Page 62 of Landon & Shay: Part One

I lazily grinned. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Uncle Kevin said firmly, walking into the living room. “It’s not okay.”

It felt good to hear that, to hear that it wasn’t okay.

If only my family could’ve realized that fact. The fighting drove me mad. Watching Mima and Dad go at it on the regular was really wearing on me. Sometimes, it didn’t even seem as if they were fighting about anything of importance. If there was a spoon left in the sink, they’d go to war over who had left it there, and, like the peacekeeper she was, Mom always took the blame, which would spiral into yet another argument from Mima about how Mom was being an enabler, not a team player.

“Your love is what keeps him from doing right,” Mima would tell my mother. “Why should he do the right thing when you always forgive his wrongs?”

So often I thought Mima was right.

So often I prayed she was wrong.

Coming to my cousin’s house always felt peaceful. I wasn’t sure they ever fought, and if they did, it was probably over what TV show to watch or something. I’d never seen three people fit so perfectly together. Eleanor’s family was pretty much perfect. They were those smiling people you see in the picture frame before you put the real photograph in.

Picture perfect.

My family was an episode ofThe Real World. You could walk in and see what happened when people stopped being polite and started getting real.

I headed to Eleanor’s bedroom, and she already had a blowup bed pumped up with air. She lay on it with a book in her hand. I would’ve fought her about her taking the air mattress over her actual bed, but whenever I stayed over, she refused to let me take the uncomfortable bed.

“You’re already feeling down. Your back doesn’t have to feel down, too,” she’d tell me.

Eleanor’s room was filled with bookshelves from floor to ceiling. There were dozens and dozens of novels sitting on those shelves, and if it were anyone else, I would’ve assumed so many of those books went unread, but knowing my cousin, she’d probably read through all of them more than once.

I plopped down on her bed, where she’d already laid out a set of pajamas for me. My lips released the most dramatic sigh in the history of sighs.

Eleanor looked up from her book then closed it.

I knew that didn’t seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but for Eleanor to close her book to have human interaction was a big deal. My shy introvert of a cousin only closed her book for those she loved the most.

“What were they fighting about?” she asked, sitting up and crossing her legs to face me.

“Beats me. I just heard the yelling and turned around to leave.”

“Seems to be happening a lot more than normal lately,” she commented, and I didn’t reply because a reply wasn’t needed.

Yes, it’d been happening a lot more lately.

Yes, I hated it every single second of every single day.

“Do you think your dad is…” Eleanor’s words trailed off because she knew how sometimes words could hurt even when they weren’t intended to sting. She didn’t want to finish her thought, but I knew what she was asking—was my father dealing again?

No, I prayed.

Yes, I found more likely.

“I don’t know,” I answered, speaking truthfully.

The last time my dad and I had spoken about it, he’d promised he wasn’t, but a promise from a former liar was the hardest truth to believe. Dad used to lie about everything to cover up his missteps. It usually worked for such a long time, too, up until he either blacked out drunk, overdosed, or Mom caught him in his web of lies.

Once, she followed him to a house where he was dealing.

I’d sat in the back of her car.

I was ten years old.

What a time to be alive.

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