#me all semester tryig to write papers - took weeks

[specdracers]

LANDON BENNETT + THE MOMENTS THAT MADE YOU 

"thought i got through it, maybe i didn’t ; thought it was over, maybe it isn’t.”

          he’s five years old in southern alabama, and he’s at the first foster home he can remember. landon’s happy. the parents are kind; there’s another little boy here, and they become friends. it’s like he finally has that brother he’s always been wishing for. at this point, he’s too young and naive, not having seen the harsh reality of the world. he thinks he’s going to be able to stay, the parents seem nice enough. his belly is full and the clothes are new, and the foster parents make it seem like he’s going to stay there for the rest of his life. he grows used to it, growing far too attached to the family, and there’s even talk about him being adopted! ( but he’s too young to really understand what that means. ) but he finally learns that all good things must come to an end when the social worker comes to the door and his foster parents have already packed his bags. he can’t remember what they tell him, probably blocked it out. but as he gets into the van and his friend waves goodbye to landon from the door, he can’t help but wonder what he did wrong as he’s being brought into the next house.

          now he’s eight and in the third grade. he isn’t too cynical yet, but he’s known to be a loner amongst his classmates. he’s so, so young and he’s already learned that things are better if you keep people at a distance. he does pretty well in classes, getting by with what’s available at the home he’s at. the foster parents are okay, but he’s convinced they’re just doing it for the extra money because the mom just got laid off. the teachers look at him with sad eyes most of the time but he’s grown so used to it. the report card goes home with comments about applying himself and getting out of his shell to make friends. but he always ignores it ; why try to make friends when everyone inevitably leaves him?

          middle school is rough for everyone, but for landon, at the age of twelve, he hates it with his entire being. kids aren’t kind, and he’s already gotten into so many fights. they think it would be easy to pick on the kid from the crappy group home on the wrong side of the tracks, but little do they know that he sometimes has to fight over his food when he leaves to go home at night⎯⎯ he’s learned how to throw a pretty nice right hook by now. but this time, they’re not picking on him ( thankfully ). instead it’s another boy, one that he knows just moved into the group home, and they’re talking about his clothes, or his shoes, maybe his hair? landon can’t remember, but he just thinks of how many times he’s been in that position and within seconds he’s on top of the bully, seeing everyone who has ever hurt him until the gym coach has to pull him off. 

          it’s freshman year of high school, and he’s on the bus to the town’s high school, knees pulled into his chest. and even though he’s trying his best to not get his hopes up, fourteen year old landon finds himself praying to every higher power in the universe that high school won’t be nearly as bad as middle school, he doesn't know how much more he can take of it. the bus pulls up at a huge building with teens all around the front, and he already begin to hide, drowning out the chaos with his headphones blasting 90s rap. a small part of him wants to make friends, but it’s been so long he’s forgotten how. so instead, he walks around the crowded high school hallways, hood pulled up as he ignores pretty much anything and anyone. it’s like this for months, him going through the motions and his teachers are always shocked when landon actually turns in work. they know he has the capacity of doing it, he just lacks the motivation for well, anything. 

          sophomore year, and his classmates are beginning to get their licenses and cars as they turn sixteen and he’s jealous. he knows he won’t be getting one, he’s not stupid. that doesn’t prevent him from walking around with a chip on his shoulders. landon’s developed quite the temper over the course of his adolescence, and he doesn’t take shit from anyone. he’s the poster child of teenage angst, a tongue that’s wicked quick and fists sometimes just seeming to itch for a fight. people take note of this and for someone who has always wanting to be invisible, he gains a reputation around the school. his teachers mutter it’s a coping mechanism, the poor boy’s never known a family. and they’re right, but they could at least have the decency to not say it when landon’s within earshot. 

          it’s about halfway through his sophomore year and all the rich kids are talking about their holidays down to florida for christmas when he’s approached by a group of boys. he knows who they are; while landon has a reputation of getting into fights some days, that’s about the most trouble he causes. but this group? it’s a whole other animal compared to getting into fights because someone looked at you wrong. they’re the type to get into trouble with the law ; it’s just petty robbery most days, but when they come to him asking if he wants to join, they say they need a driver, he can’t say no. he’s gone his whole life without being wanted, so he takes the first chance he can when sometimes says differently. 

          junior year comes around, and the boy just turned seventeen. he’s still with the same group of friends, and landon’s become the stereotypical stoner. comes to class high, sits in the back, and his teachers are still amazed at how landon manages to scrape by in his classes. it’s almost time for him to start applying to colleges ( as if he’s ever planned to go ) and he laughs in the counselor’s face when she says that he’s no future ivy league student but she knows he would have a good chance of getting into auburn ; what type of backhanded compliment is that for a seventeen year old boy? he leaves the office, throwing away the brochure for auburn as he leaves. 

