Pieces of a Life

Leila suspected she should’ve felt some sort of closure when she began to walk down to the plane, but nothing came. She took the boarding pass back with shaking fingers and sweaty hands, moving to the side to walk slowly, eyes wide at the monumental mistake she’d just made for the second time over. She was wrong, she had overplayed her hand and took a gamble and lost it all. No one was going to come and beg her to stay because, to be honest, she didn’t deserve that much. It was time to grow up, be held accountable, and be the one taking chances rather than running away. Leila jerked her head up to look at the flight attendant, a man in a navy vest with a welcoming smile.

His mouth moved but Leila could not make out the words. She was frozen, staring at him, hearing nothing but her own rushing pulse. His lips moved again, and when she didn’t reply his smile faltered and he took a step toward her. She could hear it faintly now when he spoke, “Ma’am, are you alright? Ma’am—”

“I have to get off this plane.” She blurted suddenly. “I—I can’t get on this plane. I need to get off, I—I need to get off.” The flight attendant raised his eyebrows and Leila began to flounder, jerking her head to look for a way out, clutching her bag, rolling up her sleeves as they kept falling down to her hands. “I have to get off.” Her voice squeaked. She ran a clammy, shaking hand through her hair and looked pleadingly at the flight attendant.

“Just—just a second, alright? We’ll get someone to help you.” He urged in a low voice, whirling around to go back onto the plane while Leila’s breaths began to get shallow and fast.

When the flight attendant returned he had a small posse with him, people getting in her face and asking her muted questions that she didn’t answer. Was she having a panic attack? She wasn’t sure. Maybe she was just having a moment of clarity. One of the only true moments of thinking clearly she’d ever had, perhaps, and saw her decisions in a different light. Whatever questions she was being asked, she just kept shaking her head and whispering the same thing: “I need to get off this plane. I cannot get on this plane. I need to leave.”

Finally, blessedly, she was ushered away. She sat, because they thought this was some fear of flying thing she could overcome, but as soon as her palms stopped sweating and she stopped jiggling her leg in place, she looked up. “I am not boarding that plane, I don’t care what I have to do.” She swallowed but looked unwaveringly from face to face. “I’m not getting on that plane. I need my luggage, and I need to go.”

She didn’t care how many checks she had to sign, or how much hell she had to raise. She wasn’t getting on that plane. She would cause a scene, have a temper tantrum, and sign away half her inheritance if she had to. But today, Leila was not going back to San Francisco.

Someone began trying to reason with her about getting on the plane, how difficult it would be to get her luggage, the money she had spent on the ticket. She stared at them evenly until they stopped talking and walked away. Leila knew she was a stubborn girl, but she was determined not to fuck this up again. Not now, not after everything that had happened. So when she was escorted through the airport to pick up her luggage that had already been thrown onto the plane, she quickly got into a taxi and began to try to stitch up the wounds she’d ripped open again.

Evelyn was still slumped on Alex’s table when the taxi pulled into the driveway, and she frowned when she saw it. The first clue she saw was the luggage, and she didn’t need to see anything else. She pushed her chair back with excessive force and stalked out the front door, slamming it behind her. Leila stood in the driveway, defeated, luggage on the ground and ready to take the beating.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Evelyn hissed, trying not to yell and draw any attention outside. She narrowed her puffy eyes. “Jesus, Leila, make up your damn mind. You can’t come back here like a bull in a China shop and muck up everything. This—this isn’t a game! This isn’t a little toy for rich girls to play with—” Leila scowled at that, but Evelyn continued in her low hiss of a whisper. “—this is real life, and I know you’re bad at that, but you’ve fucked up huge this time. Like, I can’t even begin to explain to you how huge you have fucked up by what you did. So before you go into that house,” She pressed her lips together and swallowed roughly. “You better explain to me why you had to break that boy’s heart.”

Leila’s face fell. So she knew. Of course she knew. “Ev, he—he asked me to marry him—”

“Of course he asked you to marry him!” Evelyn flung her hands up. “Leila, you are so thick headed sometimes! And if you’re not thick headed, then it was all premeditated and you knew exactly what you were doing, and that’s ten times worse.”

