A Secondhand Life

by Pamela Crane

  “No, it’s definitely not alright.”

  I slipped past Jennifer, through the open door, and bounded down the bare wooden steps painted a dull grey. A rough-hewn railing guided me to the bottom, where a shaft of light feebly illuminated the unfinished open space. The mildewy scent of damp cement wafted over me. I heard the door click shut, casting me in semi-darkness. I followed the trail of light and found Landon seated on a worn, outdated, green plaid sofa, eyes fixed on a small television with a Wii remote controller in hand darting back and forth as his avatar navigated the on-screen terrain.

  A large oak entertainment center housed the television, along with an array of knickknacks. An eerie dead-eyed ceramic doll. A headless Barbie. Several framed pictures—mostly of Alexis and a younger Landon. Childhood memorabilia. Macaroni artwork—presumably Alexis’s creations. It almost resembled a shrine to the girl.

  Without a glance in my direction, he greeted me. “Hey, Mia. What’s up?”

  I stalked over to him and planted myself in front of the television. He leaned to the right to look past my body. Dark circles rimmed his bloodshot eyes, as if he’d been playing for days. His food-encrusted gym shorts and pit-stained T-shirt suggested he hadn’t changed clothes, either.

  “Hey! What’s the deal? You’re in the way,” he whined.

  Turning behind me, I found the power button and pressed it. The television screen went black.

  “Well, I’m guessing this is important,” he said with an eye roll. Tossing the remote on the cushion beside him, he sank further back into the sofa and crossed his arms defiantly.

  “Yeah, you can say that. I was doing some research online, Landon, and I found something … interesting.” I paused, unsure how to continue. Tears pooled, ready to pour. I wanted the truth, but then again, I didn’t.

  “Okay, tell me what you found about Derek this time,” he prompted after a moment of overwrought silence.

  “Oh, it’s not about Derek. It’s about you.”

  “What?” he said, his voice high-pitched, girlish.

  “Why do you have a record for vehicular manslaughter?” My scathing tone defined just how serious this was.

  I watched him turn from smug and calm to panicked and shocked. Landon’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s in a trap, and he shrunk back into the safety of the sofa cushions.

  “Wha—what are you talking about?” he replied with an uneasy chuckle.

  “You have a record. April of ’92. What happened?” I demanded.

  “Okay, okay. Can you please sit down? You’re making me nervous.”

  “I don’t want to sit. I want to hear the truth … from your lips … right now.”

  “Fine. Now, please understand,” he began, “that I didn’t intend to keep this from you. I just didn’t know—”

  “Spit it out, Landon,” I interrupted with a shout. My patience was trickling away like a leaky faucet.

  “Geez,” he huffed. “So, judging by your anger toward me, I’m guessing you already figured out that my car accident was the same one you were in.”

  “You tell me.”

  “Yes, but there’s more to the story,” he said simply. “A lot more. But before I explain, I need you to promise me something.”

  “What?” I said sharply.

  “You can’t tell anyone. And I mean anyone. This must never come out. Can you promise that?”

  I thought about his request. Whatever it was, it had happened years ago. Water under the bridge and all that, right? Though it didn’t feel that way. I had trusted him, and he was about to tell me he was responsible for my father’s death.

  The ache over the loss, even so many years ago, surged anew with a force that left me breathless. Time that I thought had healed ticked down to nothing. Years of missing my father cascaded over me, bringing the pain of loss back in all its ferocity.

  A salty tear surfaced, edging past my eyelashes. I didn’t bother to hide it as it slid down my cheek and dangled from my chin. Another followed, and another, until I stopped them with the palm of my hand pressed roughly against my eyes.

  I couldn’t show my weakness … not now, anyways. I was too angry to cry.

  “Please promise me, Mia,” Landon urged.

