The taxi ride from Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport back to the suburbs was thirty minutes of agonizing, low-frequency torture.
Layla sat in the backseat, her forehead pressed against the cold glass of the window, watching the familiar gray skyline of Montreal blur through the rain. Next to her, Sarah was tapping away on her phone, a small, peaceful smile hovering on her lips as she texted Kofi. It was a normal, mundane scene, the kind of post-vacation wind-down they had experienced a dozen times before. But to Layla, the air inside the vehicle felt highly pressurized, like a glass jar right before it shatters under the heat.
"I still can't believe Liam just took off like that," Sarah said, not looking up from her screen. Her tone was annoyed, but casually so, the standard irritation of a younger sister used to her brother's occasional moods. "He didn't even wait to see if we wanted to split a ride. He's been acting weird since this morning. Did something happen between you two on the terrace?"
Layla's heart skipped a violent beat. She forced her eyes away from the window, keeping her voice as level as humanly possible. "He… he was just really tired, I think. The flight was long."
"Yeah, I guess," Sarah murmured, finally locking her phone. She turned to Layla, her expression softening into genuine, best-friend concern. "You look completely exhausted too, Lay. Are you okay? You've been quiet since Thailand."
I destroyed his life. I destroyed our life. I let Jade kiss me and he saw everything.
The words screamed in Layla's mind, but what came out of her mouth was a hollow, trembling lie. "Just jet-lagged. I think I just need to sleep for a couple of days."
Sarah squeezed her arm affectionately. "Get some rest tonight. I'll check in on Liam tomorrow and see what his damage is."
When the taxi finally pulled up to Layla's house, the departure felt like an escape. She dragged her suitcase up the driveway and through the front door, immediately greeted by the warm, comforting scent of her mother's cooking. It was a brutal reminder of the normal, everyday life she had left behind before she boarded the flight to Thailand.
"Layla? Is that you, sweetheart?" her mother called out from the kitchen.
"Yeah, Ma, I'm back!" Layla called back, forcing her voice to sound bright, though her throat felt like sandpaper. "I'm just really exhausted from the flight, I'm gonna head straight up to my room, okay?"
"Oh, okay, rest up! We'll talk about the trip tomorrow!"
Layla practically fled up the stairs, the heavy thud of her suitcase against each step echoing like a heartbeat. Closing her bedroom door behind her, she dropped her bags and collapsed onto her bed, still wearing her heavy travel sweater. Looking around her familiar room, the college textbooks piled on her desk, the framed photos on her nightstand, the contrast was paralyzing. She was still just a student living at home, but she felt entirely disconnected from the girl who had left this room two weeks ago. There were no swaying palms or chaotic heat here. Just the quiet reality of home, and the terrifying certainty that Liam was sitting in his own place right now, holding a match to her entire world.
Across the city, the atmosphere in Liam's apartment was entirely different.
He hadn't turned on the lights. He sat on the edge of his mattress in the dark, his duffel bag sitting unopened by the door. The bruising on his jaw from the beach fight was tender to the touch, but he couldn't bring himself to care about the physical pain. It was nothing compared to the hollow, cavernous ache in his chest.
Every time he closed his eyes, the image scorched his retinas: Jade's hands cupping her face. Layla's fingers gripping Jade's shirt, pulling him closer. The total, unreserved surrender in her posture.
He let out a ragged, dry breath that caught in his throat, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists in his lap. The betrayal wasn't just that she had kissed him; it was the fact that less than an hour prior, she had looked him in the eye on the terrace and begged for his trust. She had played him for a fool, using his love and patience as a safety net while she jumped straight into the fire with someone else.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. The screen lit up the dark room, displaying Sarah's contact photo.
He didn't answer it. He couldn't. If he picked up the phone, he knew his voice would crack, or worse, the truth would spill out, and he wasn't ready for the explosion that would follow. He needed time to process the wreckage before he let anyone else see the pieces. He flipped the phone face down, returning the room to total darkness.
By midnight, the rain outside had turned into a steady, rhythmic downpour, slicking the roofs of the quiet suburban houses. Layla paced the floorboards of her bedroom, her phone clutched tightly in her hand. She kept her footsteps light, terrified of waking her mother down the hall.
The silence from Liam was a physical suffocator, but the proximity of Jade was just as agonizing. She looked out her bedroom window, her eyes automatically drifting to the house right next door. The dark gap between their driveways felt impossibly small. In the faint glow of the streetlamp, she could see a light still burning on the second floor of Jade's house. He was right there. Just a few yards away, carrying the exact same secret, a permanent shadow over her life.
She forced her eyes away from the window and stared at her screen. She had drafted twenty different text messages to Liam, deleting every single one of them.
I'm so sorry. (Too simple).
It didn't mean anything. (A blatant lie).
Please let me explain. (He had seen enough to never want an explanation).
Before she could lose her nerve, she typed out a single sentence to him: Please tell me we can talk.
She hit send. The small bubbles appeared, then disappeared. Five minutes passed. Ten. No response.
Suddenly, the phone vibrated in her palm, making her gasp. It wasn't a text from Liam. It was an incoming call from Sarah.
Layla's blood ran entirely cold. She stared at the flashing screen, her thumb hovering over the green button as a paralyzing dread washed over her. Jade wouldn't have reached out to Sarah, they couldn't stand each other. Which meant Liam had finally gone downstairs to talk to his sister.
With a shaking hand, she pressed the phone to her ear. "H-hello?"
"Layla?" Sarah's voice came through the line, but the casual, warm tone from the taxi was completely gone. Her voice was tight, trembling, and dangerously quiet. "Liam just came into my room. He was shaking, Layla. I've never seen him look like that before."
There was a sharp, ragged intake of breath on the other end of the line, followed by a voice that sounded utterly broken by betrayal. "He told me what he saw in your room before the buses arrived. Layla... how could you do that to him?"