limerence | COMPLETED

02

(MILD) Trigger Warning: idealisation, depression, eating disorder.

----------

Dedicated my good friend FatimaZahraK who reminded me to publish new chapters when I forgot (whoops, sorry everyone!) and for giving my book a go 💖💖

----------

LAYLA'S PARENTS COME HOME JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT.

Layla hasn't long finished fixing the kitchen chair and replacing the light bulb in her room, and she's only really just sat down on the living room couch to do some homework, her textbooks messily scattered open around her. Well, it's more like her staring at the words on the pages and doing nothing rather than the actual work itself.

Upon hearing her parents entering the house, their shoes thudding and keys jangling, she looks up. Her parents offer surprised expressions at the sight of her sitting cross-legged in the silence, like two teenagers who were caught sneaking out after curfew.

They haven't come back this early in a long time.

"Oh! Hi, Layla," Emily whispers. She's almost the spitting image of her daughter with her almond-shaped eyes, freckles and long, light brown hair.

Layla manages a forced smile back in greeting. Her mother doesn't need to whisper.

"Ooh, yum. You made us food," Emily says happily when she spots the pan of vegetable soup cooling on the kitchen stove. It's actually just leftovers that Layla was planning to save for tomorrow rather than having to cook for herself again, but never mind. Guess she'll have to buy more groceries too.

"It's late. You should go to sleep," her father, Gerald, greets gruffly as he hangs up his heavy outerwear. Unlike Emily, he's very much the lesser reflection of Layla thanks to his neatly combed black hair, thick brows and grey eyes.

"I'm about to. I was just doing schoolwork."

"And starting to think about your university applications, I hope," he adds.

"How was the networking event?" Layla asks instead.

Neither of her parents had told her where they would be tonight, but judging by her mother's red lipstick and silk evening gown and the black suit her father's wearing, it's a fairly safe assumption to make.

"It was so good! Right, Ger?" Emily replies enthusiastically, kicking off her stilettos and plonking down onto the couch with a huff. Layla swiftly closes her book of messy notes and grabs her pens and textbooks.

"Yeah, a lot of people we knew were there," Gerald agrees as he pours them some more wine. "Tell her who we saw."

"Oo, yes! We bumped into my old work colleagues – you remember Arjun and Julie, right? Anyway, we ended up talking for ages. They're running a tech business together now. Like, actually together. If I worked with your dad I'd probably go insane."

"Wow, that's great," Layla says, not having the slightest clue who Julie and Arjun are.

"But guess what? Anna ran into Lola recently. Lola. You know, the one who got divorced, like, five times now?" Emily laughs and rolls her eyes, as if this is the most hilarious thing. Even Gerald chuckles from the kitchen.

Who? "Lola. Right."

"Anyway, it turns out she got married. Again. Apparently it's some hotshot lawyer this time, which I guess is pretty cool, although I'm more than sure that will end in another few months too."

"I see," Layla says dryly, unable to muster up any enthusiasm about their exciting evening. She proceeds to fake a yawn. "I better go to bed. Night."

"Goodnight," her parents chorus unquestioningly and their conversation ends just like that. Rolling her eyes, Layla lightly jogs up the stairs and steps inside her dark room, quietly closing her door behind her.