Chapter 22
Landon
It had been three hundred and sixty-five days.
The Earth had orbited the Sun over the past three hundred and sixty-five days.
The moon had risen over each of those three hundred and sixty-five days.
People had laughed, cried, and celebrated all sorts of occasions.
And Lance had missed all of it.
He’d missed the sunrises, the sunsets, the thunderstorms, and the clear days.
He’d missed my birthday.
My birthday.
I was eighteen years old.
Young and stupid but feeling old as shit.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept longer than thirty minutes—except for when Shay forced me to sleep. The past week had been a struggle, seeing as how she didn’t have her cell phone to call me late at night.
My head hurt from the lack of sleep, and no matter what I did, the circles under my eyes were still there, heavy and deep.
The hug Shay gave me in the cafeteria was more needed than she knew.
I was standing in the cafeteria while my mind was shouting at me, and I couldn’t move.
Then along came Shay with her embrace. Maybe she knew, though.
Maybe she had become such a professional at reading me that whenever I was about to break, she knew to be there for me.
* * *
After the school day, Greyson, Hank, and Raine tried to talk me into hanging out at Hank’s house to celebrate my birthday, but I lied and told them I had plans with my dad.
I didn’t feel like being surrounded by people that night.
My mind was too loud, and I didn’t want to be the dramatic buzzkill for my friends.
I tried my best not to think about the fact that my parents weren’t there. Mom called first thing in the morning, which was late evening in Paris. Then she called again and again.
“I love you and I love you,” she’d repeated each time. “I’m so sorry, honey, I promise I’ll explain soon. Happy birthday. Please call me. Please text. Please. OK, I love you, Landon. I’ll be home soon. I love you.”
I didn’t answer her calls, didn’t feel like hearing her excuses for why she wasn’t around, but I sent her a text, because fuck me, I was pathetic and didn’t want her to worry too much about me that day.
Me: I’m OK. Hope you’re OK, too.
I would have bet that text made her cry. Mom was always so easy to cry.
Dad hadn’t called at all. He didn’t even have to wish me a “happy” birthday, because it was hard to be happy on a day like today, but a simple birthday greeting would’ve meant something to me.
I went home, hung with Ham, and played video games as long as I could. When my doorbell rang around six, I grumbled as I went to answer it. I was 100 percent certain it was Monica coming to cuss me out for some unknown reason, but to my surprise, there stood Shay with a big box in her hands.
“Hey you.” She smiled wide, and I was falling.
I was falling so deeply in love with her, and this bet of ours was going to come to a crashing end due to me losing.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Aren’t you grounded?”
“I snuck out.”
“Chick . . .” I sighed, feeling a knot in my gut. She wasn’t the type of girl to sneak out. She wasn’t the type of girl to break rules, or to skip school, or to lie. And now she was doing all of those things.
Why did I feel like my badness was rubbing off on her a little too much?
“Are you going to invite me in?” she asked, still smiling. “Or am I just going to stand here like a dork with this box in my hands?”
I stepped to the side. She walked right in, heading toward the kitchen.
“What’s in the box?” I asked.
“A surprise for later,” she said, opening the fridge and sliding it inside. “No peeking.” She then turned around, and I was still falling, falling, falling . . . “I figured we could hang out tonight, and we should order pizza and watch Friends.”
A perfect day with a perfect girl.
I am falling in love with you . . .
“For sure.”
I would’ve been surprised if she didn’t hear my heart beating wildly.
We sat on the living room couch, and I was so damn thankful that she appreciated the gem that was Friends more than her grandmother.
Every time she laughed at something Joey said, I’d capture her smile in my mind.
Every time she chewed on her T-shirt whenever Ross and Rachel were on the screen together, I’d capture her beautiful eyes.
“You always stare at people when they aren’t looking?” she joked, peeling a pepperoni off her pizza.
“Only you.” Only ever you.
She turned to me, seemingly surprised by my words. She placed her pizza down, wiped her hands on a napkin, and moved in closer to me. Her finger traced my lips while her eyes studied them as they parted. Then she placed her forehead against mine and closed her eyes.
