Landon & Shay: Part One (L&S Duet, #1)

by Brittainy C. Cherry

I didn’t know why so much darkness sat heavily in my chest. I didn’t know why I was so angry. I just knew that I was. I was an ass, even when I didn’t want to be. The

And why was I this way? I wished I knew. My mind was a puzzle, and I hardly knew how the pieces linked up.

She turned back around, walking to her car, and something happened to my heart in my chest. It tightened? It skipped? It beat in overdrive? I wasn’t exactly sure. I wasn’t used to my heart doing anything other than following its mundane pattern.

“You have a loving kind of heart. You could love monsters if they could be loved.”

I wondered what the storm inside her head looked like. I wondered if her thunder rumbled as loud as mine, if her lightning struck her soul repeatedly, if she drowned in her own thoughts.

Truthfully, I didn’t know what to think about us. All I knew was that when I thought about her, my thoughts didn’t feel so heavy.

I wish I could let people in so my mind didn’t have to spin all by itself. Just to have someone to say, ‘That sucks and I’m sorry. Here’s a hug.’ You know what I mean? I don’t need anyone to try to fix me or anything—I’m strong enough to fix myself. I just wish I had someone to get comfort from every now and then.

For the first time in my life, I saw Shay. I saw the girl behind the mask, the one who felt so much and hid those feelings from the world because she felt as if they were too much of a burden to impose on others.

I was fighting to avoid being swallowed alive by my own mind, and it was an exhausting task to face. I wished they taught us about depression in school. I wished we were given tips and tricks to avoid falling too deep into the dark. Instead, we learned algebra equations. I couldn’t wait for that to come in handy in my life.

but when a person you love is broken, you see the cracks every time they are around you, and you just wish you had the tools to fix those breaks.

Lead with your heart, but take your brain with you.”

Being alone makes me sad, and for a while I thought I’d get used to it. I’ve been alone for so long, and I thought the sad part of it all would disappear, but it stays. Every night, I sit in bed and loneliness swallows me whole. I struggle with sleeping and overthinking. It’s a buzzkill, and I hate it.

The whole being sad thing is exhausting. I’m tired. All the time. Have you ever been so young but felt so old? That’s the kind of tired I am. I’m the ninety-years-old kind of tired, the kind of tired where everything aches right down to my bones.

Who could love someone with a mind as heavy as mine?

“Why did you push me?” I questioned. “Why did you push me away?” “Because I need to keep people at a distance,” he confessed. “When people come near me, they get hurt.

I knew Landon was sad. So, so sad, and so, so broken. And still, he loved me. That probably terrified the hell out of him.

“Stop it. Don’t let that crap get in your head, Landon. They are wrong. They are beyond wrong. Don’t let them allow your mind to start spiraling. Let me come with you. Let me stay by your side.”

“What’s your biggest fear?” “Being alone. Not being able to let people in because of the mess that is my brain.”

I picked up drinking and drugs to quiet my mind a little more. I tried to push the bad thoughts so far down that I’d almost forget they were there. It worked until it didn’t.