CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Michaela
Being left in a person’s home unattended is a lesson is restraint. After Holden walked out the door, I caught a few hours of sleep on the couch - making up for the hours I lost in Delilah’s room - but once I woke again, I could barely contain my curiosity.
Holden had always been a mystery. The same couldn’t be said for his sister, but if anything, he was a closed book, a leather bound journal secured with a padlock, the exquisite detailing of the cover drawing a person’s eye while mocking them that they’d never get a peek at the inside. Many girls had tried to pick that lock regardless of Holden’s reputation around school, and while some had claimed he’d taken them to bed, none had claimed he’d told them even the smallest detail about himself. I’d always wondered why he was so closed off to the world, why he refused to give in to pressure and become one of us.
That same refusal had made him a target, but even with the names he was called, the pranks that were played against him, the fights that he’d never started until that day in the cafeteria, Holden had never buckled. I tended to think it was the main reason the guys on the team hated him so much. Holden could have surpassed them in sports, in intelligence, in looks and everything else, but he’d turned his nose up at it, making it clear he didn’t admire or envy the only qualities those guys had that made them feel special and worthy.
In truth, I’d secretly admired him from afar, wished I could be like him, wished I could know him better than all those girls he’d taken to bed. If it hadn’t been for Jack, I would have been one of those girls, and I would have cried just as hard when I realized that, with Holden, there was no guarantee of a relationship.
It wasn’t that he used the girls. Each one of them admitted he’d been perfectly clear from the start - sex and the respect they deserved. But never anything more.
Sitting in his living room, the same question came to mind that I’d wondered every day in high school: Who was this gorgeous shadow? This person who had grown past the demands of youth and carried all his frustrating secrets into adulthood.
The answers were available to me now. In his room. In this house. All I had to do was walk around.
The need to explore was overwhelming. But I fought. Several times I turned on the television, the soap operas and legal shows doing nothing to curb my curiosity. Turning it off, I’d explored Delilah’s room again because Holden had given me permission to be inside it. Every time I stepped in was more depressing.
It was as if Delilah never grew older than she was on the day her parents died. Holden had been on his own for two years doing his best to take care of her.
My family would have never done that for me. They would have stuck me in a home, sent me flowers on my birthday and maybe a postcard from wherever they were traveling.
They wouldn’t have stayed by my side.
I respected Holden more. Hated myself more for being part of the town that hurt him.
Circling the room several times, I caught myself glancing at the door, struggled against the desire to walk through that door, down the hall and into another room that was black and white instead of rainbow. To the room of the artist instead of the dancer.
My gaze flicked to the clock. Seven after ten, he would be home at any time. I still needed to put the finishing touches on dinner, but it could wait a few short minutes.
Temptation won.
Traipsing to his room, I rested my hand on the knob, stopped, listened; turned the knob and let go. The door opened on its own, or at least that’s what I told myself. It wasn’t like he said I could never be in his room. He’d tied me up and left me in there. That’s an invitation, right? A strange one. Initially, a terrifying one. But still an invitation.
I won’t lie. I actually tiptoed in. It was like walking into enemy territory, or possibly dodging lasers on the way to the precious diamond I was attempting to steal. Only the diamond wasn’t a multi-million dollar stone, it was a spattering of sketches pinned to his wall with no pattern or symmetry in the way they were hung. Tiny windows into Holden’s thoughts, scattered without rhyme or reason.
The first was a set of doors I recognized from school. The cafeteria, I realized. Inside, the tables were filled with students, all of them identical. Peering closer, I saw that their faces were actually masks with cartoon smiles, their bodies positioned equally spaced and exactly the same. The image was disturbing, but oddly fitting. I peered closer to see the intricate details, noticing how each student had a knife in their back, a turnkey attached to the hilt as if to wind them up like tiny tin soldiers.
“Okay, that’s creepy,” I mumbled, moving on.
A second sketch was hung to the right of first, but several inches higher. Delilah laughing in dance practice, her body seated on a bench seat, her soul dancing above her, endlessly spinning.
My breath caught at the third. Another dancer, but this one had brown hair flowing down to her hips. She wasn’t in costume, not a formal one anyway. Standing in front of a set of mirrors, she stretched her leg on a rail, her head turned toward the mirror, her face absent.