Her mind was moving, yet still, I couldn’t hear it.
“Is this still a game . . . ?” she asked, her voice so low and shaky.
“I don’t know.” That was true. I didn’t know if we were still doing this because of the bet or if this was becoming something real for the both of us. I didn’t know if she was beginning to feel things the way I felt them, too. I didn’t know if she was falling, falling, falling . . .
“It scares me a little,” she confessed. “Whatever’s happening in my heart when I’m around you . . . it scares me.”
“It scares me too, but I know one thing for certain,” I said, placing my fingers beneath her chin and lifting it so we were looking into each other’s eyes.
“What’s that?”
“I am going to love loving you as much as I loved hating you.”
She kissed me, and the last sleeping part of my soul finally woke up as she fell against my lips. I tasted her heaven as I fed her my sins.
“Can we go to your room?” she asked. I tensed up a little.
“No good comes from us being in each other’s bedrooms, Chick, and if I take you up there, I’ll want to—”
“Break your headboard?” She smirked.
I chuckled. “Exactly. And—”
She cut me off again, this time placing her mouth against mine. Then she whispered her words against my lips. “Can we go to your room?” she repeated, giving me small kisses afterward.
I felt myself getting hard from her words, and I wrapped her in my arms. “Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes,” she promised.
I lifted her up into my arms and headed upstairs to my bedroom. When we reached the room, I hurried and got Ham out of there, closing the door behind me. The bonus to living a life like the one I lived? I knew no one was going to barge in on us that night.
I placed her on my bed, and I stood in front of her. She looked up at me with doe eyes wide with wonder, and I watched as she studied my body, her eyes scanning up and down.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
“You still want to?”
She grasped the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, tossing it to the side of the room. “Yes.”
She went to remove my shirt, and I paused, tensing up. “Wait, Chick . . .” I hesitated. I shut my eyes. I took in a sharp inhale, and she stopped.
“What is it?”
“I, um . . .” I turned away from her, and my hands formed fists. I could hear Monica in my head, shouting at me. Has she seen your scars? “It’s just . . .”
“Hey. It’s OK. You can talk to me,” she said, her voice so reassuring.
I nodded once, knowing she meant it, but I knew words wouldn’t fix it. It wasn’t something that had to be said; it was something that needed to be shown.
I kept my back turned to her, lifted the edges of my shirt, and pulled it over my head. I revealed the markings that sat against my chest. The scars over my heartbeats. Cuts from my past panics. Cuts from my messed-up brain. Cuts from my pained heart.
Her gasp was loud and clear. “Oh my gosh, Landon. What happened?!” she said, moving over toward me to examine the marks on my skin. Each mark stood for a time I lost myself. Each mark showed my pain and struggles against my skin.
After Lance passed away, I would have such bad panic attacks that I’d claw at my chest, feeling as if my heart was going to explode.
All I wanted was for it to stop hurting.
I wanted to rip it out. I wanted to claw my way out of the hurting.
The more I drank and did drugs, the deeper the claw marks grew.
It wasn’t until I stopped my bad habits that I stopped trying to rip my own heart from my chest.
My scars were healed, but still they were permanently placed against my skin. They raced in different directions. Sideways, up and down—slices of me exposed for Shay to see.
I closed my eyes, knowing they probably terrified her. Each day I showered, my fingers would brush against the memories of my mind.
She probably thought I was the worst kind of damaged goods, unworthy of love, unworthy of anything and anyone. Who could love someone with a mind as heavy as mine? Who could want someone with such ugly markings of their pain resting against their skin?
“My, um . . .” I took a breath, still unable to voice it—my truth. “Look, I get if you don’t want to hook up after seeing this, after seeing how fucked up I am in my head, but I figured I should show you before just freaking you out and taking off my shirt and—”
A chill raced down my spine as her fingers moved across the markings on my chest. My shoulders hunched as she traced the scars. My head lowered and I shut my eyes. I’d never felt so weak, so exposed . . . so real.
“Landon?” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“Are you sad all the time?”
