Hopelessly Falling [book 2]

Chapter Twenty Two

XXII
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"You what?!" I asked her, astonished. She just nodded her head with a scared expression. "Holy shit.."

"How- why, when?" I was still taken aback as hell.

"A few days ago," she fiddled with her hands. My eyes stayed wide, I didn't really know how to react.

"Well damn," I mumbled, "How long have you guys been like, a thing?"

"Well, actually, we've only kissed once.." she trailed off.

"Wait a damn minute... are you telling me that you two did the deed on your first kiss??" I asked, taken aback.

"Yeah," she answered, slightly embarrassed, "I guess our feelings were pretty damn pent up.. we both had probably already fantasized about it and whatnot."

"Huh," I nodded, still not knowing how to react. "I, uh, wow."

Well I didn't expect to be finding this out tonight..

"So I uh, I told you for a reason, not just to dump it on you," she started, not finding whatever she was about to say to be easy, "while I was in foster care, I, um, had some shit happen to me and I'm finding it hard to get over it and, as you can tell, this situation I've just gotten myself into with Eli is already very sticky and I feel like I'm gonna mess it up even more," she vented. I just continued to listen.

"What happened?" I asked, and she looked up at me, a sadness in her eyes that I had never seen with her. There was a while of silence before she answered timidly.

"Um.. I was raped," she said quietly, "wow, I've never said that out loud before," she added and I noticed her hands shaking a little bit. My heart sunk and I immediately took her hands in mine as she looked down.

"Layla I am so so sorry. No one deserves that, especially not you," I said and she shrugged.

"I've mainly gotten over it, it's usually somewhat easy to forget when you distract yourself every day and whatnot... I just, I don't know," she sighed, "I can't help but feel like it's going to get in the way of this, and I don't want that. Not at all."

"Well, what makes you think that it will?" I asked.

"I don't know, like, when I was dating Justin one of the reasons he decided to become an absolute dirtbag and cheat on me was because I wouldn't sleep with him. I would get close or whatever but when it came down to it I never was able to get over the flashbacks," she explained.

"So um, Eli didn't, like, make you feel like you had to do anything, right?" The question came out pretty scrambled, the thought a little too uncomfortable to think about.

"No- no oh god no! It wasn't like that at all," she replied, and I let out a little breath of relief, "and I mean, It was the best I've ever felt, if I'm being honest.." she added and I chuckled a little bit.

"I think that we're good for each other," she told me, "I feel like in a weird way we complete each other, you know? We each have our own baggage but when we're together it just feels so much lighter," she told me. As she was talking I realized that she was feeling pretty much the same way I had when I first started really liking Ashton.. and thank God I didn't let my past get in the way of that.

"I think you guys are good for each other, too," I offered her a small smile. I mean, yes Eli didn't have the best history when it came to girls, but something about him and Layla just sat so right.

That could just be the hopeless romantic in me, though... hard to tell.

"I'm scared about Ashton, though," she confessed and I nodded, understanding why she would be worried.