No mask. No fake smile. Nothing.
This girl was empty.
“I drew that one a little over three years ago. It was boring sometimes when I brought Del to practice.”
My heart was in my throat as I spun on my heel at his voice, my cheeks flaming red to have been caught. “Oh! Hi. I was just -“
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “Snooping?”
Shoulders deflating, I tried to speak around the rapid beat of my heart. “Not snooping, it’s just that I saw these yesterday when I was locked in here, and I wanted a closer look. You’re talented, Holden. It’s hard not to look.”
Not just at his sketches. It was hard not to look at him as well. Even now while he was bundled in a jacket and hoodie, his head covered with a black, slack beanie pulled down to just above his eyes and over his ears, his work pants stained with grease, his boots scuffed at the toes and heels, he stole my attention much like he’d done in school. No longer wearing the small ring on the right side of his bottom lip, his blue eyes were bright bulbs against his tan skin and black hair, glowing as if lit by an inner fire much warmer than anything I’d known in another person.
His hands were tucked into the pockets of his jacket, his broad shoulders rolled forward in response to the cold wind outside, he studied me from where he stood, his body perfectly still, but not his gaze.
I felt shy in his presence, regretted that the only clothes I had were a t-shirt and sweatpants that were too small. My hair was a knotted mess down my back, my face swollen and bruised. But, I had a strange feeling that when Holden looked at me, he didn’t see the superficial details, he saw something hidden deeper inside me, something that all the mirrors I’d looked at in my life were unable to show me. If his drawings were an indication, then I was right to believe that Holden didn’t care about the outside of a person as much as he did the parts that were hidden beneath the flesh, the muscle and bone.
From the kitchen, the scent of food wafted into the room just before the timer buzzed. He turned to look between his door and me. “Is that dinner?”
Nodding, I hated the sudden shyness. “Yes, I just need to add the topping and we can eat.”
The skin between his eyes wrinkled. “You really made dinner?”
A smile tugged at my lips. “I told you I would. Is that okay? I asked and you said-“
“No, it’s fine. Of course, it’s fine. I’m just surprised is all.”
“Surprised?”
His smile stretched wider, two dimples at the corners of his lips indenting in. “I had no idea you could cook. I thought you probably had fancy chefs and all that, or ate out. I don’t know,” his voice quieted, “just whatever the people on your side of town do to eat or whatever.”
Laughter burst from my mouth. “Well, we have a cook, so you’re not all wrong, but I like Penny. She’s worked for us since I was little and she taught me a few things.”
He didn’t move or answer, just stared at me with eyes that saw too much.
“I should probably go pull it from the oven before it burns.”
Holden nodded, stepped aside, his eyes tracking me as I moved past him to leave the room. A tendril of his cologne reached out to wrap around me as I snuck past, the scent drawing me so much that I had to fight the instinct to turn and move closer to its source. Thankfully, my stomach was helpful in pushing me along, a grumble sounding as soon as the scent of food collided against me, the room warm and filled to every corner with the promise of a meal.
Behind me, heavy footfalls were a slow beat, Holden’s long-legged stride eating the distance with fewer steps than it had taken me.
Grabbing the potholders, I pulled dinner from the oven, a tuna casserole that I’d gotten creative to prepare. Holden’s house didn’t have all the ingredients I’d needed, but he did have enough to improvise. Crushing a bag of potato chips, I added the topping and found two plates to dish out the food.
I almost dropped them when I spun to find Holden standing right behind me, a dark shadow that took up way too much space. His hands locked to my shoulders to steady me. “Sorry,” he said, his apology spoken softly.
Nervous laughter rattled through me. “No need to apologize, I just don’t understand how you sneak around so quietly with as big as you are.”
“Lots of practice, I guess.”
“Practice to be a ninja?”
He smiled again and I damn near melted right there at his feet.
“Something like that. I’ll carry those to the table.” His fingers brushed mine when he took the plates from my hands, his large body moving away, stealing the heat that I hadn’t noticed when he stood close. Now that it was absent, I shivered against the cold that crept in, the increasing distance between us making me feel lonely somehow.
