."
He nods and smiles, "great!"
I hope he isn't going to bring me to the place Aiden and I usually go to. It feels a bit like betrayal. I have only ever been to that café with Aiden.
"So, Layla, how old are you? I can't seem to give you an age," he says.
I guess we were thinking about the same thing. "I'm almost 16."
"Wow, I am hanging out with a youngster over here," he laughs, "I'm almost 18."
"Done with high school, huh?"
"Not really," he says, in a slightly shameful manner.
"Well, you're close enough."
We turn around the corner onto the main avenue and he stops me in front of a small coffee shop that isn't Aiden and I's hangout. Thank God.
"An ice cap for the lady and a root beer for me, please."
The waitress smiles at him before leaving. I am shocked by two things. He didn't order at the counter nor have we sit down yet. And he ordered for me. Aiden would have never ordered for me.
"So, Oscar. What do you like to do?"
He hesitates a bit with a lot of gesturing. "Well, eum, stuff."
"Wow, how interesting. And how long have you being doing stuff?"
He laughs, "okay, stop."
I place a strand of hair behind my ear, laughing as well.
"I'm not a fool. I've just been fooled by you this afternoon. I haven't come across such simple people like you in a long time. You're a breath of fresh air, Layla." He is wearing a flirtatious smile. I can't help smile back, but I know I don't feel anything for him.
Over some conversation about school, I finish my ice cap quite quickly. "Listen Oscar, I have to go, but it was nice meeting you."
"Hey, it was great running into you. But can you do me one last favor. Your number, please? "
"Well, I can have yours and whenever I want to hang out, I'll give you a call."
There. That's safe.
He punches in his number in my phone before offering a hug, but getting a handshake instead.
I leave him and walk towards the grocery store. I think I remember the absence of orange juice in the fridge. The automatic doors open and let in the fresh conditioned air of the store. I breathe in deeply ignoring the looks I get from nearby senior citizens. As my eyes were closed trying to breathe correctly after the crazy day I had, I bump into another someone.
"Sorry, I didn't see you there-Layla! What are you doing here?"
When I look up to the person I bumped into and who interrupted me, I see Dominic. The boy who was supposed to be my baby brother, but is me in this life.
"Dominic?"
"Yeah, who else? " He says with a laugh.
"Hey, how was the sleepover at Ariel's?"
Dominic remembers me. My absence has an excuse. He thought I was at Ariel's.
I am sinking back into their lives. But nothing is changing. He isn't a baby again, he just remembers me. That means that everyone will remember me, but the bakery will still be nonexistent, my dad will still be dead and Aiden will have to stay in Provence for this to last.
- - -
AN:
So, guys, I have to start this off by saying that I absolutely love all of the support the story is getting. You are all amazing and having less reads and comments on my own account and books, its exciting to see people be excited for AM, PM.
But, lately I have been getting a lot of messages and they are all people asking me when the book will be updated or questions that we (Yas and I) have already answered.
So I will use this to clarify a few points and this will be the last time I will acknowledging these 'problems'.
1. Yes, this story is still being continued, written and fully being comitted to.
2. I am the sole author of this book. Foreversmilin a. k. a. Yasmin is the editor. Just because she has stopped writing does not mean that the story has ended. Being the only author and being caught up with school, the books on my account and life's obstacles I cannot fully devote my time and inspiration to AM, PM.
3. I have always been a very tolerant person when it comes comments about the writing and the slowness of the updates. But rude comments hurt. I can tell the difference between constructive criticism and insults. Sometimes, they are just plain rude.
4. Messages about updates for AM, PM on my message board will not be answered. I appreciate the excitement, but I update at my own pace. I am continuing this story that I once did at two. I need to adjust and learn to write in the mind of another character. I needed time for the Layla chapters and you have to give me that. I don't want to get posts on my boards or comments on my stories asking me about AM, PM.
Thank you for understanding and I hope you liked this chapter. :)