Page 103 of Landon & Shay: Part One

“Aren’t you a little old to be messing with people? Landon doesn’t want you anymore, Monica, and I know you don’t want him either. I’m not even sure you ever did. Why don’t you just leave him alone? Leave us alone. You’re going off to college next year anyway. Why can’t you just let people be? We’re not bothering you, so why do you have to bother us?”

“Because I don’t like you, Gable. Okay? I don’t like your goody-two-shoes personality, and for the longest time, Landon hated it too. Besides, just because I don’t want him, doesn’t mean I’d let some mutt have my leftovers. So I’m going to give you this fair warning: stay away from Landon, Shay, or you will regret it.”

“You don’t scare me. There’s nothing you can do to me. I’m not some kind of puppet in your world that you can manipulate, Monica. If I want to talk to Landon, I will. There is nothing you can do to hurt me.”

“Oh, Chick,” she hissed, leaning in close. “You have no clue how bad I could burn you. Don’t push me. I will destroy your whole life in one fell swoop.”

“Why are you like this, Monica?”

“Because I can be,” she stated. She arched a brow. “Maybe you and I should make a bet of our own. What do you think about that? I bet you I can ruin your life before opening night of your stupid show.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Game on, Shay. Don’t expect me to play like Landon where I show you sympathy because he thinks more with his dick than his brain. Your life is officially in my hands. The countdown is on. Get ready to burn.”

She walked off, and I dashed to my locker, opened it up, and searched for whatever it was Monica had been trying to find…but it seemed nothing was missing. Everything was in its place, and I was left dazed and confused.

I jumped out of my skin when I felt a hand land on my lower back.

“Hey,” Landon said, tossing his hands up in surrender. “You’re a bit jumpy.”

“Sorry. Just tired.”

“Did you get in a lot of trouble over the weekend with your parents?”

“Oh, you have no clue, but it was worth it. No regrets.”

He smiled, and oh gosh, I loved when he did that. Then he glanced down the hallway and raised an eyebrow. “What were you talking about with Monica?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said, closing my locker and securing it. “Nothing of importance anyway.” He looked at me with concern, but I shrugged it off. “Walk me to class?”

“Of course.”

As we walked together, he made me laugh, and just like that, Monica was nothing but a fleeting thought in my mind.

25

Landon

“What is this?”I asked Monica as she stood on my front porch with notebooks in her grip.

“It’s everything you need to know about your pretty, pretty princess. Or, more like everything she knows aboutyou.”

She held them out toward me, and I began flipping through them, reading words that were obviously written by Shay.

Words about me…words that were very negative about me. She called me closed-off, mean, a monster. She said I pushed people away, and I kept things to myself. She called me fake and said I lived a life of lies.

She said she hated me.

She wrote that a lot.

I hate Landon Harrison.

Underlined, highlighted, and written dozens of time.

But everything was dated before the bet happened. She was writing about me before I let her in, and I didn’t have a problem with that. From Shay’s point of view at that time, everything was spot on.

Iwasa monster. Iwasmean. Iwasfake. Ididlive a life of lies.

---