Drifting into Darkness (23 page)

“I know y’all went to the races and to dinner. Everyone knows that. Oh,” she added, “and he held your hand.”

We walked into the bean house and did our morning routine to start picking. Marco and Layla were already there getting things ready.

“Good morning, Layla, Marco,” I greeted as I stood on my side of the conveyor belt.

He wiped at his mustache and smiled, “Morning, señorita.”

Layla nodded at me and continued on with her work. I think she’d only spoken a few words since I started working.

Lisa walked up and stood beside me after dumping beans to get us started. “So are you going to tell me or what?” she pushed as she picked at the beans.

I watched the beans go by, one by one and smiled. I should make her wait since she was being so pushy, but I didn’t want to hear it all day long. So I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess we’re kind of seeing each other.”

She nudged me with her elbow and I looked at her. “Y’all are so seeing each other,” she laughed. “I already knew. I just wanted to hear ya say it.”

I looked at her and frowned. “What? How would you know? It just happened.”

“Hello. Duh,” she drawled. “I’m datin’ his brother.”

I laughed. It didn’t occur to me that he would talk to his brother about it. The thought made me smile. “I didn’t think about that.”

“I don’t know the details though, like how it all came about. I know about Friday night, but I also know that he went to your place Saturday night. I was at the house when he left. He looked nervous.”

I raised an eyebrow at her in disbelief. “He was not nervous,” I said, shaking my head.

She smiled, as she continued to pick. “Yeah, he was. He hasn’t had a girlfriend in like…forever.”

I frowned as I worked. I still didn’t understand what all that was about. There had to be a reason why he hadn’t had a girlfriend is so long. Should I worry about it? Obviously, there was nothing wrong with him since all the girls flocked around him, but the question was, why me and not them? If he hadn’t had a girlfriend in a long time, why now?

Then I remembered what Shannon said in the bathroom Friday night. She had said Landon hadn’t held hands with anyone since Kelly. Maybe she was the reason why he hadn’t had a girlfriend in a long time.

“Hey,” Lisa said, pulling me from my internal thoughts. “Did you buy your books for your classes yet? I have to go to the bookstore today and get mine, and I was gonna ask if ya wanna come with me.”

I looked at her for a moment confused, as thoughts whirled through my head, “Um…yeah sure. I haven’t gotten my books yet. Do you want me to meet you?”

She pursed her lips as she thought. “Well, I have my clothes here already and planned on showering and then leaving. I can meet ya at your place to pick ya up and we can go together?”

I nodded in agreement and we spent the rest of the day busy picking through beans and bagging corn. It really was a boring job. It was the same thing every day and the heat was excruciating, but it was good money and I liked having the weekends off. So, I didn’t complain all that much about it.

I was disappointed when lunch rolled around to find out that Landon wouldn’t be eating with all of us. According to Derek, Landon and his dad had some business that they needed to go over. And they’d probably be gone the rest of the day and most of tomorrow. Lisa watched my expression as Derek told me, but I kept my face neutral. Even though I was disappointed, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I’d still be able to text him later and the thought brought a smile to my face.

~*~

Lisa arrived at my house twenty minutes after I got home, which was just enough time for me to shower and get dressed.

“We’ve got to hurry and get there because they close at four,” she stated as she pulled out of my driveway.

I looked at the clock on her dashboard. It was already three thirty. “Are we going to make it?”

“Yeah,” she chuckled as she weaved through traffic. I grabbed onto the door handle and looked over at her as she drove like a bat out of hell. “So, I meant to ask ya, what ya thought of the track.” She looked at me before looking back at the road. “It’s pretty cool, huh?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “It was definitely interesting. I don’t understand all the aspects of it, but it seemed pretty cool,” and then I laughed as a thought hit me. “It’s like guys measuring their dicks, right? To see whose is biggest, except they are using cars.”

