Page 104 of Landon & Shay: Part One

Yet all of that changed after we made the bet. That was before she opened my eyes, and melted my heart. Everything she’d written in those notebooks had shifted, because Shay allowed me to be real for the first time ever in my life.

“Where’s the rest of it?” I asked.

“What?”

I flipped to the end of one of the notebooks and showed the edge, remainders of the pages that had been ripped out. “Where are the rest of the pages?”

She shifted in place. “What does it matter? Didn’t you read the shit she said about you? She thinks you’re awful.”

“Thought,” I corrected. “She thought I was awful, and she was right. What was the lie in her words?”

Monica parted her lips to speak but nothing came out.

I cleared my throat and shrugged my left shoulder. “We need to stop this, Monica. Whatever this is, it needs to end. We’re never going back to what we were before, okay? And please, leave Shay alone. If anything, she’s making my life better.”

“You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?” Monica asked. “You’re really going to choose Shay?”

“I’ll choose her if she chooses me.”

In that moment, I saw something in Monica I hadn’t seen in a long time. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t vicious. She was sad—maybe even sadder than me.

Her lips parted as a whisper escaped her. “Then who’s going to choose me?”

I didn’t know how to answer that.

I didn’t know what to do to make her happy. Truth was, people had to find their own way to happiness. It was an independent journey, and I was still trying to figure it out for myself.

“I think you need to start choosing yourself.”

She wrapped her arms around her body, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Just remember when I crash, it’s your fault because you refused to catch me. You’re going to ruin her,” she promised. “Just like you ruined me.”

“I didn’t ruin you, Monica. Life broke you, not me. A bit of advice?” I offered.

“Advice from Landon Harrison. This should be comical.”

I crossed my arms and nodded once. “Talk to someone about what happened to you. Someone who can help you. A therapist, a counselor, hell, even Mrs. Levi. She helped me more than she knows. Just stop keeping all this shit locked up in your head. That’s how it morphs into something even heavier. Talk about it. Find someone you trust, and let them in. It just can’t be me anymore. We’re no good for each other, but you deserve help. You deserve more than this bullshit life.”

Her lips parted, but no words came out. She wiped her eyes, turned on her heels, and walked away.

She left that afternoon, and for the first time, I finally felt as if the two of us were finished with our final chapter. It was clear to her that I wasn’t going to revisit the past toxic life that we used to share.

When you stopped allowing toxins into your system, it meant getting rid of certain types of people in your life, too. Addictions didn’t only come in the form of alcohol or narcotics. Some of the worst addictions in one’s life could be the people allowed into it. I’d learned to be very selective about who I allowed into my world. It turned out, you didn’t need a big circle of people to be content. You simply needed the right people.

* * *

The days passed by fast,and before I knew it, we were a few weeks out from the end of the year, which meant, it was almost showtime for Romeo and Juliet. The week before the play’s opening weekend, we had a parents’ night event where they came out to watch the performance. We used our parents as a test run before putting on the show. I didn’t even bother telling my parents to come. I was still butt-hurt about them both missing my birthday, and seeing how they’d been lately, I doubted they would’ve shown up.

Needless to say, everyone else was extremely excited about having an audience. I supposed I was happy about it too. We’d been performing for Mr. Thymes for so long now that it felt a bit stale. I headed to the theater to get ready for the performance as everyone else was chatting and excited backstage.

Shay hurried over to me, and she had the biggest smile on her face. “Hey! How are you?”

“Nervous as ever,” I replied.

She grinned even bigger. “Good. My parents are up front, and my dad wanted to meet Romeo before the show if you’re up for it.” She grimaced a little. “He knows about you being in my bedroom but don’t be scared. He’s nothing more than a liar, and we don’t really care what he thinks anymore.”

“Yeah, for sure.”

We walked up to the front of the auditorium, and when we made it to Shay’s parents, my heart completely sank in my chest.

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