Page 46 of Landon & Shay: Part One

Still, he was right. I hadn’t figured out a way to get close to Shay. We’d never really had true interactive moments outside of spitting rude comments toward each other in the hallways. I needed to be in the same space as her for longer than five minutes in order to close this bet down.

But how?

“All right, I think we’re all settled. I’ll catch you around, kid.”

“Wait, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Have you been dealing to Monica? She’s seemed a bit out of it lately, and I know she normally buys from you. I mean, I know she’s always out of it, but she seems extra burned out, more than weed. What have you been giving her?”

KJ sighed and whistled low. “Sorry, Landon. That’s doctor-patient confidentiality right there. I can’t give out that information.”

I huffed. “You’re not a doctor.”

“But I do make people feel better.” He smirked. “Sorry, buddy. If she wanted you to know, I’m sure she would tell you. She’s a grown woman. She can take care of herself.”

She wasn’t a grown woman, though, and she couldn’t take care of herself. I’d seen her low points when she wasn’t feeding herself or showing up for class, when I had to make her food and do her homework just so she could pass. For a long time, I’d worked as her anchor, but now she was floating away on her own. She was hardly eighteen, and she was on a path to destruction, a path KJ was helping her travel down.

“Look, all I’m saying is she has a lot of shit going on in her life. She doesn’t need whatever you’re giving her to add to that chaos,” I explained as calmly as I could.

“And like I said, she’s a grown woman. She can handle it.”

“Stop selling to her, KJ,” I spat out, the words rolling off my tongue with disgust.

KJ laughed and shook his head. “You’re not her parent or guardian.”

“You don’t even care, do you? You don’t care that you’re killing her?”

“I’m not stuffing the pills down her throat, Landon. That’s on her.”

I stood up and my hands made fists. “You need to get the hell out of my house.”

“Monica was right.” He kept snickering, tossing his hands up in defeat. “You’re less fun when you’re sober. Listen, I’ll pull back with her, all right? I’m not out here trying to kill nobody. Take it easy. Life’s not that serious.”

He swore he’d pull back, but I didn’t know him well enough to know if I could believe him. All I had to go on was the hope that he’d do the right thing down the line.

13

Shay

Monica Smith wasn’tmy friend.

I knew what a friend was, and I knew what an enemy was. What I didn’t know was what exactly Monica was to me. A frenemy, perhaps. An enemy who smiled as if we were close? An acquaintance who’d betray me down the road?

There had been a time when we were close friends, though, a time when I didn’t doubt our connection. We hung out all the time as kids, with Tracey and Raine. We’d go pretty much everywhere together, and we were into the same kinds of things. There wasn’t a weekend that the girls weren’t sleeping over at my house, and that included Monica.

The shift in the friendship happened when Monica and I both auditioned for the middle school’s performance ofCinderella. Monica was so excited about playing Cinderella, but when I was given that role and she was cast as one of the wicked stepsisters, she seemed to somewhat resent me. She quit the show and never auditioned for anything else again.

She claimed theater was for losers who didn’t have good enough lives to be themselves, so they had to act like someone else.

She also said she couldn’t be seen in my neighborhood anymore. “This is where poor people live, and my father said it’s not safe for me to be over here,” she commented. I knew that was a lie, though. I’d been to her mansion enough times to know her father hardly noticed she was alive.

Over the years, while the friendship between Tracey, Raine, and me stayed intact, Monica became her own Cruella De Vil. It was as if her personality shifted overnight.

Monica was a perfect example of the girl who had social status, beauty, and wealth. She oozed popularity and despised anything and everyone who wasn’t as popular, rich, and stunning as her.

Therefore, she pretty much hated everyone.

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