Seducing My Best Friend's Husband

Layla's POV 

I woke with empty arms and a memory I couldn't hold onto.

A cry.

Small and sharp and so alive it had cracked something open in my chest.

I'd heard her, hadn't I?

My hands moved instinctively to my stomach and found it soft, deflated, wrong, found the absence where she'd been for nine months and my breath caught in my throat because where was she, where was my baby.

"Where's my baby?"

The words came out rough and desperate and the hospital room around me came into focus slowly through the fog in my brain. White walls, too bright lights, the steady beep of monitors and something was wrong, something was very wrong because there was no crib beside my bed, no nurse holding a bundle, no soft sounds of breathing or crying.

Just silence.

And Claudia.

She sat in the chair beside my bed with her hands folded in her lap, her face arranged into an expression I couldn't quite read through the heaviness in my head.

"Layla," she said softly, reached for my hand. "You're awake."

"Where's my baby?" I asked again, tried to sit up but my body wouldn't cooperate, felt heavy and sluggish like I was moving through water. "Where is she?"

Claudia's fingers wrapped around mine, squeezed just a little too tight, held on just a little too long.

"You don't remember?" she asked and something in her voice made my skin prickle.

"Remember what?" My throat was dry, my tongue felt thick and I couldn't think straight, couldn't push through the fog that wrapped around my thoughts. "I need to see her, I need to hold her."

The door opened and a doctor walked in, the same one from before I think though I couldn't quite remember his face, couldn't quite remember anything except that cry, that small sharp cry that meant she was alive.

"Ms Walsh," he said without quite meeting my eyes. "I'm glad you're awake. How are you feeling?"

"Where's my baby?" I demanded and my voice cracked on the words. "I want to see my daughter."

The doctor exchanged a glance with Claudia, so quick I almost missed it, my stomach dropped because why would he look at her, why would he need permission or confirmation or whatever that look meant.

"Ms Walsh I'm very sorry but," he paused, seemed to choose his words carefully. "Your daughter didn't survive the birth."

The words didn't make sense.

They hung in the air between us and I heard them but they wouldn't connect to anything real, wouldn't form into meaning because she was alive, I'd heard her.

"No," I said while my hands started shaking where they gripped the sheets. "No that's not right, I heard her cry, she was crying."

"Sometimes in cases of stillbirth there can be reflexive sounds that," the doctor started but I cut him off.

"She was alive," my voice got louder even though my throat hurt, even though everything hurt. "I heard her, she was breathing, bring her to me."

"Layla," Claudia's voice was gentle, soothing, her hand squeezed mine again. "You're confused, the medication and the trauma—"

"I'm not confused," I tried to pull my hand away but she held on tight. "I know what I heard."

The doctor's face stayed carefully blank, professionally sympathetic in a way that made me want to scream.

"I want to see her," I said, forced the words out steady even though my chest was tight and my heart was pounding too hard. "I want to hold my baby."

Another glance passed between the doctor and Claudia, another moment of silent communication I couldn't interpret.

"I'm afraid that's not possible," the doctor said. "The body has already been taken to—"

"They took her to the nursery for the standard checks," Claudia said quickly, too quickly. "Remember? They explained all of this before."

I stared at her, tried to make sense of her words through the fog in my brain because why would they take a dead baby to the nursery, why would they do checks on a body, when had anyone explained anything to me.

"I don't remember that," I whispered.

"You were very out of it," Claudia said while her thumb rubbed circles on the back of my hand. "They gave you something strong for the pain and you kept drifting in and out. The nurse said she'd bring the paperwork by this afternoon."

"What nurse?" I tried to focus on her face, tried to read what was happening behind her eyes. "I haven't seen anyone since I woke up."

"From earlier," Claudia said. "When you were still recovering."

The doctor cleared his throat, took a step toward the door like he was ready to leave, like he'd delivered his terrible news and now wanted to escape.

"Wait," I said and my voice came out desperate, pleading. "Please, I need to understand, I heard her cry and now you're saying she's dead and I don't have a body and nothing makes sense."

"I know this is devastating," the doctor said while still not quite looking at me. "But sometimes these things happen and there's nothing anyone could have done differently."

He left before I could ask more questions, before I could demand better answers, then it was just me and Claudia in the too bright room with the steady beeping of monitors and the crushing weight of words I still couldn't make myself believe.

My arms felt wrong, so wrong, empty in a way that made my whole body ache.

I pressed my hands against my deflated stomach, felt the wrongness of it, felt how my body knew something had been there and now wasn't and the absence was like a physical wound.

"This can't be real," I whispered while tears started running down my face hot and fast. "She was alive, Claudia, I heard her."

"I know," Claudia said and her own eyes were wet, her voice thick with what sounded like grief. "I know this is awful and unfair and I'm so sorry."

She pulled me into a hug and I collapsed against her because what else could I do, who else did I have, I sobbed into her shoulder while she held me, made soothing sounds, stroked my hair.

But something felt off.

Something about the way she held me, the way she'd answered questions, the way she'd looked at the doctor.

When I pulled back and looked at her I noticed things I hadn't before through the fog and the pain.

Her hair was still damp like she'd showered recently.

Her clothes were fresh and neat with no wrinkles or signs she'd been sitting in a hospital all night.

Her makeup was perfect.

"I should let you rest," Claudia said, stood up smoothly, gracefully, like she hadn't been sitting vigil beside a grieving friend. "The nurse will be back soon with something to help you sleep."

"You're leaving?" I asked and hated how small my voice sounded.

"Just for a little while," she said, gathered her purse from the chair. "I need to make some calls and handle a few things but I'll be back tonight I promise."

She leaned down and kissed my forehead, her perfume was strong and floral and somehow wrong in this sterile room.

"Try to rest," she said. "You've been through so much."

She walked toward the door and I watched her go, watched the way she moved with confidence and purpose, watched the way her shoulders relaxed slightly once she thought I couldn't see her face anymore.

Just before she reached the door, just for a second when she thought I wasn't looking—

She smiled.

Not a sad smile or a sympathetic smile or even a tired smile.

Just a small, satisfied curve of her lips that disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

The door swung shut behind her and I lay in the too bright room with my empty arms and my empty stomach and the memory of a cry I couldn't prove I'd heard.

I knew, even through the fog of drugs and grief, that something was very, very wrong.