"Life is a funny thing, Layla. You can think that you have it all together, that you have everything right where you want it, and then suddenly, everything you know gets pulled out like a rug from underneath you," Mom told me when I made my usual pit stop at home to make sure she had everything she needed to make the next day as easy as possible.

I wasn't quite sure what she meant by that, whether she was talking about the divorce, the MS, or something else, but it certainly seemed true to me.

"And it's also not fair to convince yourself that you've got it worse than anyone else," she continued.

"I don't do that. I'm working on an article about a girl who survived an attempted drugging and rape, so I know she's got it much worse than I do," I said.

"I was talking about Brooke," she said.

With Brooke at a sleepover for the night, I couldn't imagine that she had any idea what I had to do to keep our little family together. I had an internship lined up at one of the bigger newspapers in Madison, and since that didn't pay for medication or food or anything else, I didn't have the means to take it. Ryan struggled to understand that, and even though I never told him the full story (or any of the story at all, really), it really wasn't difficult to comprehend that not everyone had an infinite supply of money so they could work for nothing. It may have seemed out of character for someone as serious as me, but life was a funny thing.

Was that going to cost me in the future? Yes, and I knew that. But what choice did I have with a mother unable to work the way she wanted and needed?

"Well, I do have a lot more on my plate than her," I said. "It's not worse, but it's more."

"And she's an eighth grader," Mom replied.

Of course, when I was in eighth grade, Mom was in perfect health, but that was one tiny thing I had going for me over Brooke.

"Now that I've said what I needed to say to get you thinking, how are you feeling?" Mom asked.

I wasn't sure how much she wanted me to think or feel, so I just shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just trying to keep myself busy, and there's always something happening, which is both a good and bad thing, I guess."

"It's not healthy to be too busy to really deal with what's bothering you," Mom said. "Trust me, I have the opposite problem. When I want to do something, that's exactly when my vision and legs don't want to cooperate with me."

That certainly wasn't the case for me, since I had just made time to tell Isabel what I thought about her turning my misfortune into a story, but there was truth to everything she said usually, so I kept that advice in mind for the future.

***

I was a Wisconsin girl, born and raised. Ever since I was a little kid, I had known that I was going to end up at the University of Wisconsin for whatever I decided my ultimate goal would be, whether that was being a nurse, a journalist, or an astronaut (which, unfortunately for me, there was no four-year astronaut program at the school). And it was a good thing I had decided that home was really home, because when Mom began to struggle without any apparent reason, I had to be close to help her with emergencies and everyday life.

We later found out that there was a reason: lesions on the brain causing multiple sclerosis.

By this point, Dad had a whole new family that he loved, and he certainly couldn't be bothered to do anything to help his old children and ex-wife, so that left me to handle everything. I didn't mind that responsibility for the most part, but maybe it was taking a toll on me, especially now that Brooke thought I was a selfish idiot for not taking a future of enough money when it was standing right in front of me.

It probably was pretty selfish of me. Corey even told me that he thought I could use some stability for once, and I didn't take it and made a fuss instead.

I was already awake, but the alarm on my phone went off to start my day. I turned it off, pulled the blankets back up under my chin, and shut my eyes again.

Morning was the perfect time to accomplish a few items on my checklist for the day, but I only had one exam on my schedule in the afternoon, so there was nothing that I couldn't put off for a few hours. I had plenty of life on my plate, and I deserved an extra few hours of sleeping. Or thinking. Or absolutely nothing.

A knock came from my door. "Layla? Layla Gaudreau?"

I recognized the voice, but I couldn't quite put my finger on whose voice it was. It was a girl with a prettier-than-thou lilt, but there was a little bit of panic in the way that she said my name which forced a wave of nerves into my stomach.

"I'm so, so sorry to bother you this early, but I really need to talk to you. Isabel told me you live here," the voice continued.

Isabel and I didn't usually know the same people since we ran in completely different circles. While she loved her sorority sisters, I always had Corey's people and teammates to claim as my friends, and now that they were gone, I didn't really have many others besides Ryan. So who would know both of us and desperately have to talk to me?

Courtney.

I hadn't seen or talked to her since I found her unconscious on the bathroom floor during the Christmas party, so it would be a good idea to hear what she wanted to say, from a journalist and personal standpoint. As much as I wanted to have one morning to myself, I got up, tossed a robe on, and opened up the door. "Come in. I don't want you to wake up everyone in a five-mile radius."

"Oh, shit, sorry. I didn't even think about that," she said. She obviously looked much better than the last time I saw her, with plenty of color in her cheeks from the frigid winter morning air. "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay. I'm just tired and ready for the semester to end. What about you?" I replied.

She forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes and shook her head. "That's exactly how I'm feeling too. I don't even know if I'll want to come back here once finals are over. You know?"

I hadn't even thought about that. It was far from my empty desire to drop out so I could focus on keeping my family together. It had to be a real possibility in her mind, just to be sure that the incident wouldn't happen again, or at the very least to make sure that she wouldn't have to relive it every day.

Even though I didn't really know that struggle of hers, I nodded anyway. "So what's on your mind?"

She shut the door and sat down on the floor next to my bed. "It's nice in here."

I wasn't sure what she was trying to compliment, since I had absolutely no winter or Christmas decorations, my desk was littered with papers with half-written thoughts, and I had yesterday's clothes on the floor next to her. "Thank you, but you obviously came here to talk about something."

She nodded. "I don't want you to make a big deal out of what happened. I'd really prefer it if you didn't make it a story at all."

I blinked a few times. "What? Why not?"

"Because I don't want to think about it. I'm not sure if it actually counts as a traumatic experience since nothing bad actually happened—"

I interrupted. "No, Courtney. It was traumatic if that's how you feel."

"But everyone keeps making it into such a big deal, and I just want to pretend it never happened," she continued.

It was a big deal, and it wasn't going to be the last time something like that happened, so it was an important story to tell. It wasn't like my breakup that Isabel kept trying to force on the front page.

"Can I remove any mention of your name and make it an anonymous story? I don't want to write anything that makes you uncomfortable in any way, but people need to be aware that this kind of stuff happens," I said.

She hesitated. "I'd really rather you didn't at all."

I took in a breath as quietly as I could. I had already begun the process of gathering information, and this was the perfect project for me.

What was I supposed to do without this story?

I nodded. "I understand."

"Thank you. You're a good person," she said.

I was sure she didn't remember, but she also called me pretty when we first met, but I really didn't feel like either of those.

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Hello, and thank you so much for reading! I hope you had a great past week, and I hope this week is even better.

So do you think Layla will stick to her word?