She looked at me and laughed. “Oh, my God, that’s so true.” She turned into the school parking lot and found a spot. She actually made it in less time than I thought she would. “I love watchin’ the cars take off though. Landon is always talking about the rush during the run, but I’m the most excited at takeoff.” We got out of the car and headed into the building. “You never know what’s gonna happen. Oh,” she shrieked enthusiastically, “one time, this guy went to take off and his engine exploded.”

I looked at her with my mouth hanging open. “Oh, wow.”

“Yeah, it was crazy. It freaked everyone out.”

“I bet.”

We walked inside the building and headed straight toward the campus store where they sold the books. The halls weren’t as busy as they were when I came for registration, but that was to be expected since registration had been going on for over a month.

When we walked into the library, a girl with long bright red hair and an A&M polo greeted us. “Hey, can I help you find some books?” she asked with a smile.

Lisa dug through her purse and handed her a folded piece of paper, and then turned to look at me. “Do you have your schedule?”

I sighed.
Shit.
“Heck no, I totally forgot to bring it.”

“Don’t worry,” the redhead said, “I can look it up on our computer.” She walked us to one of five computers and typed in a code to open the screen. “I just need your full name and it should pull up.”

Giving her my name, she was able to print out my schedule. We walked around with her as she found our books. I was glad that she was there to assist us, because there was no way I could have found some of them.

I almost had a mini stroke when I saw that one of Lisa’s books was over five hundred dollars. Schools really steal your money at these prices. I was glad my dad had left me his credit card because I wouldn’t have been able to afford anything.

After spending a month’s paycheck on books, we walked back out to Lisa’s car.

“The pricing on books is ridiculous,” Lisa complained and I nodded as we got into her car. “How much do you want to bet, we won’t even use the books in half of our classes? Most teachers hand out power points and we never open the damn thing,” she huffed as she buckled her seat belt.

I heard my phone chime so I reached into my bag to pull it out. I smiled as soon as I saw the screen. It was Landon.

“You should see the grin on your face. Did you get a text from him?”

I turned to look at a smiling Lisa, and then looked back at my phone to read the text.

Landon: Sorry I missed you at lunch today. I didn’t know about the meeting with Dad until this morning. So I won’t see you until Wed. Do you want to hang out after work?

“Yeah,” I answered Lisa as I typed my reply.

Me: Can’t Wed. Going to dinner with my dad. I can Thurs though.

“Come on, Sadie, ya have to share,” she coaxed. “It might sound stupid, but this is big news around here.”

I looked at her and frowned. “What? That Landon is talking to someone?”

She shook her head. “No…that Landon is
interested
in someone.”

My phone chimed again.

Landon: Thurs is good. I have somewhere I want to take you.

I smiled at his text, but looked back to Lisa. She kept bringing up how unlike it was for Landon to be seeing someone so I was going to ask her about it.

“Why is Landon seeing someone such a big thing? Am I missing something?” I shoved my phone into my purse and turned to look at her.

She kept her eyes on the road, but I noticed her twisting her hands around her steering wheel. After a few moments, she finally turned to me. “You should ask him about it.”

I frowned. I should ask him about it? “Why do I feel like this is some big secret or something?” I flailed a hand up in frustration. “I felt like he was being cryptic the other night too when I asked him about his blonde followers. What did he do, kill someone or something?” I laughed.

She turned and looked at me wide-eyed and I froze. She looked back at the road and sighed, shaking her head. “You should really talk to him about this, but I will tell ya his girlfriend died three years ago.”

I gasped. “Oh, my God.”

She looked at me with sadness in her eyes. “Yeah, it was bad. I don’t know the whole story. I know bits and pieces of it. So you’ll have to ask him to tell ya about it. Although, I will tell ya that Kelly, that was her name, left a party drunk and ended up getting into an accident on the way home.”

I shook my head in shock. “Was he there? At the party?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but he didn’t know she left. That’s all I’m going to say about it. But ya should know that he had a very rough time of it after she died. They were together for a long time, all throughout college. They even talked about getting married.”

