Page 7 of Landon & Shay: Part One

To which she had replied, “Okay, Shay. I’ll make sure not to tell Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth Bennet what you’re writing about. Though, I can’t swear I won’t tell Harry, Ron, or Hermione.” She joked, referring to the fact that other than me, she didn’t have friends, which was too bad. So many people were missing out on the greatness that was Eleanor Gable.

My phone dinged, then it dinged again—followed by about a billion more dings. Mom looked up at me with a knowing grin. “Tracey?”

“Sure is,” I replied. The only person who texted nonstop without ever receiving a reply was my close friend, Tracey. We’d grown up together, and it was no secret that Tracey was a bit chatty. She was the head of the cheerleading squad, and the president of student council, and she oozed school spirit. I, too, had a bit of school spirit in my bones, but Tracey was on a whole other level. She lived, breathed, and ate everything high school.

It wasn’t shocking that she was one of the most popular girls at our school. She was smart, beautiful, and funny, too. It was just a shame that most of the guys were a bit turned off by her oomph for life.

Tracey:Oh.Em.Gee! Reggie is going to the PARTY @ Land’s this SATURDAY! SHAY WE HAVE TO GO

Tracey:Before you say no (which I know UR thinking) I NEED NEED NEED this!

Tracey:I need you to be my wingwoman

Tracey:Three words: Reggie will be there

Tracey:Kk, that was four words, but you get it!

Tracey:PLEASEEEE SHAY! I need you. Reggie is IT for me, and a party at Land’s will help him realize it.

Tracey:Say yes?

Tracey:I’ll make sure you don’t even cross paths with Landon, let alone breathe the same air as him.

Tracey:I’ll also buy you a pony or something. Plz?!

I laughed as I read Tracey’s overly dramatic comments. She was head over heels for this new student, Reggie. He was the exact type of guy Tracey seemed to always lose her mind over: overly masculine, cocky, handsome in a ridiculous way, and very aware of his good looks. I didn’t know much about him other than what Tracey had told me and what I’d witnessed during our brief encounters at school, but I was certain Reggie had what I called AT—Asshole Tendencies. I hadn’t gathered enough information to know if he was an FBA—Full-Blown Asshole—but I was slowly but surely collecting data in hopes of protecting my friend from a heartbreak.

If there was one thing I was a professional at, it was reading people. It came with my gift of using real-life people as case studies for my characters’ development in my scripts. I could usually see a person and tell if they were a hero, a villain, or a supporting character with just a glance, but some people were a bit harder to grasp from a first meeting. I needed a chance to be around Reggie more to get a real feel for what he was all about.

Tracey:Does your silence mean yes?

Me:I want a blond pony named Marcy.

Tracey:That’s why you’re my fave human.

Going to a party at Landon’s house would be odd. We did pretty good at keeping our hatred for each other strong, and that meant I never went to his place for parties even though he had thrown them frequently throughout the past year. Ever since his uncle passed away, it seemed he had a party every other weekend.

I made it a habit not to attend, but seeing as Tracey was desperate for a shot with Reggie, I knew it was in my friendship duties. My hope was that the party would be big enough that I wouldn’t even have to interact with Landon at all.

We ran in the same group of friends, and I pretty much loved them all, but somehow, Landon and I never connected in a positive light. Even when we were kids, he hated me. Once, he called me a chicken because I wouldn’t smoke pot at a party. After that, Chicken became his nickname for me. I called him Satan—for obvious reasons.

We’d only ever so slightly connected one time, and that was when Mima took me along to Lance’s funeral. The reception after the service was held at his house, and I wandered upon Landon by accident as I looked for the bathroom. He was sitting in his bedroom, sobbing his eyes out on his bed, wearing his suit and tie, unable to breathe.

I didn’t know what to do because I wasn’t his friend. We were hardly even acquaintances. If anything, I was the villain in his story, as he was the one in mine, but at that moment, he looked so alone, so broken. I might not have liked him much, but I knew the love he had for Lance. It was no secret that Lance was a father figure to him. He was pretty much Landon’s father, if you asked me. His actual father was just a man who deposited money into Landon’s bank account.

As I watched him cry, I didn’t know what to do, so I did the only thing I could think of. I went and I sat beside him. I loosened his tightened tie and held him in my arms as he sobbed uncontrollably in my embrace. He fell completely apart, and I saw every piece of him shatter.

The next day at school, I walked up to him as he was grabbing books from his locker because I wanted to make sure he was okay. He grimaced and slammed his locker shut. His head lowered a bit, and he refused to look me in the eye as he spoke low and controlled. “This isn’t a thing, Chicken—you and me talking. You never cared about my feelings before, so don’t pity me now just because Lance is dead. I don’t want your charity. Go give your words to someone who gives a shit because I don’t, and I won’t.”

We didn’t talk about his breakdown again. It was almost as if the I’d made that moment up in my mind, and it was only a delusion. I was fine with that. If he wasn’t going to bring it up, then neither was I. We went back to our hatred, and I was thankful for the familiarity…though parts of me still thought about it sometimes. I thought about how sad the most popular kid at school was, yet nobody really even noticed.

Maybe it was a temporary sadness, though; the type of sadness that passed with time. Maybe by now, Landon was okay. Either way, he’d made it clear it was none of my business.

I had to come up with a game plan for his party—a few rude remarks in my back pocket, a lot of left turns when he was coming toward me, and a ton of complete avoidance.

“Hey, Eleanor.” I nudged her in the shoulder. She’d already slammed her piece of cake down and was now back to reading her book. “Do you want to come to a party with Tracey and me this Saturday?”

“Is it a reading party?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

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