  “Fine, I promise,” I said, choking on the words. I needed to hear the truth, so I’d give him my word to guarantee secrecy, but that didn’t mean I would forgive him … again. Long ago, when he was merely a nameless boy who lost control of his car, I had forgiven him. But now—now he was my friend. And a liar. Our relationship, friendship—whatever it was—would never be the same after this. He had known all this time and never said a thing—the sin of omission had the potential to be the deadliest of sins among friends.

  Although I couldn’t imagine what extra details loomed in the depths of his memory, I figured I already knew what he was going to tell me.

  Boy, was I wrong. If I thought my mind had been blown an hour ago, my brain was about to experience Hiroshima.

  Chapter 34

  “Please just tell me already,” I ordered when Landon hadn’t spoken a full minute later. My feet had remained planted in front of the television this whole time, until Landon patted the cushion next to him.

  “I insist that you sit. I can’t do this with you standing there like that.”

  With numb movements I guided myself beside him and descended stiffly into the seat. Half a butt cheek rested on the edge of the cushion. Every muscle in my body tensed as I waited … and waited … succumbing to a sensation of dread.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll start with earlier that night,” Landon began tentatively. “It was the worst night of my life …”

  He sighed heavily, then continued. “After a rough day, I had been walking along the street to clear my head when it happened—the accident, Mia. I heard the collision, the crushing metal, screeching tires. I saw your car coming around the bend, and then Evan—”

  “Wait,” I stopped him with a raised hand as I shook my head. The facts were still pouring in, but nothing was making sense. The puzzle pieces weren’t fitting together. “What does Evan have to do with that night?”

  My eyes bore into his, watching the vibrant green being swallowed by a darker shade of olive. They pierced me with their pain as a transformation unfolded within him.

  “Mia, Evan was the driver.”

  “What? How is that—possible?” I stuttered.

  “He had been drinking at the bar when he was supposed to be on duty. Apparently he was trashed when he hit you guys. I just happened to be there, so I ran up to help … that’s when I saw the driver’s face as he stumbled out of the car and I realized it was Evan. I knew as soon as I saw him staggering that it wasn’t from an injury—he walked away without a scratch. He was drunk. So, I offered to take the blame for him.”

  I shook my head. “No, that can’t be right. The kid who hit us wasn’t driving a police cruiser. He was driving a regular car.”

  “Like I said, he was supposed to be on duty but wasn’t. He had gone home, changed into plainclothes, and switched cars so he could go drinking. When the cops showed up to take my statement, I told them Evan had let me borrow his car to meet up with some friends. They didn’t question it, since they knew we were friends.”

  The hazy fog began to lift, but there was one thing I couldn’t understand. “Why would you do that?” I whispered hoarsely.

  Landon looked ashamedly down at his lap, tracing a jagged white scar that ran up his kneecap. When he noticed me watching him, his nervous fingers began picking at a tear in the sofa’s abrasive wool fabric. He ran his hand over his face and I noticed exhaustion lines etched into his pallid skin. He looked downright ragged, but that wasn’t my concern anymore. Today I only cared about answers—the truth.

  “You don’t understand,” he pleaded. “When everyone else rejected me growing up, Evan stood up for me. He had always been a true friend, even though we were years apart. If he were to have gotten caught driving drunk—and killing someone on top o
f that—he would have lost his job and done jail time. It would have ruined his family and marriage, which were already on thin ice. It was the least I could do for him after everything he’d done for me when we were kids. I knew that if I took the blame I’d get a slap on the wrist at worst. An innocent, responsible teen loses control going around the bend—just a tragic accident. I had no other choice, Mia. Besides, Evan’s repayment over the years was more than I could have ever asked for in return.”

  The realization washed over me in a heavy wave, crushing me beneath its weight. Landon covered for my father’s killer. My life could have been fuller, happier, whole, if not for Evan. We would have gotten to my gymnastics practice in one piece, while Dad cheered me on from the bleachers. After an evening of uneven bars and floor routines, we would have stopped for ice cream and lived happily ever after. I would have had a whole childhood and adolescence of beautiful family memories instead of spending two decades recovering from the broken shards of my life that remained after his death.

