Landon & Shay - Part Two: (The L&S Duet Book 2)

by Brittainy Cherry

  Before I could reply, a camera flashed in both of our faces.

  Flash.

  Followed by another.

  Flash, flash!

  Just like that, the gentle moment was ruined, because in the world we lived in, Landon wasn’t allowed to have stolen moments away from the limelight.

  31

  Shay

  Landon had flown out for some charity event in California, and we’d hadn’t been able to talk since he’d opened up and asked me to give him another chance.

  My mind hadn’t stopped swirling since he said that. I didn’t know how to handle those words coming from his mouth. To me, a second chance at love meant a second chance at heartbreak. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that. The last time my heart was crushed, it took forever for me to put the pieces back together, and I swore it never beat the same again.

  All my thoughts on that subject were put on hold when I received a phone call from Eleanor early one morning, and she was sobbing into the phone receiver.

  “Ellie, what’s going on?” I asked, panic falling into my chest as I sat up in bed. My cousin’s cries were heavy, and just from hearing the sound, I felt as if I were going to fall apart, too. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Karla,” she pushed out, her words coarse and rough.

  That made me sit up even more. “What about her? What happened?”

  “There was an accident. She went to a party last night, and people were bullying her to an extreme. They dumped trash all over her and rubbed fish guts across her body.”

  “Oh my gosh. Is she okay?” What in the hell…?

  My chest ached with panic as Eleanor told me what was done to Karla. At a party…the party I’d told her she should’ve gone to. Guilt shot through me as I listened to Eleanor fall apart.

  “No, she’s not okay. I stayed with Greyson that night to comfort him, because he was breaking down over what happened, and the next morning, Karla found me in his bed. She went off, about how he was betraying her mother, and oh my gosh, Shay,” she cried, unable to continue her words.

  “Breathe, Ellie. Please, breathe. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “It’s not, though. Nothing is going to be okay,” she said, sounding more and more wrecked with every passing second. “She ran away, and Greyson found her at her mother’s gravestone. S-she had a bottle of pills with her, Shay. She was going to overdose.”

  Oh my gosh.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  The tears officially began falling down my cheeks.

  The first thing that came to mind was Landon.

  I had to call Landon, because even though we weren’t who we used to be, I still remembered how heavy situations affected his soul. Especially when it came to things like a person overdosing and trying to take their life.

  I scrambled to dial his phone number, and when he answered, he knew exactly what I was calling about.

  “Hey. Grey already called me. I’m heading to the airport right now to get home,” he said. I could hear the panic in his voice, the fear sitting in his throat.

  “Okay. If you need anything…” I started.

  “Thanks,” he replied. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  The question made more tears fall from my eyes. “No. Are you?”

  “Not at all.”

  32

  Landon

  By the time I arrived in Chicago, Greyson already had Karla in an inpatient mental health clinic. I had a taxi take me directly from the airport to the clinic and when I arrived, Shay was sitting in the waiting room, right beside Greyson.

  I hurried over to them and didn’t say a word at all. I simply pulled Greyson into a tight embrace and refused to let go any time soon.

  “Fuck, Grey,” I muttered, feeling my emotions heightening as I held on to my friend.

  “I know,” he agreed, pulling away from me. He pinched the bridge of his nose before wiping the tears that began to fall down his cheeks. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. Landon, if she would’ve taken those pills…” he started.

  I shook my head. “She didn’t. She didn’t, Greyson. She’s okay.”

  “She’s not okay.” He sniffled and wiped his hand beneath his nose. “She’s so fucking far from okay.”

  I didn’t know what to say, because he was right. Karla wasn’t all right, and she wouldn’t be for a long time. I knew those struggles, and the heaviness of the thoughts that came with thoughts of suicide. I knew how it overtook a person and could’ve swallowed them whole.

  I’d been there before. I’d lived that life, and it took a lot of time and soul-searching for me to crawl out of that cave of despair.

  “Mr. East?” a woman called out. “You can come back now. The exam is over, and your daughter asked for you to be with her for the next steps.”

  Greyson hurried away. I raced my hands through my hair and took a deep breath before turning to Shay. “Hi.”

  She stood to her feet. “Hi.”

  Then, she bombarded me with a hug. She hugged me. Her arms wrapped tightly around my body in a warm embrace. I couldn’t recall the last time Shay hugged me. Hell, it’d been years. Sure, lately our bodies had been falling together, but never in the form of a hug.

  I welcomed the embrace.

  I needed it, because I felt as if I was seconds away from falling apart.

  I cleared my throat as we pulled apart from one another. “How’s your heart?” I pushed out.

  She smiled the saddest smile in the world as her brown eyes pierced straight into my soul. “How’s your heart?” she countered.

  A few tears fell from my eyes, and I quickly pushed them away. I forced a smile. “Still beating.” Not as strongly as it should’ve, but it was still going strong, because Karla was still in this world with us. We hadn’t lost her, and that felt like the smallest of victories.

  We sat down in the waiting room, quiet as time ticked on, but everything around us felt still.

