Seeing the good in everyone meant going against the grain, where being a cop was concerned. Looking past the exterior, seeking a person's potential to be good, that had always been one of Layke's shortcomings. It meant she routinely excused other people's shortcomings, justified their bad behavior. Oh, he's that way because of his tough upbringing. Or, Everyone writes her off because of past mistakes. Or, He did it out of necessity. Any number of reasons to defend someone's actions. However, there came a time when one ran out of excuses, or when the action was simply unjustifiable, where you realized that some people were just pieces of crap.
Layke couldn't bring herself to defend being drugged by someone she thought cared about her. Well, in truth, she didn't even attempt to defend it. Her anger had gotten the better of her, had clouded every pleasant memory she ever had of her short time with Willa. It made it easier to forget what Willa meant to her.
Easier, but certainly not easy.
Unfortunately, it didn't expel thoughts of her from her mind. No, dwelling on what had happened kept her up at night. The lying, the drugging, the conniving. Was I just a means to an end to her? she wondered over and over. Was any of it real? Did she invite me to the motel, spend four days with me, just so I would be her alibi? It was actually a good plan, one she would have secretly commended had someone else been on the receiving end. But since it had happened to her, she felt used and useless. Betrayed.
She hadn't been home from work five minutes when she heard a knock at her front door. Only the middle-aged man living next door who'd made a habit of borrowing salt and sugar from her ever knocked at this time. A worrying thought occurred to her as she went to answer it: she hadn't heard from Willa in a week – what if it was her? The Willa she knew, or thought she knew, didn't let a little thing like permission stop her from doing something. Hesitantly, Layke called out, “Who is it?”
“It's me,” came a familiar voice.
She released her breath feeling relieved, before pulling the door open. A displeased-looking Dustin greeted her, expression one of pure dislike upon seeing her.
“Hi,” she said abashedly.
“I just came to get my things. Thought it more courteous to come while you were home as opposed to letting myself in while you were at work.” He stepped past her, giving her a resentful look. He fished something out of his jacket pocket. “And you probably want these back.” He handed over her keys. When he wandered into the living room, he looked around as though expecting to find someone there.
“I'm here alone,” Layke said, picking up on it.
“Your girlfriend isn't here, then?”
“If you're talking about Willa, no, and she's not my girlfriend.”
“What, have you already taken your relationship to the next level and become her fiancee? When's the wedding, five years from now?” He laughed cruelly.
Taking offense at his dig would have been selfish, Layke reasoned. He was hurting, and she was to blame. She didn't have the right to feel insulted. She even didn't mind that he'd parted his hair down the middle again, where just three months ago it would have annoyed her.
She averted her gaze, unable to look him in the eye. “There's no chance of that happening. It was never like that.”
His eyes were on her. “So it's over?” Was that a hopeful note in his tone, or had she imagined it?
She nodded slowly. “It never really started. How is something like that supposed to last?” She hoped her words made him feel better, because they only made her feel worse. Speaking about what she and Willa had shared as nothing more than a meaningless fling, it hurt her more than she realized. At the time, it had never felt like a fling, like a summer romance she would forget as soon as it was done. If Willa hadn't drugged her, hadn't left her in the middle of the night and driven back to Miami in order to execute someone, she highly suspected they would have been together right now. But thinking this way wasn't an option, if she stood any chance of moving on.
“It was as though I was watching somebody else's life unfold, not my own,” she went on. “Someone who had lost her morals, lost her sense of responsibility. Who could cheat on her fiance and not bat an eyelash.”
“That was you, Layke. All you.”
“I know, and I'm not proud of it. I'm sorry. I know I can never make it up to you, but I want to try.”
He looked at her dubiously. “How?”
She didn't know how. “We were together for over seven years; it seems such a shame to throw that all away because I messed up.”
“Are you saying you want us to try again?”
Was that what she was saying? Return to a life she'd never enjoyed, with a man she'd never been in love with, all because the person she did want had screwed her over? That went further than mere settling – that was cowardice.
“You're my best friend, Dustin. I don't want to lose you. I never meant to hurt you.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Did you just read all of that off a movie script, Layke? You certainly know the right things to say, but you don't mean a word of that. Tell me, who ended that nonsense you had with the di Blasio girl? You or her?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because...” She turned away. She knew exactly what he was asking, and why. He could see right through her front. Telling him why she'd ended it with Willa would have only confirmed what he suspected. “I did mean everything I just said. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Why did you break it off with her?” he demanded again. “You're avoiding the question.”