“I…I thought it through,” Leila nodded, looking at the ground. “Maybe not rationally, but I thought it through. I knew what I was doing. I just…thought it would end up different.” She didn’t want to admit outwardly that she fully expected Alex to come after her. Evelyn would explode if she heard that. But that was why Leila was here—she was trying to make up for the sucker punch she’d just thrown. After all the royal screwing up she had done, she wasn’t running away.

Evelyn shook her head. This was such a huge mess. She wasn’t sure if she should be glad Leila came back, or to wish she’d just gotten on the plane and left after all. Just leave another mess behind to clean up, just like she had last time. It was worse now, though. The damage was colossal; it was huge and painful, and Leila was trying to fix fault lines in the earth with superglue here.

“I don’t know what to say, Leila. You—you fucked up. And you are fucked up, you know that?” Leila winced, although it was true. “I don’t know what did it to you, your mom dying or your dad not being around or what, but you’re a head case, girl. It’s people you suck at—you can’t do it with people. You freak out and ruin everything. Harsh, but sorry. You’ve got to hear it from someone. You’re fucked up.”

Leila wasn’t sure what her face looked like, but she was somewhere between miserable and horrified. However, Evelyn was right. Whatever problems were going on in Leila’s head took over her entire world, and she hurt other people because of it. “I—you’re right, Ev, I know. I…I know I’m awful. Seriously, I know, I live with myself every day. But…I just couldn’t do this. Not this time. Please,” She looked up at Evelyn. “Please, Ev. Just let me make this right—let me try, at least, I’ve got to try. I’ve got to show I’ve changed.”

Evelyn rubbed her cheek and squeezed her eyes shut, stepping to the side of the door. “Be my guest.” She murmured.

When Leila got to Baltimore, like Alex had told her when they were drunk sitting on top of Jack’s car, she was just pieces of what she used to be. Leila was only pieces of a girl and maybe that was why she ruined everything the way she did—pieces trying to come together or pull apart, breaking and stabbing and crushing, cracks still visible even when loosely mended. But she knew when she came back that this was different. This was a different shade of her life. And she tried to go back to her old ways, to pull apart into the pieces where she’d stayed for years, but it wasn’t going to work this time. She had Alex to put her together and keep her there, and she had panicked and pushed him aside to run away again. She was wrong, she was more wrong than she had ever been, and she had to take a risk and go after something different for once in her life. San Francisco hadn’t been a risk, it had been an escape plan. It was a cowardly retreat backing down from fear of the unknown; it was an easy, planned out life that would keep her the same miserable old Leila. She wasn’t the same Leila anymore. She had lost all control of her life and it was exactly what she needed. So when Evelyn stepped aside to let Leila into the house, she walked slowly and fearfully like she had down the tunnel to the door of the plane.

She was always a planner, always thinking in a way she thought to be rational and calculated. But if she considered it for a moment, she’d see how that didn’t make sense. Leila was not a rational, calculated person. What she loved so much about dance was the expression, passion, and emotion. She loved being wild and raw and free. She was not mathematical, fit neatly into sharp lines that confined her and led her way. She was always trying to tame herself when she needed to let go. So, finally, she would let go. His door was closed, though, and she hovered in front of it and vibrated with nervous energy.

When she looked around the now empty house, she saw the box on the table. She knew Evelyn must have brought it from Leila’s room, probably careened into the driveway on two tires and flew into the house to throw the velvet box at Alex’s head. She probably screamed, and she probably cried. And, most of all, she probably gave up. Leila snatched the box off the table and opened Alex’s bedroom door before she could hesitate again.

He was laying in bed, but she knew he wasn’t asleep. She inhaled a long breath and gently closed the door behind her, telling herself to think of it as dance somehow. Think of how to express yourself, the best way for this all to flow together. It has to be beautiful. It can’t be mechanical.

“Leila?” Alex frowned, voice rough, looking at her from across the dim room.

Leila clutched the box in her hands. “Hi.” She squeaked. Alex didn’t reply. “I—I...I’m here for you, Alex,” She said slowly, forcing the constant loops of I don’t know, I don’t know out of her head. There was no room for that anymore. That was bullshit and she was past that. “I fucked up. I really did this time, I know I did and,” She paused, exhaling a shaking breath and trying to keep her voice even. “I’m so sorry.”