  It was too much to handle, especially right now. First Brad breaking my heart, now Landon deceiving me. Any ounce of faith I once had in mankind diminished into nothing. People were liars and thieves—stealing our trust and destroying it with their carelessness. I was right to have guarded myself.

  A heaviness settled on my heart, steeling it from Landon’s excuses. No longer would I be that naïve girl. I would be just as heartless as the rest of the world.

  “You lied to me. I trusted you.” I rose to my feet, but Landon jumped up beside me, grabbing my arm to pivot me toward him. I shouldered him away, refusing to face my betrayer.

  “Please! You can trust me. I didn’t tell you at first because I wasn’t sure it was the same accident, and when I did finally realize that it probably was the one your father died in, I didn’t know how to bring it up. It wasn’t an intentional secret—you have to believe me! I never meant to hurt you. I … I love you … like a sister. You’re the sister I lost, Mia. Please don’t abandon me after all of this.”

  I stared at the wall in front me, then glided to the entertainment center, my eyes blankly skimming the pictures of once upon a time … a time when Landon was innocent, just a kid. Before the accident, before Alexis died … though for him life had always left him callous.

  The pictures didn’t reveal a happy child, rather a somber blond-haired boy reflecting on the sorrows of his life. In those green, tortured eyes, all I saw was an ache. Perhaps we weren’t so different after all.

  Except for one thing: I never covered for another person’s murder.

  “It doesn’t matter what you say anymore. Don’t you get it? You let the man who killed my father get away with it! Evan was drunk, a murderer, and you hid that from me, from the world. You say you love me? Prove it! Evan should have paid for what he did—by suffering the consequences. But you freed him from that obligation when you had no right to do that.”

  “You don’t understand, Mia. He did pay—in his own way. You don’t understand the guilt he carried … and still does. Plus, he’s better now. He changed because of that accident. He’s a dedicated father, selfless husband, been sober ever since … Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “At the expense of my father’s life? No, it doesn’t count. And no, justice was never served. I’m done with you, I’m done with Alexis, I’m done with everything. I hope you sleep well at night knowing you’re responsible for a lifetime of suffering and lies, Landon.”

  Furious, I stormed toward the stairs, fleeing for my sanity, for freedom from the hell that had become my life. I needed to leave all of this behind, but it continued to pursue me. How could I ever break free from the past?

  Everything felt so futile.

  Chapter 35

  “I don’t sleep, Mia.”

  Landon’s dejected voice echoed against the hush that engulfed us. His words bridged the widening gap between us, causing me to pause in my retreat.

  “Why’s that?” I asked flatly.

  “Because I’m sick.”

  “Humph. They make over-the-counter meds for that, you know.”

  “Not that kind of sick. Besides, meds don’t work for me. It’s not that simple. I’ve been sick a long time.”

  I turned around, wondering where he was going with this. No matter how far I wanted to run, my heart would never let me stray.

  Something within me splintered in that accident twenty-two years ago. The shell that took over my body refused to let anything in. No love. No security. No passion. I spent my lifetime resenting and hiding my scarred existence. But I wasn’t the only disfigured one.

  Here, before me, was a man deeply wounded like me, only his scrapes lurked beneath the skin. He was damaged goods, and I could relate. Suddenly I felt sorry for him and sorry for hating him.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked softly.

  “Because you want the truth, you want justice, and because I love you.”

  Yet I wasn’t so sure I wanted honesty anymore. All it did was torment me. But I had no choice. It was my nature to want resolution. I had been fighting for it with Alexis, a dead girl, all this time, to the point of risking my life for it. What was one more dirty secret laundered and air-dried for all to gawk at?

  I walked toward him and sat, and he knelt down before me, his haunted eyes searching for help.

  “What are you doing?” I wondered aloud.

