Page 46 of Teach Me to Fly

“Was I interrupting something?” I ask, sitting down next to him and leaning forward with my elbows resting on my knees.

“I may have someone over.” He crosses his arms and bristles.

“Sorry,” I offer. “But I just tucked Angelique back into her bed after she walked around the house.”

Lando blanches as he looks at me. “Stop, you’re scaring me. This is giving possessed scary movie vibes right now, and I’m already scared enough as it is walking through the halls of our house alone in the middle of the night.”

I roll my eyes. “She’s not possessed, dumbass. She was sleepwalking.”

He lets out a relieved sigh, swiping at the sweat on his forehead. “Oh, thank God. I was ready to call for an exorcism.”

“Can you be serious for just one minute?” I snap.

Lando looks at me surprised, but he nods and falls silent, waiting for me to continue.

“I searched up what causes sleepwalking in adults,” I admit, sitting straighter now and looking at him. “And one reason listed was trauma.”

He averts his eyes right away, confirming my suspicion.

He knows.

“What happened to her, Lando?”

He tries to play coy. “What are you talking about?”

“She came back to Marlow broken and I can’t touch her without her having some type of reaction.”

Lando shrugs. “Maybe she’s a germaphobe.”

“Oh, don’t give me that rubbish,” I growl.

He makes an exasperated sound, running his hands through his hair, “Look, I wish I could tell you; I really do. But she’d feel so betrayed if I did.”

“How am I supposed to help her if I don’t even know what the fuck is going on with her?” I growl, closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose to try to calm myself down.

“Why do you even want to help her? You never liked her, anyway.”

That catches me off guard. “Who says I never liked her?”

He frowns. “You literally ghosted her for five years.”

“That doesn’t mean I never liked her.”

“Right.” Lando scoffs. “So, you’re saying you liked herbut just decided she wasn’t worth talking to for five years? After she lost pretty much everything and everyone?”

Guilt floods in. “Does she think I ghosted her because I didn’t like her?”

He shrugs. “She was hurt, even if she didn’t tell me. Aside from me, you were her closest person.” After a beat, he turns to look at me. “Whydidyou ghost her?”

I grind my teeth. “It doesn’t matter now. Whatever she’s going through is getting in the way of this performance,” I say instead.

Lando sighs, looking away from me, almost disappointed with my answer. “Well, she has to tell you what happened on her own,” he mutters.

“But you know what it is, right?”

He nods, and the silence stretches between us before I speak again.

“On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it?” I brace myself for him to say something like an eight or nine, but what he ends up saying is so much worse.

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