Page 80 of The Writer

This is the part of the night that’s most painful for me to remember. The actions I took before leaving Layla alone. Even now, I wish I could somehow scrub the memories from my mind, imagine a situation where I grabbed Layla by the hand and urged her to come home with us, but I didn’t do that, and I’ve lived with my guilt ever since.

“Fun? You were getting wasted. Not even spending time with one another. I don’t understand it, how people somehow think they’re close to someone else because they get shit-faced together. That’s not quality time. That’s not friendship. It was obvious just by looking at the three of you that you weren’t really her friends.”

I open my mouth to speak but stop myself. My eyes land on the weapon, and I’m reminded that Danielle is still a threat. But her analysis is wrong. She’s basing her idea of our friendship off a few glimpses of us in a bar on one night. She never saw the way we comforted each other after breakups, the way we revved each other up to get through challenging courses. She never saw the laughter, the love. Danielle’s reduction of our relationship angers me, even if it’s only intended to make her own connection to Layla superior.

“I decided I’d wait until you headed home to confront her,” she says. “I watched as you and Crystal stumbled to the entrance, waiting for Layla to join you. But she just stayed there, talking tohim. It was a whole other layer of betrayal. She wasn’t just choosing her fake friends over me, but now a complete stranger!

“Finally, she got up to leave. I thought maybe it was for the best. She’d ditch this guy and I’d be able to catch up with her. Just the two of us. Maybe we’d take off and have our own fun. As I followed them, my anger continued to build. I kept thinking of how I kept putting Layla first, only for her to put everyone else in the world above me. By the time he took off and left her alone, I was fuming.”

I raise my eyes suddenly, the scene playing in my mind jarred. For years, I’ve imagined it. His hands around her neck. The fear she must have felt when she realized no one was around. The way he callously left her body in the gully, as thoughshe was no more than a discarded cigarette butt or other piece of trash.

“You said he took off?” I ask, trying to clarify. “Layla was alone?”

Danielle raises her eyes to meet mine, the intensity of her stare sending fear, cold and sharp, through my entire body.

“Yes,” she says. “He left, and it was only the two of us.”

“But then, how did he?—”

I imagine Layla turning around, still smiling from her night. She sees she’s not alone and takes a step back, fear shooting through her, only to see it’s not a stranger behind her. It’s Danielle. Her friend.

“I asked her why she lied,” Danielle says. “I wanted to know why she’d cancelled our plans together. Clearly, she wasn’t studying. And she couldn’t say her friends talked her into going out. You were long gone by then. Even the man from the bar was gone, and it was only her, and I wanted to know why she lied.

“She became angry that I’d followed her. That I’d been hiding out all night watching. I told her I’d come to Whitaker to surprise her, but that was before I realized she was ditching me.”

I imagine Danielle and Layla arguing. How invasive it must have felt for Layla to know one of her oldest friends had stalked her all night. I imagine Layla’s eyes cutting from left to right, searching for a witness, but finding herself alone.

“She told me I was smothering her. That she’d chosen WU to put some space between us, and that I was disrespecting her boundaries by showing up unannounced. She even said I was scaring her!

“We both started shouting. I hadn’t come all this way to listen to someone who didn’t understand what real friendship meant. I felt so hurt, so rejected. I ran toward her.”

The scene in my mind changes. It’s nothishands around Layla’s neck, it’s nothisvoice shouting—it’s Danielle’s. It was always Danielle.

“You killed Layla,” I say, the accusation leaving my mouth in a whisper.

“I didn’t realize what I’d done until it was too late,” Danielle says. The darkness in her eyes recedes, replaced with sorrowful tears. “I was just so angry, you know? I felt betrayed by my only friend. Next thing I know, she was just lying there, mouth open, eyes wide, silent.”

“You murdered her,” I say, trying to force the image of Layla out of my mind. “For no reason at all.”

“I had a reason!” Danielle corrects me, her voice charged. “We were supposed to be there for each other. She discarded me, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

“You let another person take the fall,” I say. “He’s been in prison for nearly ten years?—”

“He wouldn’t have taken the deal if it weren’t for those other accusations against him,” she says. “I’ve lost sleep over the past ten years, but never over that.”

“You killed Layla. My best friend! And then had the nerve to use her death against me. And Crystal. You urged her parents to file that civil suit against us.”

Danielle is standing straighter again now, fueled by her own sense of justice.

“If you hadn’t gone out with her that night, none of this would have happened. If you hadn’t left her, she’d still be alive. You’re to blame just as much as everyone else,” she says. Then quieter, “I was just helping her parents see that. It’s what real friends do.”

The past ten years have been a puzzle, but finally the pieces are falling into place. The way Layla’s mother described her daughter’s close friendships from childhood. The way Danielletalks about Layla now, as though she only saw her yesterday. The strange behavior Layla exhibited whenever she came back from a visit home, acting like something bad had happened, but not wanting to talk about it. I realize now, long before Danielle became my stalker, she’d been fixated on Layla, and it’s that infatuation that led to my friend’s death.

FORTY

My heart is beating so furiously I can feel it in my throat. My eyes sting with tears, and yet, when I open my mouth to speak, nothing comes out. I’m heartbroken for Layla and what her final moments must have been like. I realize now it’s so much worse than I imagined. She wasn’t lured by a stranger, killed by a sexual predator.

She was murdered by one of her best friends. I can’t imagine the fear and betrayal she must have felt. I made a mistake leaving her behind that night, but I no longer carry the burden of her death. Michael Massey wasn’t the real threat that night. It was Danielle.

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