Hold Still Part 1

Hold Still.

by Nina LaCour.

Summer

1.

I watch drops of water fall from the ends of my hair. They streak down my towel, puddle on the sofa cushion. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my ears.

"Sweetheart. Listen."

Mom says Ingrid's name and I start to hum, not the melody to a song, just one drawn-out note. I know it makes me seem crazy, I know it won't make anything change, but it's better than crying, it's better than screaming, it's better than listening to what they're telling me.

Something is smashing my chest-an anchor, gravity. Soon I'll cave in on myself. I stumble upstairs and yank on the jeans and tank top I wore yesterday. Then I'm out the door, up the street, around the corner to the bus stop. Dad calls my name but I don't shout back. Instead, I step onto the bus just as its doors are shutting. I find a seat in the back and ride away, through Los Cerros and through the next town, until I'm on an unfamiliar street, and that's where I get off. I sit on the bench at the bus stop, try to slow my breathing. The light here is different, bluer. A smiling mom with a baby in a stroller glides past me. A tree branch moves in the breeze. I try to be as light as air.

But my hands are wild, they need to move, so I pick at a piece of the bench where the wood is splintering. I break a short nail on my right hand even shorter, but I manage to pull off a small piece of wood. I drop it into my cupped palm and pry off another.

All last night, I listened to a recording of my voice reciting biology facts on repeat. It plays back in my head now, a sound track for catastrophe, and drowns everything out. If a brown-eyed man and a brown-eyed woman have a child, the child will probably have brown eyes. But if both the father and the mother have a gene for blue eyes, it's possible that their child could have blue eyes. If a brown-eyed man and a brown-eyed woman have a child, the child will probably have brown eyes. But if both the father and the mother have a gene for blue eyes, it's possible that their child could have blue eyes.

An old guy in a snowflake cardigan sits next to me. My hand is now half full of wooden strips. I feel him watching but I can't stop. I want to say, What are you staring at? It's hot, it's June, and you're wearing a Christmas sweater What are you staring at? It's hot, it's June, and you're wearing a Christmas sweater.

"Do you need help, darling?" the old guy asks. His mustache is wispy and white.

Without looking from the bench, I shake my head. No No.

He takes a cell phone from his pocket. "Would you like to use my phone?"

My heart beats off rhythm and it makes me cough.

"May I call your mother?"

Ingrid has blond hair. She has blue eyes, which means that even though her father's eyes are brown, he must have a recessive blue-eye gene.

A bus nears. The old guy stands, wavers.

"Darling," he says.

He lifts his hand as if he's going to pat my shoulder, but changes his mind.

My left hand is all the way full of wood now, and it's starting to spill over. I am not a darling. I am a girl ready to explode into nothing.

The old guy backs away, boards the bus, vanishes from sight.

The cars pa.s.s in front of me. One blur of color after another. Sometimes they stop at the light or for someone to cross the street, but they always go away eventually. I think I'll live here, stay like this forever, pick away at the bench until it's a pile of splinters on the sidewalk. Forget what it feels like to care about anyone.

A bus rolls up but I wave it past. A few minutes later, two little girls peer at me from the backseat of a blue car-one is blond and fair; one is brunette, darker. Colored barrettes decorate their hair. It isn't impossible that they're sisters, but it's unlikely. Their heads tilt to see me better. They stare hard. When the light changes to green, they reach their small hands out the rolled-down window and wave so hard and fast that it looks like birds have bloomed from their wrists.

Sometime later, my dad pulls up. He leans to the pa.s.senger side and pushes the door open. The smell of leather. Thin, cold, air-conditioned air. I climb in. Let him take me home.

2.

I sleep through the next day. Each time I go to the bathroom, I try not to look in the mirror. Once, I catch my reflection: it looks like I've been punched in both eyes.

3.

I can't talk about the day that follows that.

4.

We wind up Highway 1 at a crawl because Dad is a cautious driver and he's terrified of heights. Below us to one side are rocks and ocean; to the other, dense trees and signs welcoming us to towns with populations of eighty-four. Mom has brought her entire cla.s.sical CD collection, and now we're on Beethoven. It's "Fur Elise," which she always plays on her piano. Fingers dance softly across her lap.

On the outskirts of a small town, we pull off the road to eat lunch. We sit on an old quilt. Mom and Dad look at me and I look at the worn fabric, the hand-sewn st.i.tches.

"There are things you should know," Mom says.

I listen for the cars pa.s.sing by, and the waves, and the crinkling of paper sandwich wrappers. Still, some of their words make it through: clinically depressed; medication; since she was nine years old clinically depressed; medication; since she was nine years old. The ocean is far below us, but the waves crash so loudly, sound close enough to drown us.

"Caitlin?" Dad says.

Mom touches my knee. "Sweetheart?" she asks. "Are you listening?"

At night, we stay in a cabin with bunk beds and walls made of tree trunks split open. I brush my teeth with my back to the mirror, climb up the ladder to the top bunk, and pretend to fall asleep. My parents creak through the cabin, turning on and off the faucet, flushing the toilet, unzipping their duffel bags. I pull my legs to my chest, try to inhabit as little s.p.a.ce as possible.

The room goes dark.

I open my eyes to the tree-trunk wall. Once I learned that trees grow from the inside out. A circle of wood for each year. I count them with my fingers.

"This will be good for her," Dad says softly.

"I hope so."

"At least it will get her away from home. It's quiet here."

Mom whispers, "She's hardly spoken for days."

I hold still and stop counting. I wait to hear more, but minutes pa.s.s, and then the whistle of Dad's snore begins, followed by Mom's even breaths.

My hands lose track of the years. It's too dark to start over.