“You're right, I am.”
He snorted derisively. “Then we don't have anything left to talk about. It's obvious you're not over her. And I'm not going to play second fiddle to some delinquent whore who turned my girlfriend gay!” He shoved past her and went to collect his things.
“God, I heard you the first five times!” Willa screamed as the intercom buzzed and buzzed. She pulled on her dressing robe, dragged herself out of bed, her feet accidentally kicking one of the two empty bottles of wine on the floor.
Guy gave her an appraising look when he stepped inside a couple of minutes later, taking in her disheveled appearance; the crumpled T-shirt and the off-color shorts, plus her untidy bedhead. “All right, who's this bum and what has she done with my little sister?”
She rolled her eyes. “Who's this flamboyant gay guy, and what has he done with my annoying brother?”
Guy laughed, swished his wrist in as camp a fashion as he could manage. “Don't you mean fabulous?” he joked.
She didn't even extend a polite smile to him.
“Did you have a party and not invite me?” He looked around the apartment. Empty take-out boxes and ice cream tubs littered the living space; and when he padded into the kitchen, he found it in a similarly untidy condition – unwashed plates and cups piled in the sink, crumbs and sauce stains on the counters. “Or have a bunch of homeless guys been crashing here the past week?” He made a face at the mess, then turned to his sister for an explanation.
“I didn't feel like cleaning,” she shrugged.
He picked up an empty bottle of rum, held it up, eyebrow raised, and waited for her to explain this, too. When she rolled her eyes again and said nothing, he disappeared into the kitchen once more.
“What do you want?” she asked. “I'm not really in the mood for company today.” She heard him ruffling around in the kitchen, heard cupboards slamming. Her head was throbbing from yet another one of her benders. She could have done without the invasion.
“You haven't contacted any of us in over a week. We've been calling your cell but it's been switched off. Mom's worried.” When he emerged from the kitchen, he had a black bag in his hand, and proceeded to fill it with junk.
“Mom's always worried. I'm fine. And I didn't ask you to do that.” She sighed, but started helping him clean up.
“We're all worried.”
“I'm fine,” she said again.
“Except you're not.” He dropped the bag, and for the first time in a long time his happy-go-lucky countenance dissipated. Willa noted how different his whole face looked when he wasn't being his cheerful, cheeky self. “You're living in squalor, you look like hell, and nobody's been able to reach you. So if this is fine then I would hate to see you when you've fallen apart.”
She cut him a scathing look. “I bet it's real easy for you to stand there and pass judgment on me, when you haven't had to deal with the shit I've had to deal with.”
“You really believe that? You think it's easy for me to watch you slowly destroy yourself? After everything we've been through, you think that's what I'm doing, passing judgment?” He shot her a pained look to accompany the hurt in his voice.
“I don't need you or anyone else to worry about me. I just want to be left alone,” she yelled. “Is that too much to ask?”
“As long as you have people in your life who care about you, it is.”
She snatched the bin bag from him. “You've seen that I'm alive. Now you can leave.” Accepting her own pity was bad enough; accepting other people's was a travesty. She didn't deserve their pity, not after what she'd done. That she'd ever reached a point of justifying her choices enough to drug her girlfriend, made her sick to the stomach even now. Somewhere along the way she'd lost her humanity, to the point where she now questioned whether she'd had any to begin with.
He threw up his hands and turned to leave. Then he stopped. “Whatever this is, you need to get it together. If you keep dropping the ball, don't expect Trent not to pick it up. We both know he thinks you're just keeping the seat warm for him.”
“Well maybe I am,” Willa shouted after him as he left.
Layke woke with a start and sat bolt upright. It may or may not have been the noise that woke her – that scraping noise, like nails across a blackboard. Because as soon as she was up, and the noise was no more, she sensed she wasn't alone in her apartment.
Her gun was where she always left it – in the drawer of her bedside table. Even with her lamp switched off she could get to it with ease; she'd trained herself to do so in case of an intrusion.
Silently, moving like an acrobat on light feet, she crept to the door, pulled it open quickly in order to avoid the creak. Only she knew that that was the only way to get into her room undetected. Light spilled out of the kitchen. Tiptoeing along the hallway towards the room, she raised her gun the way she'd been trained to do when entering unknown danger, her breathing so heavy she was certain the intruder could hear her coming. She scolded herself to hold the gun straight and stop shaking, and be prepared to shoot the person bold enough to break into her home.