Setting the plates on the table, he didn’t take a seat. He simply turned to look at me. “Aren’t you eating with me?”
Startled out of my daze by the question, I grinned and padded over on bare feet. We took our seats and ate quietly, Holden’s empty plate scraping against the table when he pushed it away. “That was awesome. Thank you. Normally, I just eat cereal or whatever is easy when I get home after a double.”
“Delilah doesn’t cook?” I asked, glancing up to see a stricken look on his face.
Shaking his head, he explained, “Deli suffered a head injury in the accident that killed my folks. I’ve tried to get her to seek treatment beyond what they did for her at the hospital, but until yesterday, she refused to leave the house. Maybe now, she’ll go, as long as my issues don’t-“
His expression was pained, his voice drifting off for a few seconds before his eyes met mine again. “Anyway, she blanks out, just pauses like someone turned off a switch. Sometimes for a second or two, and other times for several minutes. I don’t feel safe with her cooking when I’m not home. I usually prepare meals she can pop in the microwave on days I’m working long hours.”
My guilt was suffocating, a heavy, toxic cloud that wrapped over me, stealing every last bit of clean air and good feelings. Even though I wasn’t directly responsible for the tragedies his family suffered, my part was indirect - a silent mouth, a person watching as a bright soul was dragged down and shredded by the jackals of Tranquil Falls. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For never speaking up. For never defending you against the kids that called you-“
“Crazy?” he interrupted, stealing the word from the tip of my tongue. “A freak?”
Shame choked me so thoroughly that my next words were a whisper. “I never called you that. Not once.”
He should have been angry, should have raged to have been treated so badly by people who attacked when he’d never done anything to deserve it. Instead, he laughed. “I wore those titles like a badge, Michaela. It meant I wasn’t like the rest of you. Don’t feel bad about it.”
Peering at him from beneath my lashes, I shook my head. “Of course I feel bad. Those kids targeted you. Jack and Clive targeted you, and for stupid reasons.”
“They were jealous.”
Locking my gaze to his, I grinned. “That’s what I think, too. You never bowed down to them. Not like the rest of the school.” Pausing, I remembered more about our years in high school. “Delilah, however, was proud of you. She didn’t have many people to brag to, but she bragged to me about you.”
Breathing out heavily, he reached to run his hands over his head, tugging the beanie off and dropping it to the floor. Braiding his fingers together, Holden rested his hands on top of his head, his arms folded out at the sides, stretching his shoulders apart, making him look bigger. “Do I even want to know what she bragged about?”
Swallowing to ease the attraction I had to him, I asked, “Promise not to get mad?”
His grin was the only answer I needed. But he vocalized the thought, confirming exactly what I already knew. “I could never be mad at Del. Annoyed? Frustrated beyond belief? Yes. But mad? Never.”
“She bragged about your art...and your music. She recorded you singing once and showed me the video at dance practice.”
His eyes clenched shut and opened again. “Okay, maybe a little mad.” Groaning, he cursed under his breath. “She’s just as sneaky as me apparently.”
“You shouldn’t hide your talent, Holden. Those paintings were beautiful. I thought they belonged in a big city gallery somewhere. And your music, it was-“ My voice trailed off, adequate words lost to me. I settled on a description that was far too simple. “It was beautiful. Soulful. I’ve never heard someone play like that before.”
In that moment, I saw pride in his expression, but like everything I’d noticed in Holden, it was there one second and gone the next. The bubble bursting. The walls coming down again as his thoughts sped off to some unknown place. Sorrow replaced the pride and I wanted to reach out to smooth away the lines of it from his face.
“I need to grab a shower,” he announced. “I smell like a greasy diner.” Standing, he reached for the plates to take them to the sink. From behind the counter, he said, “I’ll clean since you cooked.”
“I don’t mind cleaning,” I offered, “it’ll give me something to do.”
Holden eyed me, his stare locking to some secret part of me that I doubted I’d ever seen. “Suit yourself,” he answered with a shrug of his shoulder before stalking off.
The loneliness settled over me again, the knowledge that I’d missed years of knowing someone as amazing as Holden all because I was as shallow and fake as the people who’d made it their life’s mission to abuse him.