          this is the year where landon knows he’s on the wrong path, but he doesn’t care. his friends and him wreak havoc on their town at night in a way of graffiti and breaking shit in alleyways. but one day as they’re walking down the street, his friends attempt at a robbery of a small convenience store ( the old guy was far too scary for these amateurs. ) too bad they were too dumb and didn’t even attempt to cover their faces and the store’s camera catches their faces. and after school the next day, the cops pull up arresting all of them. it’s quite a scene, and landon makes sure to smile for his peers’ cameras as he’s getting pushed into the back of a cop car. hours go by, and landon’s told that he’s free to go, considering the fact they didn’t steal anything and they are all minors. when he gets home, the old foster parents he had been staying tell him they’ve had enough of his bullshit. that they’ve tried to get through to him but he’s a lost cause. landon takes this as them basically pushing him out of the house, and he knows that the next day he’ll be whisked away to another home until he’s phased out of the system. with a quick and heartless ‘ fuck you ’ to the couple, landon stomps out of the door and to the closest bus stop with only a backpack full of clothes. after, he’s made his way to new york with the small amount of cash that he had saved for a rainy day ; he’s learned through his years that he always needs an escape plan. but just because he has an escape plan doesn’t mean he has a damn clue about what to do after the fact. 

          eventually, he figures out a way to survive. not many places hire high school drop-outs so he gets a job waiting tables. it’s not a lot, but it’s something. he’s staying in a halfway house that he found, and while there are plenty of unsavory characters around, it’s nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. he saves up just enough to get a shitty apartment that’s more like a closet, but it’ll have to do for now.

          he’s twenty now, and he’s working probably close to three jobs a week just to make ends meet. landon is many things, but the one thing that his friends in new york can’t call him is lazy. his friends are a slightly older than the twenty year old, and he never really knows what type of jobs they do, but he knows whatever they do pays well. they have the nicest clothes and shoes, and he tries his best to not get jealous of them. one day, his friends ask him about his driving, and he laughs, saying they’re in new york and he grew up poor; why the hell would he need a car? but they explain to him that that wasn’t the question, and landon’s confused. he’s never told them about fucking around as a high schooler with his friends, doing donuts in the grassy fields of his hometown. when he tells them that he’s pretty decent, there’s a special kind of glint in his friend’s eye. 

          a year later, and twenty-one year old landon is in the middle of a crime-ring. did he mean to? absolutely not, but it beats having to wait tables with rude customers anyday. he’s moved out of the closet that his landlord had marketed as an apartment and moves in with his friends. and for once, landon is happy. he has friends that want to be around him ( granted they’re all criminals but at least they’re bonding! ) his clothes are nice, and he drives a decent car on a daily basis. for the time-being, he forgets what it’s like to constantly be worried about everything being taken away from you. and then it becomes too late. 

          it’s a STUPID easy job, the words of nolan ring through his head over and over again as his torso is flush against the hood of the cop car. it had happened so fast, all landon had to do was just drive and he obviously couldn’t do that very well considering him and his friends are all going to be thrown in jail because of his own stupidity. he can’t look at his friends, knowing that it is his fault that it happened. it’s almost like he blacks out before he finds himself handcuffed in front of a detective wanting to know more information about who he and his friends work for. and even though it’s his fault for getting everyone into this mess, he’s not a snitch. at all his questions, landon sits across, silent with a stupid smug grin across his features. his only demands have been a lawyer. did law and order lie to him? he’s always thought they couldn’t interrogate him until a lawyer was present. and soon, someone walks in and the detective leaves and he can only assume it’s a lawyer. 

          but it isn’t. it’s some instructor from a school called gallagher and all landon does is laugh. he doesn’t take it seriously for the first couple of moments, but the eerie stare of the instructor shuts him up enough. at first, he refuses. he argues, what about his friends? what about their freedom? surely, there’s room for them at the school too, right? but the solemn shake of the instructor’s head gives landon all the answers he needs. he decides to go with them, the charges dropped and he’s free, but he isn’t happy about bailing on his friends. 

          at gallagher, twenty-two year old landon is majoring in driver’s ed. it’s such a lame name in his eyes for such an exciting major, but he loves it here ( despite always acting like he’s too cool for it ). he’s known to be a little shit once again, but landon makes it fun. for once, landon feels like he has a home.