Even when she saw who it was sitting at her kitchen table, smelled the alcohol on her, saw her hand clasping a glass tumbler, she didn't lower the gun immediately. Willa didn't flinch when she saw her. She laughed drunkenly.
“Do it and save me the trouble.” Her words were slightly slurred. “Maybe if you're lucky, some liberals will call you a murderer, and you'll see how it feels.”
“They could call me anything they want, but it wouldn't make it true. If someone breaks into my home, it's trespassing. I get to shoot them,” Layke fired back, but lowered her weapon anyway. This girl wouldn't be a threat to her, not in this state. She cast an admonishing look at the glass in Willa's hand. “Don't you think you've had enough?”
“No.” She turned the glass to her head, finished what was left in it. “It's water.”
“What are you doing here, Willa?” With every line she delivered, the effort to keep the concern, the love, out of her voice grew more difficult. Seeing her again after two weeks, hearing her voice, seeing that beautiful mouth she'd kissed, and kissed, and kissed without restraint, it tugged at her heartstrings. She'd tried not to miss her, but her heart, her body, wouldn't allow it. Thus, there she was, standing in her kitchen in the middle of the night, trying to pretend she didn't care.
Willa shrugged sluggishly. “What is anyone doing here? Why are any of us here?” She laughed at her joke, seemingly unfazed by the fact that she was doing so alone.
“You didn't actually drive here in this state, did you?” Layke asked, appalled. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Somewhere between I can't remember and I don't give a shit.” She laughed again. “What's it to you anyway? I'm just a villain, the bad guy that never changes and never gets the girl.”
“You had the girl, and then you drugged the girl.” Layke observed the way Willa narrowed her eyes at her, and from that she expected her to launch into a verbal or even physical attack. So when Willa burst into tears instead, she didn't know how to respond.
“Have you any idea how many times I've played that night over and over in my head, wishing that I could change it? Wishing that I never crossed that line?” she sobbed. “Sometimes I leave the bottle at home. Sometimes I take it with me but don't pour it into your wine. Sometimes I pour it, but when you fall asleep I stay with you the whole night, holding you in my arms, listening to you breathing and snoring ever so gently.”
Even though it still involved her being drugged, she loved the sound of the last scenario the most. “Why couldn't you have just done that?”
“Because I'm the worst kind of general. I'm the kind who knows how to win battles theoretically, but crumbles in practice. Theory always ignores humanity, never prepares you for the type of monster you'll become when you're done. I learned how to fight but forgot how to be human.”
Layke could only gawk at her, this sobbing mess that was once the infamous Willa di Blasio. It took every ounce of strength within not to cradle her then, to banish her tears with words of forgiveness.
Willa sniffed, wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand, but letting her tears remain on her damp cheeks. “At first I wished it had been me who killed Ambrisi. I thought I was ready to take someone's life if I had to.” She started sobbing again. “But then you called me a murderer. The way you looked at me, the way you said it, I never wanted you to look at me that way. It broke me.”
“What way?” Anger had driven her that night; she could scarcely remember shouting those words, and certainly didn't remember a look.
It took a while for Willa to stop crying enough to speak again, and when she finally could, she said, “Like you could never love me.”
In some ways it would have been easier if she had been the one who killed Ambrisi. Reducing her to a mere monster would have made it easier to hate her. But seeing this broken woman before her, absent her dignity, absent the arrogance her family was known for, Layke knew in her heart she wasn't a monster.
“But I already did,” she said quietly.
Willa's sobs fizzled out. She peered up at her, questioningly. “What?”
“I said I already did. Do you really think I would have risked everything if I didn't?”
Willa turned away, brought a hand to her face to hide her tears, a little too late. “I'm sorry, for everything. I want to be better. Loving you makes me want to be better.”
Layke made her way to her, placed the gun on the table, and cast aside every remaining inhibition that had kept her wavering in the doorway. It was real. Two weeks of wondering, agonizing over it, had finally come to an end. Every hand had been played, every chorus sung.
She flung her arms around Willa, and Willa buried her face into her stomach and sobbed and sobbed like a baby. Layke felt her nightshirt dampen, but the sensation only made her smile as she held the woman she loved close. Willa's tearful I love yous were muffled in the embrace as Layke stroked her head.