Page 9 of Landon & Shay: Part Two

“You go to law school like we planned. You can work here on the weekends and get your life back on the right track.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Then your mother will figure it out. Don’t come back here until you’re ready to be a real man. As long as your childish behavior continues, I want nothing to do with you.”

“I’ll never come back here,” I swore. “And I never want to see you again. The next time I see you it will be at your damn funeral,” I murmured.

“Or at yours,” he shot back, his words coated in sinister hatred.

I couldn’t believe it was possible that my mother had loved a person like him.

I left his office feeling completely defeated, and angry, and sad—really fucking sad. Not because my father was a fucking monster, but because I was unable to alleviate some stress in Mom’s life.

She needed a break, and I didn’t have a damn clue how to get it for her.

As I sat in my rental car outside of the law firm, I gripped the steering wheel tightly in my hands and took a few deep breaths. My heart was racing, and I tried to stop the panic building in my head as some of my father’s words played on a loop.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up six feet under, too.

“That’s not me, that’s not me, that’s not me,” I repeated through my almost sealed shut lips. I wasn’t the weak boy my father made me out to be. I wasn’t my uncle. I was scarred but not broken.

I held onto the steering wheel until I talked myself down from the darkness. I controlled my breaths and reduced my heart rate to a steady beat. That was something I wouldn’t have been able to do just months ago. My interaction with my father would’ve swallowed me whole for hours.

This time, it was only minutes.

* * *

“Didhe really say that to you?” Shay asked, sitting cross-legged on my hotel bed. She came straight over to see me right after school, and I ordered a pizza for us to share.

“Yup. He said I’d end up just like Lance—six feet under because I’m weak.”

“What a monster.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t get how someone could say something so cruel, especially to their own child.”

“He calls it tough love.”

“I call it blatant hate. I hope you don’t believe any of that stuff, Landon. I hope you know all those words he said are lies. Out of everyone in this whole world, you’re one of the strongest people I know. Your vulnerabilities are what make you strong, not weak, and I’m sorry your father made those hurtful comments.”

“I’m just mad I’m not able to help my mom, that’s all.”

Shay began blotting her pizza with a napkin.

I cocked an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”

“Dabbing the pizza. It’s said doing this can save up to fifty calories per slice.”

“Sounds like some bullshit.”

She shrugged. “I’ll do whatever it takes to save a few calories.”

“Since when do you care anything about counting calories?”

“Um, since I’ve gained ten pounds over the past year from stress. I can’t go to college this way and then deal with the freshman fifteen, so I’m on a diet.”

I stared at her as if she was fucking insane because she was talking fucking insane. “You don’t need to be on a diet, Shay.”

“Yes, I do.”

“So, you’re giving up candy, too?”

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