“Yes.” I swallowed hard. “All the time.” That truth was the hardest to tell.
“My uncle was sad, too. He kept his hurting to himself. I saw it sometimes. I saw it, and I didn’t do anything about it.
Not that I could. But I should’ve tried harder.
If I’d tried harder, maybe he wouldn’t have .
. .” I took a breath. I lowered my head.
“I found his journals after he passed away. He had a lot of dark thoughts. He was so lonely . . . but the scariest thing about reading his words was how much they match my own mind, and that scares me. It scares me how much of my uncle I see inside of myself.”
“You’re not him, Landon,” she whispered, and I nodded slowly.
“Yeah . . . but what if I’m worse? What if my pieces are so messed up that I won’t ever be able to pull myself together? What if I end up like him?”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I won’t let that happen.”
I shut my eyes. I tried to push back my emotions. I tried to understand why she hadn’t yet run away from the mess that was me.
“Can I ask you something that I asked you before?” she whispered, her voice low, controlled, perfect.
“Yes.”
“Are you depressed?”
The tears rolled down my cheeks, and I didn’t even try to wipe them away. I nodded slowly, feeling as if there was a bomb inside my chest that was seconds away from exploding. “Yes.”
“OK.” She sighed and moved in closer. “OK.”
That was all she said. She didn’t run. She didn’t tell me my depression was wrong. She didn’t shy away.
That was exactly what I needed.
I just needed someone to stay.
Her mouth fell against the scars, and she gave them small kisses. She made sure to kiss every single one before moving to my cheeks and kissing my tears away.
“You are more than the story these scars tell, Landon. You are more than your uncle. You are more than your depression. You are kind.” She kissed my chest. “You are strong.” She kissed my neck.
“You are intelligent.” She kissed my palms. “You are talented.” She kissed my thumbs.
“You are beautiful.” She kissed the corners of my eyes.
“And this world needs you. I know those are just words, and you might not even believe them, but I am going to tell you them every single day, just as a reminder when you need it.”
She kept telling me things about myself as she kissed every piece of me. For every scar, she gave five more compliments, which she called my truths. For every painful memory, she promised me a better one for the future. She kissed my scars and called them beautiful.
“Landon?” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry I never noticed your sad.”
I kissed the temple of her head, wanting her to stay forever. “I’m sorry I never noticed yours.”
“Landon?”
I gently smiled. “Yes?”
She leaned forward and kissed the history resting against my chest. “I think your scars are beautiful.”
Fuck, Chick . . .
I blinked away my tears. “I think your scars are beautiful, too.”
She pressed her body against mine. “Landon?”
I replied with a lowered tone, almost feeling breathless. “Yes?”
Her forehead fell against mine. “I want all of you against me. Please . . . ?”
I hesitated for a moment, knowing what a big deal this was for her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, but . . .” She paused her slight movements and looked at me with an intense, emotional stare.
There was a gentle fear that sat uncomfortably in her brown eyes.
Her vulnerabilities were loud and clear as she lay in my bed.
“Can you do something for me?” she whispered as she placed her hands against my bare chest.
“Anything.”
She lowered my lips to hers and slipped her soft syllables straight into my mind. “Go slow.”
I didn’t know if she meant go slow with her body or with her heart.
I took my time with both.
* * *
We fell asleep in one another’s arms, but she was gone when I woke up. Probably to get home before her parents noticed.
It was the best night’s sleep I’d had in years.
I walked down to the living room, and everything was spotless from the night before. The pizza boxes and the snacks we’d had were all tossed into the trash cans.
On the refrigerator was a note: Open me.
I pulled the fridge open, and there was the big box Shay had brought, sitting on the middle shelf. I pulled it out and opened it to find eight perfectly frosted cupcakes, each one with a letter written on it.
I H A T E Y O U
A note was next to that, and I read it over and over again.
Happy birthday, ya filthy animal.
—Chick
P.S. Don’t worry, I still hate you, but every birthday boy deserves a cupcake.
I picked up a cupcake and took a big bite.
Fucking hell.
I loved her, and I’d always would.
I think I meant that.
I think I meant always.