Landon & Shay: Part Two (L&S Duet #2)(28)

This was an addiction, an infectious disease that was going to leave me raw and broken—

just like my grandfather had left Mima, just like my father had shattered my mother.

How had we gotten here? How had we gone from feeling everything mind, body, and soul, to only feeling one another’s touches? How had we shifted into something that was solely physical?

He used to talk to me. He used to let me in. Now, whenever he came, it seemed he only craved my body, not my mind, not my thoughts, not me. We were strictly physical, nothing more, nothing less. I couldn’t even think of the last time he asked me how my heart was doing. If he had, I would’ve told him of its erratic beats.

In the morning, he’d be gone, and I’d be left with the broken pieces of my heart that Landon left behind. Why did I allow it to keep happening every single year? Why did I save myself for a man who wasn’t willing to give me anything more than just one night? Who was this person I was becoming?

I’d grown up surrounded by unstable relationships. I’d watched my grandfather take and take from my grandmother. I’d seen my father drain my mother dry. And still, somehow, I found myself in that same position.

It was as if the women of my family were cursed with broken love, a love that hurt more than it healed.

With every thrust inside of me, Landon took a piece of my soul. With every deep, passionate kiss, he stole away a part of me. I was falling apart for a boy who wasn’t even going to be around to catch my shattered pieces.

I couldn’t breathe as the panic in my chest began to rise every time his fingers brushed against my skin, every time his tongue swept against my core, every time his hardness slid inside of me.

We lay in the bed having sex, and I was wise enough to no longer confuse it with making love. Love didn’t feel this way. Love didn’t hurt. At least it wasn’t supposed to be painful.

I shut my eyes as tears began cascading down my cheeks. I turned my head to the side as Landon pinned my hands above my head. My sniffles increased more and more, causing him to open his eyes and look at me. He really looked at me. I figured that was the first time he’d looked my way since arriving at my place.

His movements came to a halt as he hovered over my body. “You’re crying.”

“You’re hurting me.”

He slid himself out of me and sat up. He raised an eyebrow. “I can go slower.”

I shook my head and sat up as well. “No, you’re hurting me, Landon,” I said once more, this time placing my hand over my chest. “You’re hurting me every time you come here and then disappear.” I pulled the sheet over my exposed body as I uncovered more and more of my damaged heart. “Every time you come, I feel whole for a split second. Then, you leave, and you take pieces of me with you. I am falling apart waiting for the day you’ll say you’re ready for this, for me, for us, and I don’t just mean my body. I mean my heart and my soul. Each day that passes, I feel more like a fool.”

He grasped the edge of the mattress and lowered his head. “Things have been crazy in Los Angeles… I’ve been trying to work on myself, and it’s hard, Shay.”

“I get that, I do. But does that means you can’t even reach out and call me? Or update me on anything? Nothing? All I get is you when you’re at your lowest?”

“Shay…”

“You make me feel like a whore,” I whispered, the words sliding off my tongue. “Something you can use and then toss to the side when you’re done with it. You get to stand up and walk away with nothing harmed.”

He grimaced and brushed his hand against the back of his neck as his bicep took form. “I don’t mean to hurt you. I never want to hurt you.”

“Just because you don’t mean to do it, doesn’t mean the hurt doesn’t exist.” I inched closer to him and took his hands into mine. My heart was racing as I leaned in and placed my forehead against his. “Tell me.” I sighed, closing my eyes. “Tell me you’re ready to let me back in emotionally. Tell me you want me. Tell me you’ll stay. Tell me I’m not making a fool of myself waiting for a boy who is no longer waiting for me. Tell me it’s our time.”

My heart beat wildly in my chest.

One beat, two beats, three beats, four…

Then, he crushed me.

“I can’t say that.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

His silence was so achingly loud.

I dropped hold of his hands and moved a few inches away from him. His eyes were filled with emotion, glassed over as if he were holding something inside of himself. As if he had so much to say, but still, no words.

“I waited for you,” I whispered, shaking my head in disbelief. “I waited for you. I kept this thing between us going for so long, because I love you, Landon, but clearly now this is just a sex thing for you.”

“It’s not like that, Shay. I didn’t think it all through. The moment I saw you, I just wanted to be near you, I wanted to hold you, and feel like everything was all right. You don’t know what it’s like being in the limelight now while trying to figure out your own messed up brain. It’s been hard lately.”

“How so?”

Again, silence.

He lowered his head and didn’t say another word.

Geez. When had that happened? When had he stopped letting me in? This wasn’t who we’d been. This wasn’t the love story we’d created. This was a completely different, twisted love that I didn’t recognize anymore.