16. THOMAS
When Landon torched that car, everything changed for me.
This was the most reckless I had ever seen him, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the possibility that his carelessness would take us both down.
The whole Danielle chase was becoming hard to justify, and worse, it was becoming very difficult to clean up after.
I wasn’t even sure what the endgame was for Landon anymore. Danielle had already gotten away. He was already on Alex’s radar. There was only so much he could do, and at this point, it was just safer to leave and never come back. But he didn’t see it this way; he never saw anything this way.
I was in a real shit place when I met Landon in middle school.
I had just moved to town. My family was poor.
We lived in a trailer park in the bad part of town.
I ate free meals at school, never had any name-brand or new clothes, and had no friends.
Landon was the only person who saw who I was beyond the ratty clothes and shyness, but looking back now, I don’t know if it was because he genuinely felt sorry for me or because he knew he could use me.
I looked up to acknowledge him but didn’t say anything because I couldn’t decipher if he was being nice or if this was some cruel joke, as it usually was.
I was content being alone and wasn’t looking for any pity friends.
When I didn’t respond, he sat down next to me, insistent on getting me to talk.
“I’m Landon.” He lowered his head to peer under the brim of my hat and catch my eyes.
“Thomas.” I still didn’t look up, but he spent the rest of lunch trying to converse with me. Occasionally, I’d respond with a shrug or a head nod. He did this every day for the next few days, until I had decided that he wasn’t trying to make fun of me; he was trying to be my friend.
It was the biggest mistake I ever made.
A week later, I got my first taste of the real Landon. We were walking back to my house after school, something I never did with anyone, because I didn’t want anyone seeing the absolute dumpster I lived in. But Landon insisted that he didn’t care and never took no for an answer.
“This is it, I guess.” I shifted my weight, eyes dropping for a second before I lifted my arm, pointing my finger at the trailer diagonal from us, like I was second-guessing my choices. It wasn’t in particularly bad shape, but it was old, evident by the dirty, worn siding and rusted window screens.
“You guess? You don’t know where you live?” Landon joked, ignoring my desire to be anywhere but here.
We went inside to play some video games, which, in my house, meant we were playing an outdated Nintendo system, sitting on a shabby brown shag carpet because there were four of us in the house and only one two-seater couch.
After an hour of playing Mario, Landon put his controller down, looked at the Nintendo, and then at me.
“You know, I could help you get a better gaming system.” His voice was hushed, not wanting my mom, who was just a few feet away in the kitchenette, to hear him.
I shook my head before he even finished. “No, I don’t want your pity or charity or whatever.”
“Fuck outta here.” The offense in his words was palpable. “I mean, you could help me, and I’d pay you. Like a job.”
“A job? You don’t even have a job.”
Landon looked past me at my mom, distracted by the food stamp dinner she was trying to put together, and looked back at me. “I mean, I don’t have like a hoity toity job. I sell… stuff.”
“Like drugs?” I had never known anyone who did anything illegal. If I were being honest, it fucking scared me. I was too scared to get in trouble; I just wanted to keep my head down, not bother anyone, and get through school.
“No, dumbass. I sell stolen shit.”
I went back to focusing on my game without responding, hoping he would drop it. No part of me wanted to be involved in whatever Landon was doing, regardless of what he was trying to do for me.
“You see, the problem is, I can’t keep up with selling, and there’s a bunch of stuff piling up in my closet that I can’t hide in there much longer. So, I need some help. And in return, I’ll give you half the money.”
I took a look at the crusty, old Nintendo in front of me—the one I had never complained about or had an issue with.
I was about to say no, but before the words could escape my mouth, I heard my mom drop a plate in the kitchen, and watched as our dinner, the last food in the house, spilled out from behind the counter that separated the sitting area from the kitchen.
Is it really such a bad thing if I’m doing it to help my mom?
The question lingered in my head for another minute or two before I sighed in agreement.
“Fine. Just for a little bit. Just to help my mom out.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just for a little bit. I got you.” I knew Landon didn’t believe me by the dismissive tone in his words, but it wasn’t immediately obvious that he was dismissive because once I said yes, he wasn’t going to let me back out, and not because he thought I’d change my mind on my own.
