Luke sits on the end of her bed without a word.
“Okay.” Layla takes a deep breath, looking down into her coffee cup as she thinks. “Back when I was in high school,” she starts, “I was pretty different to how I am now. I was shy. Quiet. There was this guy I liked. Donny Pritchard.”
Luke flinches.
“The guy at the bar?” I surmise, and she nods.
“He was two years older than me, but he got held back because he was, like, really thick. But he was handsome and over six foot, so all the girls fancied him anyway. One day when I was sixteen, he asked me out completely out of the blue. I was shocked; I didn’t realise he knew I existed. But of course I said yes.”
Josh and I exchange a look. I don’t like how this is going.
“About a week after we started dating,” she continues, “he brought me into the PE changing rooms at lunch time. We were snogging, and he asked me to take off my shirt. I told him I wasn’t ready.” She scowls. “He got mad. He told me that he never really liked me; he’d asked me out for a dare. I started crying and ran home. And by the time I got to school the next day, everyone was looking at me differently. Whispering about me behind their hands.” Her mouth twists. “Apparently, he’d told everyone I’d blown him in the changing room, and let him come on my face.”
I almost gag.
“What?” Luke demands. Josh stays silent, just looking at her.
She takes a calm sip of coffee. “That same day, I overheard twenty different rumours about me. I’d screwed three guys at once. I’d whacked off my maths teacher for a better grade. I had crabs, I had herpes, I was a diagnosed sex addict.” She laughs bitterly. “I was a virgin, for God’s sake. But still, all the girls hated me because they thought I’d steal their boyfriends away. The boys catcalled me in the hallways. I literally got propositioned about twenty times that day. Please, babe. Five quid for a blowie. I know you did it for Donny, why not me? You think you’re too good for me? I had my locker graffitied. My stuff destroyed. Rubbish thrown at me.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “Jesus.”
She studies her nails, her face blank. “I kept waiting for it to blow over, but it never did. For the next three years, I was the resident school slag.” Her face darkens. “And all of it happened because one stupid guy couldn’t take no for an answer.” She frowns up at Luke. “But it wasn’t your fault.”
“Do you think this is why you struggle to date now?” Josh asks carefully. I glance across at him. He’s trying to hide it, but he looks murderous; every muscle in his body is tense, and his jaw is clenched tight.
Layla shrugs. “Probably. It makes sense.” She fiddles with her coffee. “Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I had agreed to sleep with him. The rumours were awful, but at least I knew they were made up. If I’d actually slept with Donny, and then all this stuff came out, it would’ve ruined me. I don’t think I’d ever be able to get over that amount of shame.” She twists her fingers together. “So, yeah. It’s hard to trust a stranger with my body now, I guess.”
My heart feels like it’s cracking in my chest. Without thinking, I reach forward and gather her up, pulling her into me. For a second, she stiffens, and I think she’s going to pull away; but then she softens, laying her head on my chest.
“Thank you,” she says, her voice muffled.
“For what?” Josh strokes the back of her hand.
“Helping me get over this. Even if, like, I didn’t actually tell you what I needed to get over.”
I brush a kiss to her temple, and she closes her eyes slightly, leaning into me. “It’s our pleasure. But how did you get out of it, lass? You don’t seem like much of a wilting violet anymore.”
She purses her lips. “It was in my final year. I was in the changing rooms, getting changed out of my PE kit, and this girl came up. Emma Swann. She was one of the worst. She grabbed my clothes and tossed them out the window, so I was just left standing there in my bra and skirt like an idiot. The PE teacher came out of her office and asked why I wasn’t changed yet, and when I told her, she started yelling at me. ‘You make this excuse every week. It’s getting old. Stop being an attention-seeker, get your clothes on, and get to class before I give you detention.’ I looked around, and everyone started staring and laughing at me, and it was like… a switch flipped in my brain. I remember thinking — I can either let this ruin me, or I can just get the Hell over it.” She shrugs. “The teacher started shouting at me to get to class, so I just flipped her off and walked out to pick up my kit in my bra.”
I grin. “Nice.” Josh gives me an annoyed look, but Layla nods.
“It was nice. It was incredible. It was like I’d been pushed past my breaking point, and I wasn’t scared anymore. I didn’t care that people were staring at me. I didn’t care that they were talking. It was the first time I hadn’t been scared in years, and the feeling was just… addictive.” She sets her coffee cup aside. “I was suspended until my exams, and I spent all of the extra time working on my plan. I got a job at a proper lingerie store. After my A-levels, I got into university, enrolled in three evening business classes, and spent five hours a night sewing. Five years later, by the time I was twenty-three, I had my first version of the store. By twenty-four, I was making a living wage off my clothes. By twenty-six, I started paying influencers to promote my stuff. I started getting featured in online magazines and listicles. My social media hit five figures. And now, here I am.” She spreads out her hands. “It’s not easy. I still have to work overtime and hustle like Hell to keep my revenue up. But I worked hard, and I’m nothing like that kid getting bullied in high school, anymore. I made a plan, I stuck to it, and I was successful. More successful than most of those other kids will ever be.” Her eyes burn. “So I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. It’s not some big, tragic story. I came out of it better than any of them.”
“Baby.” I stroke through her hair. “Honey. You’re so strong.”
She squirms. “Stop petting me. It’s patronising.”
“Nope.” I cuddle into her closer, and she gives up, leaning into me. Josh squidges closer on her other side, taking her hand.
Luke finally speaks up. “I can’t believe none of the teachers did anything,” he says, his voice hoarse.
She glares at him. “Well. You should believe it. It’s true. I have plenty of proof.” She tries to wriggle out of my grip. I don’t move, and she bangs on my arm. “Free me.”
I sigh, letting her go, and she bends under the bed, pulling out a silver filing box. She dumps the box on the quilt and yanks off the lid, revealing stacks of printed emails. “I CC’d myself into all of the emails I sent the teachers, and I still have all of their replies,” she explains, flipping through them to a pile of handwritten notes. “I even got the teachers to sign forms whenever I made a complaint. It’s dumb, I guess, but I just… wanted to prove to myself that I was doing the right thing. Even if no one else was.”
“It’s not dumb,” Josh says, picking up one of the forms. “It’s smart. These write-ups might have actually held up in court, since you got the teachers to physically sign and date them. It’s impressive. What do you think, Luke?”
There’s a beat of silence. We all turn to look at Luke. He’s looking at the pieces of paper spread out on the quilt, his face grey.
“Luke?” I prompt. “You alright, mate?”
He swallows and stands, leaving the room.