  “I am begging for your forgiveness for not telling you about Evan. But my past is, well, complicated. I have a mental illness, Mia. It’s why I can’t sleep. It’s why I was out walking around that night. It’s why I took the blame for Evan. I’m sorry. I was so ashamed of you finding out about my mental problems, which is why I didn’t want to bring it up. Nothing in my life makes sense without that context. But no one knows other than Evan—not even my mother. And I’d like to keep it that way.”

  I exhaled the breath I had unknowingly been holding during his confession—although what exactly he was confessing wasn’t registering.

  “What kind of mental illness?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve looked it up, and the only thing that seems to fit is dissociative identity disorder.”

  “I’ve heard of it—like multiple personality disorder, right?”

  He nodded. “Though, I’ve never been formally diagnosed. I can’t bear to know if it’s true. But the insomnia, losing track of time, extreme mood swings, amnesia … that’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “You need to get help, Landon. I know someone who can help you—a psychologist I’ve been talking to.”

  “Don’t you dare!” he shouted, jamming his finger into my shoulder with a quick jab. As quickly as his temper flared, it abated. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want anyone to know.”

  “It’s not your fault you’re sick, Landon.”

  “I suppose, but what I do when I’m not me is my responsibility. I mean, I don’t really know what I do, since it’s all hazy and I black out a lot, but I should have gotten treatment and I didn’t.”

  Placing a reassuring hand on his arm, I attempted to comfort him. “It’s not too late to get treatment now, Landon.”

  “Maybe … but maybe nothing can help me,” he whispered.

  On some level I knew what he was dealing with. My compulsion to help Alexis overwhelmed any sound judgment. But something about Landon’s admission still plucked at me. A detail was missing … a very significant detail.

  “You said that Evan ‘repaid’ you—what did you mean by that?”

  Landon rose to his feet and wandered around the room, pacing nervously. “Let’s just say he took care of me when I wasn’t feeling … myself. Still does.”

  But that wasn’t all. I just knew it. In my heart of hearts—or perhaps Alexis’s heart—I discerned the truth behind Landon’s black veil of secrets.

  Closing my eyes, I let my brain and heart connect. A flood of emotions pulsed through me, resulting in a kaleidoscope of images. The blond boy in the photograp
hs. The scar on his knee. A mentally ill teen wandering the dark, lonely streets. Each thought spurred on another, until a complete picture formed within my mind’s eye.

  A horrifying picture.

  Landon had killed his own sister.

  My heartbeat quickened to the point that I was certain it would burst under the pressure, and at that moment I knew I was correct. Which meant one thing: He could easily kill me too.

  Yet oddly, I wasn’t afraid to face this demon. In fact, I urged him on. I knew the man beneath the killer, and I loved him too much to cower. He couldn’t hurt me because I knew he wouldn’t let himself.

  Plus, I was ready for this to end … even if it ended badly.

  I was tired of the taunting, the fear, the threats. I knew Landon, and this wasn’t like him. It was some darker evil beneath the soul that lashed out. And I planned to bring it out and annihilate it. But I had to be strategic.

  “There was a reason why Evan showed up at Alexis’s murder scene first, wasn’t there? You’re not telling me everything there is to tell, are you, Landon?”

  Landon’s pacing stopped, and he stumbled, then dropped in a heap to the floor. With a crushing grip he clutched his head, violently shaking it back and forth like a scene from an exorcism. The thrashing scared me, and everything went still—an eerie calm that terrified me even more.

  He rose slowly, then turned to glare at me with shark-like eyes—all pupil, cold, cruel. His appearance was no longer his own, but I refused to let on that it frightened me.

  “Landon?” I whispered, unsure if he still existed beneath this monster’s façade.

  “Do not call me Landon. I am not Landon!” he screamed.

  “I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “What should I call you?”

  “It doesn’t matter what my name is. What matters is what you mean by your question—are you implying that I have a dark secret tucked away in my pocket?” he seethed.

  Clearly rage had subsumed any vestige of humanity.