I diverted my eyes and pursed my lips as I thought about everything Lisa was telling me. That had to be so hard for him. I couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like. Losing the one person you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with. “Is that the reason for the blonde followers?” I asked as it all started to click.

She sighed as she turned down my road. “Unfortunately, yes. He changed after she died. At first…it was really bad. He went through his own stages. He was depressed for a long time, but then he started binge drinkin’. Derek was so scared of what he might do. He thought at one point, he might even take his own life. But then one day, it was like he woke up to be this new person. He wasn’t the same depressed Landon, but he wasn’t the Landon we all knew before either. He stopped drinkin’ and started racin’.” She let out a laugh and she pulled into my driveway. “It sounds ridiculous to say that it’s a good thing that he went from one reckless thing to another, but racin’ and workin’ on his car really helped him cope.” She put the car in park and turned to me. “I don’t usually talk about this to anyone. Kelly was a good friend of mine. I still don’t understand why things happened the way they did.” She shook her head as if remembering. “But I’m so excited he’s finally getting out of his funk and you, my friend, are the reason.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Everything she had just told me was still trying to sink in. His girlfriend died three years ago from driving home drunk. Is that why he offered to take me home the night of the party? Is that the reason he doesn’t drink? “So that’s the reason he doesn’t drink anymore?” I asked for confirmation.

“That pretty much sums it up, yeah.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, just…don’t say anything to him about me tellin’ ya. I’d never hear the end of it. Derek told me to keep my nose out of it. I’m just so happy he’s finally movin’ forward, ya know?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I completely understand. I won’t mention your name at all.” Then I shrugged. “I probably won’t even mention it at all. I’d rather not bring up bad memories for him if he’s trying to make new ones.”

For all I knew, I could bring it up and then he’d be turned off by my presence. I didn’t want that to happen.

“Yeah. For what it’s worth, I can already tell the difference. You can just tell he’s happier. He’s actually been actin’ different for a while now, and now we know why,” she smiled.

I had noticed the changes too, but I just thought it was because of our talk that night. I never would have guessed it went deeper than that.

“All right, well…thanks for taking me with you to get books. I’ll see you tomorrow at work.” I opened the door and got out of the car.

She waved and backed out of the driveway as I made my way up the stairs. That’s when I remembered that I needed to go to the grocery store for a few things. I had no drinks in the house except for water and the food was scarce. I couldn’t keep snacking on chips. I wouldn’t gain any weight with all the work I’d been doing, but I still needed to eat healthily.

I hopped down the stairs and slid into my car and mulled over everything Lisa had told me. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the least bit curious as to why Kelly left the party drunk. I knew Lisa knew why, but I understood her reasoning for not telling me. I probably wouldn’t tell me either. Plus it would be better to hear it from Landon, but did it really matter? Or was I just being nosey?

I offered the information of my past to him, but only because I didn’t want the same thing to happen, again.  He was under no obligation to dig up his past and tell me about it unless he wanted to.

I pulled into a Kroger that was just a couple of miles away from my house and sent my mom a quick text asking if she needed anything from the store. She sent a text back right away telling me no, and said she was making lasagna for dinner, which was my favorite. I’d really have to start watching her make dinner at some point because I didn’t know anything about making a good home cooked meal. I’d be one of those wives who make frozen dinners in the oven every night.

As I walked into the store, I started thinking about Landon again and wondered what kind of foods he liked. If we ever did decide to have another movie night or hang at my place, I’d need to have some snacks that he would actually eat.

Pulling my phone from my purse, I sent him a quick text.

Me: Hey, what kind of snacks do you like?

I grabbed a cart and made my way to the dairy section to get some milk and cheese before he sent a text back.

Landon: Are you planning to surprise me with snacks?

I stopped on the side of an aisle to text him back.

Me: Just wondering.

Landon: Well, if you were to surprise me, I’m really not picky. But my favorite chip is BBQ and I love cookies. Any kind of cookie. If you couldn’t tell the other night, I have a sweet tooth.