At three or four in the morning, I jolt awake. I fix my eyes to constellations that have been painted on the ceiling. I try not to blink for too long because when I do I see Ingrid's face, eyes shut and lips still. I mouth biology facts to keep my head clear. There are two stages of meiosis and then four daughter cells are produced, There are two stages of meiosis and then four daughter cells are produced, I whisper almost silently, careful not to wake my parents up. I whisper almost silently, careful not to wake my parents up. Each of the daughter cells has half the chromosomes of the parent cells Each of the daughter cells has half the chromosomes of the parent cells. Outside, a car pa.s.ses. Light sweeps over the ceiling, across the stars. I repeat the facts until all the words cram together.

Twostagesofmeiosisandthenfourdaughtercellsareproducedeachdaughtercellhashalf thechromosomesof theparentcellstwostagesofmeiosis . . . . . .

Pretty soon I start to smile. It sounds funnier and funnier each time I say it. And then I have to grab my pillow and bury my face so my parents don't wake to the sound of me laughing myself to sleep.

5.

On a hot morning in July, Dad rents a car because he has to go back to work. But Mom and I stay in Northern California like it's the only place we've heard of. I sit in front and navigate, keeping us within the invisible boundaries on the map-no farther north than a few miles into Oregon, no farther south than Chico. We spend the summer wandering through caves and forests, surviving crooked roads, and eating grilled-cheese sandwiches at roadside restaurants. We only talk about the things right in front of us-the redwoods, the waitresses, the strength of our iced teas. One night, we discover a tiny old movie theater in the middle of nowhere. We see a children's movie because it's the only thing playing, and pay more attention to the kids laughing and yelling than we do to the screen. Twice, we strap flashlights to our heads and grope through lava caves in La.s.sen National Park. Mom trips and shrieks. Her voice echoes forever. I start dreaming about the cardigan man. In the middle of the forest, he drifts toward me in a tux with a red bow tie. Darling, Darling, he says, and holds out his phone. I know Ingrid's on the other end, waiting for me to talk to her. As I reach for it, I notice-surrounding me are green trees, brown earth, but I am in black-and-white. he says, and holds out his phone. I know Ingrid's on the other end, waiting for me to talk to her. As I reach for it, I notice-surrounding me are green trees, brown earth, but I am in black-and-white.

In the mornings, Mom lets me drink coffee and says, "Honey, you're pale."

6.

And then, out of nowhere, September comes.

We have to go back.

Fall

1.

It is 3 A.M. Not the most logical time to take a photograph without lights or a flash or high-speed film, but here I am anyway, perched on the hood of the boxy gray car I should be able to drive by now, camera tilted to the sky, hoping to catch the moon before a cloud moves across it. I snap frame after frame at slow shutter speeds until the moon is gone and the sky is black.

My car creaks as I slide off, moans when I open the door and climb into the back. I push down the lock and curl up across the cloth seats.

I have five hours to get okay.

Fifteen minutes go by. I'm pulling the fake fur from the front seat covers even though I love them. I can't stop my fingers; white tufts are falling everywhere.

By four-thirty I've thrown several thrashing fits, given myself a headache, put my fist in my mouth and screamed. I need to get the pressure out of my body somehow so I can finally fall asleep.

In the house, my bedroom light clicks on. Then the light in the kitchen. The door swings open and my mom appears, clutching the collar of her robe. I reach between the seats and over to my flashers, click them twice, watch her shuffle back inside. I have one frame left, so through the windshield I take a picture of the dark house with its two lit-up rooms. I'll t.i.tle it: My House at 5:23 a.m. My House at 5:23 a.m. Maybe I'll look at it one day when my head isn't pounding and try to make sense of why, for every night since I got home, I've locked myself in a cold car just a few steps outside my warm house, where my parents are so worried they can't sleep, either. Maybe I'll look at it one day when my head isn't pounding and try to make sense of why, for every night since I got home, I've locked myself in a cold car just a few steps outside my warm house, where my parents are so worried they can't sleep, either.

Sometime around six I start dreaming.

My dad wakes me with his knuckles tapping my window. I open my eyes to the morning light. He's in his suit already. "Looks like there's been a blizzard in here," he says.

The backs of the seat covers are furless. My hand aches.

2.

I walk the long way to school, my new schedule folded into the smallest square and stuffed deep in my pocket. I pa.s.s the strip mall; the Safeway and its sprawling parking lot; the lot of land for sale where the bowling alley was before the town decided bowling wasn't important, and leveled it. On a Friday night two years ago, I darted onto one of the lanes and took a picture of Ingrid sending a heavy red ball toward me. It rushed between my feet as I stood there, one foot in each gutter. The owner yelled at us and kicked us out but later on forgave us. I have the photograph on my closet door: a blur of red, Ingrid's eyes fierce and determined. Behind her: lights, strangers, rows of bowling shoes.

I stop at a corner to read the headlines through the gla.s.s of a newspaper box. Something must be going on in the world: floods, medical breakthroughs, war? But this morning, like most mornings, all the Los Cerros Tribune Los Cerros Tribune has to offer me is local politics and hot weather. has to offer me is local politics and hot weather.

As soon as I can, I get away from the street because I don't want anyone to see me and pull over to offer a ride. They would probably want to talk about Ingrid and I would just stare at my hands like an idiot. Or they wouldn't want to talk about Ingrid and instead there would be a long silence that would get heavier and heavier.

On the trail between the condos comes the sound of wheels on gravel, and then Taylor Riley is next to me on his skateboard, looking so much taller than before. He doesn't say anything. I watch my shoes kick up dirt. He rolls past me, then waits for me to catch up. He does this over and over, saying nothing, not even looking at me.