Landon & Shay: Part Two (L&S Duet #2)(83)

I’d spent three months in the clinic, and when I got out, I took down all of my words, and hoped to one day give them to her to showcase how she’d helped me through the darkness, even though she hadn’t even known I was drowning.

By the time I was better, Shay had already moved on, and she was never able to read the words I’d created solely for her.

I stood in the doorway of Karla’s room, and stared at the blank walls, hoping she wouldn’t have to fill them up to the brim before finding her way home.

There was a twin-sized bed, a table with two chairs, and a desk. Everything looked so dull and lifeless. On that small bed sat Karla and her beautiful darkness.

It took me a long time to realize that darkness could be beautiful, too. So many beautiful things lived in the shadows, and it was our duty to be kind enough to them and to remind them that they, too, belonged.

She looked up to me and tried to muscle up a smile but failed. “Hey, Uncle Landon.”

“Hey, sport. Can I come in?”

She nodded.

I stepped into the room and went straight in her direction. I sat down on the bed and wrapped my arms around her. She hugged me back. She hugged me so tight. So very tight. Almost as if she was thankful to still be around to hug. To feel. To exist.

I was so damn happy for that, too.

I was so happy I was hugging that little girl in my arms that evening.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffled, pulling away.

“For what?”

“For being stupid and thinking about taking those pills.” She shook her head back and forth. “I wasn’t going to do it, Uncle Landon. I swear, I wasn’t.”

I rubbed my hand against her back. “You know what I am to you, Karla?”

“What’s that?”

“A safe place. You don’t have to say what you think people expect you to with me. You don’t have to lie to try to protect my feelings. Okay? I’m your safe place. You can trust me. No lies here. Only truths.”

The curve to her back intensified as she rolled her shoulders forward. “I’ve thought about it before,” she quietly confessed. “I’ve thought about it a lot since the accident.”

That truth hurt my heart more than anything in the world, but I patiently listened to her share her darkness with me.

“I think I’m depressed,” she whispered, almost as if she was ashamed to admit it.

“Tell me what that’s like for you.”

“Every day is hard. Even the good days feel hard, and I don’t know how to stop my heart from hurting. Everyone around me is so happy all the time lately, too. Lorelai is the happiest kid in the world. Dad is moving on with Eleanor. Everyone is getting better after the accident, except for me. Everyone is healing, but me. It pisses me off, too. It makes me so angry that everyone is happy except for me. That’s all I want. I want to be happy, Uncle Landon.”

I wrapped my arms around her again and pulled her into my side. I needed her to feel my presence, to remind her that she wasn’t alone that night.

“You’ll get there, Karla, I swear. I know it sounds corny as shit, but these things take time. When your mind is heavy, you have to go through a lot of tests and trials to figure out what works for you, and what doesn’t. Sometimes, it’s meditation, other times it’s medication. There’s no one way road to depression, Karla. You have to find out what works for you, you have to learn your triggers. I promise you, just because you deal with depression, doesn’t mean it’s a death sentence.”

“I don’t want to die,” she swore, and I believed her, too. I saw it in her eyes. Perhaps that was her biggest truth—the fact that she wanted to live.

“I know, and we are going to do everything in our power to make sure we figure out what works best for you.”

She nodded slowly, taking in all my words. “How do you know so much about depression? You have everything. I doubt you’ve ever been sad a day in your life.”

I laughed a little. “You have no clue how ironic that comment is.”

“What? I mean it. I bet you’ve never even cried before from being sad.”

“I cried today, when I heard about you. I’ve cried plenty of times due to my sadness. Look.” I rolled up my sleeves of my shirt and took her hand into mine. I ran her fingers across my tattoos, across my scarred skin where the imprints of my past still existed. “Do you feel that?”

“Yeah, what is that?”

“My past sadness. I used to do self-harm, because I was trying to figure out my own depression.”

Her eye widened. “You used to hurt yourself?!”

“I did. I was searching for a way to feel something. To feel anything. It took me a while to learn what worked for me, but trust me when I say, I have a lot more happy days than bad ones nowadays. I find reasons to smile every single day, and one of those reasons is because of you, Karla. This world is better because you are here, and you’re going to make a difference in the most magical way. I just need you to keep fighting, knowing that you have a strong team in your corner, okay?”

“I will. I promise. Mom wouldn’t want me to give up,” she said.

“You’re right, she wouldn’t. I know she’s looking down on you right now with pride because she sees how strong you’re being through all of this.”