Landon & Shay: Part Two (L&S Duet #2)(91)

“You didn’t believe I could figure something out on my own. I get it.”

“That’s not it at all. Of course, I believed you could find something. That’s why I changed my mind and decided to not show anyone your work. I took the script without thinking it through, and I made a huge mistake.”

“You took something that was mine without my permission. I can’t trust you anymore, Landon. I’ve dealt with enough liars in my life. I can’t do it again with you.”

“Shay…please…”

“You should go,” I said, placing my hands against the door. I began closing it, closing him out of my life, because it was the only thing I could think to do. This was my own fault, truly. I let someone back into my life who’d hurt me in the past. I didn’t understand why I’d expected some different kind of results.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

“Please, Shay. We can figure this out. I know there’s a way we can work around this. We’ve been through so much together. We can’t let this break us,” he pleaded, his eyes filled with emotions.

“Exactly, Landon. We’ve been through so much, and I’m tired. I don’t want to do this game where every few years I get disappointed and hurt. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“But I love you,” he whispered, his voice soaked in pain. “I love you so fucking much, Shay. And we were so close. We were so damn close to our forever.”

“Maybe forever was just a dream. Not something that would ever be our reality.”

“You don’t mean that. I know you, and you know me. You know we’re supposed to be together. We’ve been through fucking wars, Shay. Don’t let this put an end to us. Don’t close me out.”

I had to close him out. It was the only way we’d put an end to the painful story that we’d been living for way too long. It started when we were teenagers, and it grew too big. It was now time to close our novel. It was time to write our final words.

“I’m sorry, Landon. This is it. We’re over.”

I shut my door and listened to him hammer on it from the other side, but I couldn’t reopen it. I couldn’t let him back in, no matter how much my heart longed for his love.





“You’re afraid of love,” Mima explained at Sunday dinner after hearing about the fallout between Landon and me. She was so concrete in her statement, as if she didn’t see the flaws of her words.

I shook my head, shocked by my grandmother’s comment. Did she not hear how Landon betrayed me? How he took my work without my permission and allowed it to fall into the wrong hands?

What did that have to do with me being afraid of love?

“That has nothing to do with this issue,” I said. “My love for Landon has nothing to do with me breaking things off with him. He betrayed me.”

Just like every other man in my life. That was what men did—they let women down.

“No. He made a mistake, and you are using that mistake as a reason to run. Truth is, you would’ve found any slip-up he made and used it as an excuse to run the other way, because you are afraid of love.”

“I’m not afraid of love,’ I said through gritted teeth. A knot sat in the pit of my stomach as those words floated in my head.

“Sweetheart, she’s right,” Mom agreed, reaching out to take my hand into hers. “I see so much of me in you and I blame myself for that. You don’t trust men. You have this idea that no matter what, they will always let you down, and I know I instilled that into your system. I helped build that fear, and I am so sorry for that, because it’s not true. Not all men are evil.”

“But they all let us down,” I whispered, allowing that deep embedded truth to slip from between my lips.

“That’s not true,” Mima said. “Do men mess up from time to time? Of course, but so do women. We are humans—perfectly imperfect. We make mistakes. We go right when we should’ve gone left. We fall into bad habits. We sometimes hurt the ones we love the most. We try and we fail, but we also learn from our mistakes and try to do the right thing moving forward. I know Landon and I know you. I know how you both love one another with a love that is bigger than this world. Don’t run from that love out of fear, mi amor. Don’t let fear drive you forever. If you do, you’ll end up living in a story that you weren’t meant to be a part of. Don’t throw away your story before you reach your happily ever after.”

“Maybe I don’t get the happy ending,” I said, lowering my head. “Maybe Mom was the one meant to break the family curse, not me.”

“No. It’s both of us,” Mom said, still holding my hand. “We get the happy ending. Just because you’re sitting in the middle of your story with Landon, doesn’t mean the rest of your pages are doomed. The ending is going to be worth it, Shay. No happily ever after was ever made from a perfectly knit story. See this one through. Don’t give up on him just yet.”

I heard their words, I listened to their encouragement, too, but the fear of it all was too loud in my head to drown out.

They were right. I was afraid of love. I was terrified of being hurt time and time again, and I didn’t know how to get past my greatest fear.





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