“Yes, I know, but still.” I took his hands into mine. “Let me stay.”
He led me to the bed and offered me one of his T-shirts and a pair of shorts. They were way too big for me, but somehow they seemed to fit perfectly against my skin.
He lay down on the bed, and I allowed him to wrap his arms around me. The room was filled with silence even though neither of us was sleeping. I knew his mind was running fast, and I didn’t want to blink just in case he needed me to remind him to breathe.
I didn’t know how long we stayed in that position, pressed against one another, quiet as night. I didn’t know how long his mind kept spinning. I didn’t know how his thoughts were being tamed. But the moment I heard his breathing calm and realized he was sleeping, I too faded into a slumber.
* * *
The next few days, I made it my responsibility to check in on Landon and make sure he was keeping his head above the water.
Me:How’s your heart today?
Landon:Somehow still beating.
Me:Do you need company?
Landon:It’s OK. I’m sure you’re busy.
Me:Too bad, I’m already at your hotel door, so you might as well let me in.
As he opened it, he smiled wide. “Not going to lie, I’m pretty happy you’re here.”
Me too, Landon. Me too.
We headed into his hotel room. Landon shut the door behind me as I took off my shoes. “I was planning to order takeout, sit on your couch, and do nothing. If you’re down for that, I’ll make sure to order enough food for two.”
“That sounds perfect,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to watchFriends?”
“Hell yeah, I want to watchFriends.” He grinned from ear to ear and headed to the couch to take a seat. I grabbed my phone to order dinner and sat down beside him. We ended up ordering more Chinese food than we could’ve ever possibly eaten, and as he watchedFriends, I watched him.
It felt like the olden days. When we’d eat junk food and watchFriendsand forget that the world outside of us was crumbling for a little while. We’d laugh, and snuggle, and hold on to each other in order to keep our broken puzzles together.
As we sat there, Landon didn’t look like one of the world’s best actors. He looked like a regular human being enjoying his time with me.
I pulled my knees into my chest and hugged them. “What happened to you, Landon?”
“What do you mean?”
“All those years ago... What happened to you? Why did you disappear?” He lowered his head and flinched a small bit. Obviously nervous about the question. “You don’t have to answer.”
“Yes, I do. Even though it’s still sometimes hard to bring up, I want you to know. It matters to me that you know the truth even though it’s hard to speak about.”
I shut off the television, moved in closer to him, and took his hands into mine. “I’m not going anywhere regardless of what you say. I’m here. I’m listening.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving against his throat, and he began speaking.
“After going to California, I lost my way, but I tried to pretend I was fine. I didn’t want to worry people anymore. Then my father passed away. That made me spiral more, because we never got closure. So I tried to push away my depression instead of facing it.”
He turned to face me and gave me a broken smile as he continued, “I thought if I kept working nonstop, I’d be OK. I figured if I stopped going to therapy and stopped dragging up my past, I’d be fine. I could focus on work and nothing else. I could put on a mask, appear happy to the world, and avoid dealing with the darkness inside me.”
Oh, Landon...
He went on, “I, um, I became so good at pretending I was happy that I stopped taking my medicine that helped with my dark thoughts. I assumed I didn’t need it and could keep the act going strong. But... it turned out I couldn’t. I remember being at a party one of the cast members was throwing. It was a stupid thing, really. All the actors were much more seasoned than me, and they were reading mean tweets that were posted about them, having a good laugh.
“Then it came my time to read my mean tweets, which I’d never looked into, and fuck...” He took a deep breath and rubbed his fingers against mine. “That was hard. Not only was I dealing with my father’s death, but now I had strangers around the world telling me how I wasn’t good enough the same way my father had. And I allowed it to crush me. ‘Landon Pace is a wannabe actor and can’t deliver a line to save his life.’ ‘The world would be better if Landon Pace wasn’t on this earth because that movie was a bomb.’ ‘Landon Pace is a piece of shit who no one would miss if he died.’ The list went on and on, and Icouldn’t handle it, not without my meds or my real people who cared about me. I went home with dark, dark thoughts. Darker than I’d ever had. Next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital bed after having my stomach pumped.”