See You at Harry's(14)

And then I realize. This is probably what Holden feels like every day.





NO ONE’S HOME when I finally get to the house. I drop my backpack in the hall by the door and go into the kitchen to pour myself some water. The house feels so quiet, I decide to go back outside and sit on the front steps. The sun blasts down on me, and I feel a drip of sweat slowly slip down my chest and into my belly button under my shirt. I leave my cup on the steps and walk to Holden’s tree cave and crawl inside. It’s cool and welcoming in a silent way. Holden has wiped the ground smooth, probably so he won’t get pine needles on his pants. I sit and listen to the traffic go by. I wish Holden were here now. Or Ran. But then I think about how disappointed they’d be if I told them what I did on the bus. Holden because I’d broken my promise about sitting in the back, and Ran because I’d used my fists instead of words.

I look at the hand that punched Thing One. I hear the ugly words they hissed in my ears. Feel the sting of their fingers. And I hate them. I hate the way they think.

After a while, my bum starts to get sore from sitting so long, and I climb out of Holden’s cave and walk home. Sara, Charlie, and Doll are on the living-room floor, playing Connect Four. My mom is in the kitchen, making dinner.

“Ferny! Come play!” Charlie yells when he sees me. He makes Doll do a happy dance by bouncing her up and down on the rug so it looks like she’s jumping.

“No, thanks. I have homework.”

“What’s up your butt?” Sara asks.

Charlie makes a farting noise.

“Nothing,” I say.

She raises her eyebrows. “You’re a sucky actress, Fern.”

I stop and glare at her. “Do you know about the bus?”

She shifts on the floor. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know what happens on the bus? To Holden?”

“The wheels on the bus go wound and wound,” Charlie sings.

“Shut up,” I say.

“Bad word!”

I glare at Sara.

“What happens?” she asks. But I have the feeling she has a good idea.

“They hurt him,” I say quietly, gesturing toward Charlie to make it clear I can’t go into detail in front of him.

She sighs, as if she can’t believe she has to explain it all to me. “I didn’t ride the bus senior year, but, yeah, I heard that some of the kids gave him a hard time.”

“And you didn’t do anything?”

“What do you want me to do? I told him to tell Mom and Dad, and he wouldn’t.”

“So that’s it?”

“Yes? Look, what happens on the bus is Holden’s problem. Not yours.”

“Holden doesn’t have a problem. They do!”

She flips a red checker into a slot. “He has a problem.”

“Stop calling it that!”

Charlie claps his hands over his ears.

“Sorry, Fern. But until Holden embraces who he is, it’s going to be”— she pauses —“an issue. That’s his problem.” She drops another checker in a slot. “It’s Holden’s choice to come out to us and ask for help. He needs to be the one to change things. I only egg him on so he realizes we all know. We all know, Fern — me, you, Mom, and Dad. But he’s the one who needs to say the words. He has to be the one to take the first step.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s how it works.”

“But what about the bus? Can’t you and I do something? Can’t we tell Mom —?”

“Tell Mom what?” my mom asks from the doorway.

Sara flashes me a shut-up glare.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Holdy has a pwoblem,” Charlie says, trying to shove two checkers down a slot.

My mom and Sara exchange a look, and that’s when Holden walks in the door.

We all turn toward him. He seems . . . great. I can’t imagine where he’s been all day, but he is sort of, well, glowing. He is radiant.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

My mom swings her dish towel over her shoulder. “And where have you been all day?”

Holden’s face falls. “What do you mean?”

“The school called. You weren’t there today.”

“Oh.”

My mom sighs. “Skipping already, Holden? On the second day? You can’t do this, honey.”

“What did you tell them? Did you tell them I was home sick?”

My mom shrugs. “I’m not going to do this again, Holden. You’ve used up your Get Out of Jail Free card today. There are no more.”

I can’t believe my mom actually covered for him! And from the sound of it, this isn’t the first time.

Holden shrugs again. “Thanks.”

“We need to talk about why you skipped school on the second day,” my mom says.

He looks at me accusingly.

“I didn’t say anything!” I say.

My mom turns to me. “You know something about this, Fern?”

The glow on Holden’s face is gone.

“Holdy has a pwoblem,” Charlie says again, matter-of-factly.

“Shut up, Charlie,” I say. I turn to Holden. “I swear I didn’t.”