The Garden of What Once Was

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

As Landon stood on the sidewalk with Casper beside him, he almost felt a bit of darkness creeping in. But, fortunately, the light radiating off of Casper was enough to push it away. A deep, unsteady breath of air was taken into Landon's lungs and blown out before he willed himself to answer his father's phone call. Slowly, he raised the phone to his ear, making sure to keep it a little distance away.

    "What's the use of paying for your phone bills when you can't even pick up when I call?"

    One shot to his heart. It was quite tempting to hang up, but he had to endure it. "I'm talking to you right now, aren't I? So, I did pick up my phone, despite what you believe."

    This response earned a scoff from the other end of the phone. "Don't get smart with me. You know very well that you wouldn't be speaking like that if we were talking face to face, you fa-..."

    "Save the name-calling for later. I'm assuming you called because of Nina, so get to the point already," Landon seethed with his eyes transforming to red.

    Again, there was another scoff. That meant that Landon had really pissed him off.

    "Because of you, the Veranos severed their business connections with us. I doubt you even understand how detrimental that is for my company!" He yelled into the phone, causing Landon to flinch slightly. "All you had to do was make that girl happy, and what did you do? You got her thrown into confinement!"

    "What about me?"

Nothing but silence was heard, and that was exactly what Landon expected. His father didn't care about him, not since that day.

"I was almost killed by that psychopath and her friends. For the love of God, I had a bullet in my chest! I was dying!" Landon paused, trying to catch his breath. "You didn't even send me a card! You didn't call! You didn't text! Nothing!"

    "And here you are expecting me to give a shit about your damn company! Why should I care when you don't care about me, huh?!" He shouted straight into the phone.

    This time, his father sighed. It was a deep drawn-out sigh that sent a chill through Landon's body. "At least you're aware of it."

    "As long as you're a little fucked up man lover, you won't mean anything more to me than a measly penny."

    That was the final and last blow that stole the breath from within Landon's lungs. It ripped out his heart and tore it apart into tiny little shreds. Finally having enough of seeing his friend in pain, Casper grabbed the phone, ending the call without another word.

    "You know, eating sweets always brightens my mood," Casper forced a smile as he fished a muffin out of the white paper bag he was holding. "Eat it and forget about that bastard, alright?"

    Landon gazed at the muffin with teary, red eyes, before hesitantly snatching it. The red in his eyes slowly melted away into a pool of purple as he ate, walking alongside Casper.

    "Hey, Casper," Landon talked while he munched on the muffin, much like how a squirrel nibbles on an acorn, "I think I'll feel much better if you give me a cookie too."

Casper rolled his eyes, happy that Landon was back to acting like normal, "I'll only give you one more pastry, fat ass."

"You're just envious of my dump truck," Landon jested, quickly snatching the cookie before Casper could rethink his decision. "But, seriously, thank you for everything."

    "Someone's gotta keep you smiling, and we both know I'm the best at that," Casper brushed off Landon's gratitude.

    He didn't want Landon to feel the need to thank him. After all, it was his job to heal Landon when Landon couldn't heal himself.