  We didn’t exchange words, because there wasn’t much that could’ve been said. I was glad she sat beside me, though, because I needed someone near me. I needed the ever-so-often touch she’d delivered to my shoulder, or my knee to remind me that I wasn’t alone, even though my mind was trying to tell me a different story.

  Maybe my heaviness rubbed off on Karla.

  Perhaps this is my fault.

  Those were some of the lies shooting through my head. Those were the demons I was certainly trying to slay. Every time the thoughts began to grow too big, I’d find Shay’s hand against my shoulder blade, and the weight of the world began to dissolve.

  I tapped my foot repeatedly against the tiled floor as my mind spiraled down a long staircase of memories.

  “It’s hard to be here,” I quietly confessed.

  Shay tilted her head in my direction and frowned. “Because of your uncle?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Because of me.”

  Her eyes narrowed with confusion as she looked my way.

  A few hours later, Greyson came out and gave me a lopsided smile. He looked exhausted, as if he’d been hit with a semi-truck. “Hey, Karla is asking to see you,” he told me.

  I nodded and looked back to Shay. “Are you coming, too?”

  She shook her head. “No. I actually doubt she wants to see me, seeing how I’m connected to Eleanor, and that was a big issue. I don’t want to be a trigger for her.”

  “Oh.” I tilted my head. “Then why are you here?”

  She gave me a tight smile and I knew exactly what her answer was without her even saying it.

  She was there because of me.

  I think in that moment I fell in love with her all over again.

  Truth was, I probably never stopped loving her to begin with.

  As I headed back to see Karla, my gut tightened as I walked down the long hallways. The height of my anxiety was through the roof, but I knew I had to be strong, because that little girl needed me to be there for her. I wouldn’t show my weakne
sses as I sat beside her.

  The clinic had private rooms set up for each of the patients. As I passed by a few of the rooms, I saw decorations against their walls, showcasing their lives. The more decorations, the longer amount of time the individuals had been at the clinic.

  I remembered during my time in an inpatient clinic, my walls were emptied at first. Then, each day that passed, I filled the walls with letters.

  Letters I’d written for Shay.

  I’d spent three months in the clinic, and when I got out, I took down all of my words, and hoped to one day give them to her to showcase how she’d helped me through the darkness, even though she hadn’t even known I was drowning.

  By the time I was better, Shay had already moved on, and she was never able to read the words I’d created solely for her.

  I stood in the doorway of Karla’s room, and stared at the blank walls, hoping she wouldn’t have to fill them up to the brim before finding her way home.

  There was a twin-sized bed, a table with two chairs, and a desk. Everything looked so dull and lifeless. On that small bed sat Karla and her beautiful darkness.

  It took me a long time to realize that darkness could be beautiful, too. So many beautiful things lived in the shadows, and it was our duty to be kind enough to them and to remind them that they, too, belonged.

  She looked up to me and tried to muscle up a smile but failed. “Hey, Uncle Landon.”

  “Hey, sport. Can I come in?”

  She nodded.

  I stepped into the room and went straight in her direction. I sat down on the bed and wrapped my arms around her. She hugged me back. She hugged me so tight. So very tight. Almost as if she was thankful to still be around to hug. To feel. To exist.

  I was so damn happy for that, too.

  I was so happy I was hugging that little girl in my arms that evening.

  “I’m sorry,” she sniffled, pulling away.

  “For what?”

  “For being stupid and thinking about taking those pills.” She shook her head back and forth. “I wasn’t going to do it, Uncle Landon. I swear, I wasn’t.”

  I rubbed my hand against her back. “You know what I am to you, Karla?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A safe place. You don’t have to say what you think people expect you to with me. You don’t have to lie to try to protect my feelings. Okay? I’m your safe place. You can trust me. No lies here. Only truths.”

  The curve to her back intensified as she rolled her shoulders forward. “I’ve thought about it before,” she quietly confessed. “I’ve thought about it a lot since the accident.”

  That truth hurt my heart more than anything in the world, but I patiently listened to her share her darkness with me.

  “I think I’m depressed,” she whispered, almost as if she was ashamed to admit it.

  “Tell me what that’s like for you.”

  “Every day is hard. Even the good days feel hard, and I don’t know how to stop my heart from hurting. Everyone around me is so happy all the time lately, too. Lorelai is the happiest kid in the world. Dad is moving on with Eleanor. Everyone is getting better after the accident, except for me. Everyone is healing, but me. It pisses me off, too. It makes me so angry that everyone is happy except for me. That’s all I want. I want to be happy, Uncle Landon.”

  I wrapped my arms around her again and pulled her into my side. I needed her to feel my presence, to remind her that she wasn’t alone that night.

  “You’ll get there, Karla, I swear. I know it sounds corny as shit, but these things take time. When your mind is heavy, you have to go through a lot of tests and trials to figure out what works for you, and what doesn’t. Sometimes, it’s meditation, other times it’s medication. There’s no one way road to depression, Karla. You have to find out what works for you, you have to learn your triggers. I promise you, just because you deal with depression, doesn’t mean it’s a death sentence.”

