Page 42 of Holden

About hiding.

About the need to pretend I am someone else.

In one scene, I compare myself to literary characters who have also run from their past, harkening back to the days I would spend buried in a book, huddled in a corner trying not to listen to my mother’s tears.

I dedicate several chapters to my mother, digging deep into our relationship. She isn’t happy with my decision to revisit my father’s crime, but she’s been avoiding the truth her whole life too. We both missed something in Dad’s character. Something that made us look past the subtle clues of his violent tendencies.

Neither of us will ever know what drove him to that school on that fateful day.

I may never truly understand how the last minutes of his life played out.

But I can’t keep wallowing in the past. If nothing else, Holden taught me that. And so, I include our relationship in my memoir, carefully keeping the details anonymous so that only a few people could ever figure out his identity. I owe him that much.

And then, four weeks from the date I started my book, I write THE END.

Lindsay stares at the printed pages on our kitchen counter. “That’s the whole thing?”

I nod.

“It’s a big book,” she says.

More than three hundred pages. “I had a lot to say.”

She smiles a little, which takes away some of my tension. “What happens now?”

“Good question.” I pour us each a glass of wine. “I’m going to take it to Professor Pritchard tomorrow. He’ll know what to do with it.”

What I don’t tell Lindsay is that I also plan to send it to Holden.

Chapter 23

I enter Professor Pritchard’s office with hesitation.

His voice betrayed nothing when he called to say he’d finished reading my manuscript and would like me to come to his office to discuss it. The feedback will be only my second on the memoir—the first being from my mother, who begrudgingly admitted that the story is both factual and emotional.

Obviously, she’s biased.

Holden is biased too, which is why I’m not surprised I haven’t heard from him, despite sending the manuscript with a heartfelt note thanking him for always being honest—even when I couldn’t.

“Chelsea!” Professor Pritchard says, motioning to the seat in front of his desk. He’s smiling, cheeks rosy with enthusiasm. Either he really enjoys delivering harsh criticism, or the book isn’t near as bad as I thought. “Thank you for coming in so soon.”

“No, thank you,” I say, though my appreciation may be somewhat knee-jerk. I catch a glimpse of my manuscript on his desk, the pages flagged in what looks like hundreds of miniature post-it notes in varying colors. I grimace. “You hated it, right?”

His eyes widen. “Not at all!” He chuckles, making his round belly jiggle a little like Santa Claus. “Quite the opposite really. You’ve written a remarkable piece of work here, Chelsea.”

My stomach twits. “You think so?”

He nods. “Oh yes.” He flips to the first page, where a red post-it marks the first sentence. Yeah, I worried it wasn’t quite right. “Take this right here,” he says, underlining it with his finger tip. “Just beautiful.”

I cock my head, confused. “You think the first line works?”

He flips through the pages. “Absolutely. Just look at all of these places I flagged…excellent. All of them.” He sets his folded hands on the manuscript and leans forward. “You captured so much emotion in here, it’s extraordinary, really.”

I can’t respond—his praise has rendered me speechless. Tears brim in the corners of my eyes, and I blink them back. It’s not at all the reaction I expected, but his words have given a glimmer of hope in the darkness that has shrouded me since Holden told me he never wanted to see me again.

Maybe even longer than that.

Much as I was loath to start such an undertaking, writing the book was therapeutic.