Alex didn’t say anything, but looked at her so she knew he was listening. Leila took careful, fluid steps, urging herself in her head: Just dance; dance, dance dance. It’s all you know. It’s what you can do. You can do it. It’s all dance, Leila, and you’re world class at that. It’s all a dance. She put the box down on his nightstand and clasped her hands together, looking down at him and fighting how her lower lip wanted to jut out and quiver.

“I’m so sorry, Alex, because all you’ve ever done is be good to me and I’ve fucked up everything—literally everything. Every single thing I have ever done, I’ve done wrong, in the wrong way. And I,” Her voice hitched. Alex frowned, moving to sit up a little so he could look at her. “I want to do something right for once. I’ve lived my whole life wrong and…and you deserve better than what I’ve done to you.” Leila laughed a shaky laugh and wiped her hand under her eye, swiping away the beginning pools of tears. “I deserve better than myself, honestly, but you deserve more. You’ve done so much, and I can’t begin to explain to you how I feel or how my head and my heart are working right now but—but I’m here, and I’m not drowning. I’m learning. And I’m so sorry.”

Alex blinked and looked down. He wasn’t sure what to make of this new Leila, cracked and put together wrong, broken in places and still painted up pretty in others, standing in front of him at face value for all she was. It was uncharacteristic. But apparently, something in her had changed. The death of her only surviving parent, the abrupt end of her career, and everything else that had come crashing down on her over the time she’d been back seemed to have brought on a war inside her and she was leading the army against it. It was years late, but it was what she needed—and what he knew she was capable of this entire time. She was passionate. She had fire within her, she wasn’t limp, weak, and useless the way she had diminished herself to be. He looked up at her desperate oval face.

“Just—I know I’ve fucked up everything, Alex, especially everything with us. I know I’ve made a huge mess of it all. And I don’t deserve you to keep coming after me—thanks for not chasing after me today, by the way—” Alex snorted while Leila rambled on hurriedly. “I just wanted you to know everything you’ve done hasn’t been useless—I—I can change, I can. But I guess what I’m saying is…” Leila rolled her lips together, glanced at the black velvet box on his nightstand, and then locked eyes. “If this is it for you, I understand. I’ll bow out. Because I get that I’m a black hole of a person. If you’re done, then I can be done too. Just—just tell me you don’t love me, Alex, and that’ll be it.” Alex snapped his head up, eyebrows furrowed and eyes wide. “It can be a lie!” She breathed. “I just…I just need to hear you say it. Just say it, and I’m gone.”

Alex paused. He hadn’t spoken this entire time, but it was fine. He was glad to listen if what she was saying was that important to her—and clearly it was. She was right, too. She was always leaving behind messes she had no intention of cleaning up. She was Hurricane Leila, coming through and causing absolute destruction, and then leaving to dissipate in her first class seat on a plane jetting across the country. For everything they’d gone through in their years together and apart, he could end it here and be done. Be rid of her and her dramatics, her insecurities, her instability; just live his life completely free of Leila Willows and all the bullshit she carried along with her.

But that was not a life he wanted to live.

Leila hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until she breathed out loudly, chewing on her lip. He hadn’t said it yet, but he hadn’t said otherwise either. She just needed him to say it—tell her he didn’t love her, and then she’d have the strength to leave with a little dignity. All he had to do was say it out loud, and it would be as good as true. That would be it.

“Leila, if you think I’d ever want to go through life without you, you’re worse off than before.” Alex told her seriously, watching as her face lit up. Her smile curved all the way up into her eyes. “That being said,” He continued. Her face fell as quickly as it had brightened. “You’re right about how much shit you’ve caused, and how messed up you are. I agree with you on all points there, sweetheart.” Leila chewed on her lip again, completely unsure of where he was going with this. “But…” Alex looked down, hesitating again.

When the pause lasted for a long time Leila’s smile crept up again. “But…you can’t say it.” She whispered, gently wrapping her fingers around his.

“No,” His mouth tugged up in a half-smile when he looked at her. “I could never say it. Even if it wasn’t true, I’d never say it.”

Leila squeezed his hand and flopped down onto his bed to wrap her arms around him. She curled up next to him in his bed, his arms warm around her, and held him tightly. After all the mismatched broken pieces of her had been mended and carefully put back together, this was where she ended up. This was all she needed. And for the first time in too many years, her heart felt it was home.