  “I don’t want to die,” she swore, and I believed her, too. I saw it in her eyes. Perhaps that was her biggest truth—the fact that she wanted to live.

  “I know, and we are going to do everything in our power to make sure we figure out what works best for you.”

  She nodded slowly, taking in all my words. “How do you know so much about depression? You have everything. I doubt you’ve ever been sad a day in your life.”

  I laughed a little. “You have no clue how ironic that comment is.”

  “What? I mean it. I bet you’ve never even cried before from being sad.”

  “I cried today, when I heard about you. I’ve cried plenty of times due to my sadness. Look.” I rolled up my sleeves of my shirt and took her hand into mine. I ran her fingers across my tattoos, across my scarred skin where the imprints of my past still existed. “Do you feel that?”

  “Yeah, what is that?”

  “My past sadness. I used to do self-harm, because I was trying to figure out my own depression.”

  Her eye widened. “You used to hurt yourself?!”

  “I did. I was searching for a way to feel something. To feel anything. It took me a while to learn what worked for me, but trust me when I say, I have a lot more happy days than bad ones nowadays. I find reasons to smile every single day, and one of those reasons is because of you, Karla. This world is better because you are here, and you’re going to make a difference in the most magical way. I just need you to keep fighting, knowing that you have a strong team in your corner, okay?”

  “I will. I promise. Mom wouldn’t want me to give up,” she said.

  “You’re right, she wouldn’t. I know she’s looking down on you right now with pride because she sees how strong you’re being through all of this.”

  She smiled and that made me smile, too.

  “I’m glad you didn’t hurt yourself too much as a kid. I would’ve missed you too much if you weren’t around. I’m really happy you’re still here, Uncle Landon.”

  My heart melted at those words. “I’m really happy that you’re still here, too.”

  After I said goodnight to Karla, I promised to stop by the next morning to see her. Greyson stayed the night with his daughter to make sure she knew she wasn’t alone. The two of them had a long road of healing ahead of them, but I was happy that it seemed they were finally walking on the same path beside one another.

  I walked into the waiting area to find Shay still sitting there.

  She smiled up to me and stood to her feet. “How is she?”

  “Alive and starting the path to healing.”

  “Good. I’m glad. I hate that she has to go through this.”

  “Me too, but sometimes you have to walk through the darkness for a while before you’re able to reach the light. She’ll get there. I’ll make sure she does.”

  “And what about you? What about your light?”

  “I’m seeing a little more of it each day.”

  “Good.” She nodded once. “That’s so good.” She shifted around in her shoes before glancing up at me again. “Do you want a ride to your hotel?”

  “That would be great. If you could drop me off there, that would be perfect.”

  We drove in silence, and every now and again Shay would glance my way. I saw the worry in her eyes as she looked at me. As if she was worried that I was living too much in my head—which I was. I was just too exhausted to put on a mask and act as if I were all right. Besides, I didn’t want to wear masks around Shay anymore.

  She walked me to my hotel room, and I thanked her for everything.

  “You shouldn’t be alone tonight,” she commented, leaning against the doorframe.

  “I’ll be okay. Besides, we have rules, right? No sleepovers,” I joked, trying to laugh off the heaviness sitting on my chest.

  Shay stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets and slightly swayed back and forth. “Landon…” she whispered, her voice low and tamed. “If you tell me to stay, I’ll stay. If you tell me to go, I’ll stay even longer.”

>   That was enough to make me nod slowly and step aside so she could walk into the hotel room. She closed the door behind her and looked at me with such care.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  I hadn’t known. She couldn’t erase what happened to Karla. She couldn’t go back in time and change history. She couldn’t stop the troubled thoughts soaring through my head.

  But she could do one thing, and perhaps that was what I needed most right in that moment.

  “Can I hold you?” I softly spoke, lowering my head.

  I needed her close to me that night. I needed to wrap her in my embrace and hold on tight so I would be reminded of the fact that I wasn’t alone.

  She placed her arms around me and pulled me closer. She melted into my arms, as if all she was ever meant to do was rest against my body. When I told her she could let go, that was when she held on tighter.

  I was so fucking grateful for that woman’s embrace.

  33

  Shay

  “I’m fine, really, Shay. It’s funny, the only thought going through my head right now is that I’m exhausted. I really want to crawl into my bed and go to sleep,” Landon said, rubbing his tired eyes. I’d spent the past three hours with my arms wrapped around him, and if I were honest, I wasn’t ready to let him go.

  I narrowed my eyes at him, uncertain of what to believe. Because for the most part, he seemed all right. He seemed as if he was handling everything perfectly well. Then again, I also knew Landon. I knew how he hid her hurts from the outside world. How he tried his best to be strong, even when all he wanted to do was fall apart. I knew how his cracked heart beat crookedly.

  So, the last thing I wanted was for me to go back to my place and leave him to fall apart all on his own. If he was going to fall apart, I wanted to be there to catch him.

  “I’ll stay the night with you,” I whispered.

  “What? No. I’m fine, really, Shay. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m good.”