It wasn’t bad at first. I tried my best to pretend I had no clue the stuff I was selling was stolen—it helped me keep my conscious clean.
I told my mom I got a job bagging groceries at a store I knew she couldn’t afford to shop at, so I had no chance of her trying to show up and see me.
Without even realizing it, the “overflow” of stolen items was sold, and I was still there, still helping, still collecting the money.
The longer I stayed, the more it escalated.
One particular instance in high school, on prom night, Landon decided to rob the liquor store.
He made me keep watch, and once he came out running, I bolted after him without thinking.
But it wasn’t Landon who got caught; it was me.
He never came back for me, never turned himself in, nothing.
It was the first time in my life that I had ever gotten in any trouble.
My parents had to come pick me up from the police station, and I ended up having to do community service.
Landon never got in trouble for it because I never gave him up.
That was the first time I took the blame for something Landon did, but it wouldn’t be the last.
When I saw him again a few days later, he gave me half the money he made from selling the bottles of liquor to other kids at prom as a thank you for keeping his name out of it.
That was the beginning of the new relationship between us—Landon doing what Landon does, and me getting paid to cover his ass.
After that, most of the jobs he gave me were simple: drop a bag here, pick up a bag there. The tasks were easy enough, and Landon always took care of me. The higher up he got, the better the payouts were.
When he called me a few weeks ago and told me he had a long-term job with a lot of cash involved, and all I had to do was stay in a hotel, I was suspicious, but in. It wasn’t until I got there that I realized the breadth of what I was doing.
“What do you mean Danielle is in the hospital? Is she okay?” I was confused once he explained what I’d be doing. “And why can’t you just go see her?”
“Because I put her there, idiot.”
“Landon… no.”
Looking back on that conversation now, I should have just walked away.
Sure, he always had me doing shady shit, but in the past few weeks, he had added stalking, grand theft auto, arson, and a whole rack of other smaller charges to the list of shit he’d put on me.
Accomplice to murder? I wasn’t sure about that one, but definitely something along the lines of aiding and abetting, accessory after the fact, harboring a fugitive… the list went on.
I should have turned around and said no the second he asked for my help, but I felt a sick, co-dependent sense of loyalty to him.
Despite all the bullshit he had put me through my entire life, he was also the only friend I had, and he helped me in more ways than he realized.
The money he gave me for helping him with shit got my family out of the shithole they were in.
Under the guise of a hell of a good job, I helped my parents out.
My siblings got to go to college. None of that would have been possible without Landon. I felt like I owed him.
But now it had gotten to a point where he was careless and senseless enough to light a car on fire, in broad daylight, on the side of a busy road.
I had this gut feeling that I needed to find a way out sooner rather than later, but the only way anyone walked away from Landon is the same way Danielle did—dead or dying.
I was so close to snapping, and I was itching to shake some fucking sense into him, but I still couldn’t walk away; it would have been like turning my back on family. All it would take was one wrong step, or one more immoral, corrupt move, and I wasn’t sure I could give Landon my loyalty anymore.
The longer I stayed in the hotel room, the more I felt like a prisoner. My freedom and financial stability were lying in the hands of the irrational shell of a man that I once called a friend.
Just as I was reflecting on the nature of our relationship and how it evolved, I heard the key swipe in the door, and the heavy bootsteps of Landon entering the room.
“You’ve got to stop this, Landon. We’ve got nothing. We’re never going to get anything.” The pleading further agitated him, and it was apparent that he no longer saw me as a friend, or a person for that matter, but an extension of his work—someone to do his dirty work—and nothing more.
“We stop when I fucking say we stop. And I say we stop when I make sure we’re both in the clear. For good.” He left no room for debate, and even if he did, it would fall on deaf ears.
“When we’re in the clear?” I pressed him to answer. Maybe he wasn’t completely gone. Maybe he was still looking out for me, his friend.
“Well, I obviously can’t let you get caught. If you get caught, I get caught.” The words were harsh without him even realizing it. He didn’t give a fuck about me.
I wasn’t even sure at this point if he even gave a fuck about Danielle anymore. All he cared about was himself and the control he had over others.
I was at my fucking limit.