Nina LaCour - Hold Still
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- Book:Hold Still
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- Publisher:Dutton
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- Year:2009
- Rating:3 / 5
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Hold Still: summary, description and annotation
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An arresting story about starting over after a friends suicide, froma breakthrough new voice in YA fiction dear caitlin, there are so many things that i want so badly to tell you but i just cant. Devastating, hopeful, hopeless, playful . . . in words and illustrations, Ingrid left behind a painful farewell in her journal for Caitlin. Now Caitlin is left alone, by loss and by choice, struggling to find renewed hope in the wake of her best friends suicide. With the help of family and newfound friends, Caitlin will encounter first love, broaden her horizons, and start to realize that true friendship didnt die with Ingrid. And the journal which once seemed only to chronicle Ingrids descent into depression, becomes the tool by which Caitlin once again reaches out to all those who loved Ingridand Caitlin herselfA Discussion Guide to Hold Still by Nina LaCour (Easy Print Version)
Nina LaCour: author's other books
Who wrote Hold Still? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Nina LaCour
Nina LaCour
Caitlin R. Kiernan
Caitlin Ricci
Caitlin Rosenthal
Caitlin OConnell
Caitlin Walker
Caitlin Crews
Caitlin Moran
Caitlin R. Kiernan
Caitlin Moran
Caitlin Crews
Caitlin Crews
Caitlin Crews
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Table of Contents
for my family and for Kristyn
summer
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 Ingrids 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 wont make anything change, but its better than crying, its better than screaming, its better than listening to what theyre telling me.
Something is smashing my chestan anchor, gravity. Soon Ill cave in on myself. I stumble upstairs and yank on the jeans and tank top I wore yesterday. Then Im out the door, up the street, around the corner to the bus stop. Dad calls my name but I dont 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 Im on an unfamiliar street, and thats 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, its 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 cant stop. I want to say, What are you staring at? Its hot, its June, and youre 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.
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 fathers 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 hes going to pat my shoulder, but changes his mind.
My left hand is all the way full of wood now, and its 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 pass 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 Ill live here, stay like this forever, pick away at the bench until its 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 carone is blond and fair; one is brunette, darker. Colored barrettes decorate their hair. It isnt impossible that theyre sisters, but its 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 passenger side and pushes the door open. The smell of leather. Thin, cold, air-conditioned air. I climb in. Let him take me home.
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 Ive been punched in both eyes.
I cant talk about the day that follows that.
We wind up Highway 1 at a crawl because Dad is a cautious driver and hes 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 classical CD collection, and now were on Beethoven. Its Fr 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 stitches.
There are things you should know, Mom says.
I listen for the cars passing 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. 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 space 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. Its quiet here.
Mom whispers, Shes hardly spoken for days.
I hold still and stop counting. I wait to hear more, but minutes pass, and then the whistle of Dads snore begins, followed by Moms even breaths.
My hands lose track of the years. Its 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 Ingrids 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, I whisper almost silently, careful not to wake my parents up. Each of the daughter cells has half the chromosomes of the parent cells. Outside, a car passes. Light sweeps over the ceiling, across the stars. I repeat the facts until all the words cram together.
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