The Art of Holding On and Letting Go (9 page)

In California, the local high school was like a sprawling villa tucked in the hills. Whitewashed stucco, open corridors. You left your classroom and walked outside under a veranda to get to your next classroom. Not that I ever went there, but when my parents talked about me going to “real” school, that was what I pictured.

I took one last deep breath of fresh air and entered to serve my time. The door hissed shut behind me. Four hours until I could escape at lunchtime. I touched the bruised bump on my forehead from Friday's crash with Basketball Guy. At least it was mostly hidden by my bangs. I was steering clear of the cafeteria today.

Something was on my desk in Algebra II. I slid into my seat and picked up the little blue and white package. Snack-size Oreos. Basketball Guy was at the front of the room, leaning over the pencil sharpener at the teacher's desk.

I pushed the package of cookies to the corner of my desk and took out my notebook and pencil. The lead point was broken. Okay then. I headed to the sharpener and waited my turn.

“Regular or the super special?”

Basketball Guy was asking me a question. His shoulders hunched to come down to my size. Since I was only five-foot-three, he had a long way to go. I gave him a blank look. Was he asking me about cookies? He flashed his lopsided grin and held out his hand, waiting for …

My pencil. Duh. He took it and said, “Just a regular sharpening today, okeydokey.”

What a goof! But cute. His cheeks were still flushed with those two pink splashes. A faint scar cut into his upper lip, and I wondered what had gashed his skin once upon a time. That thick wavy hair. What ethnicity was he? Italian? Maybe some Latino blood? A curly lock fell over one eye as he bent down to sharpen my pencil.

“Thanks for the Oreos.” I tipped my head in the direction of my desk.

“I owed you.” He squinted at my forehead. “You have a goose egg!”

I raised my hand to the bump on my forehead and smoothed my bangs.

“I'm so sorry!” he said. “Does it hurt?”

I shook my head. “No, it's fine. Really. What about you?”

He rapped his knuckles against his skull. “Hard as a rock.”

He gave my pencil back to me and nodded at the bracelet on my wrist. “Are those acai beads?”

“Um, no, tagua nuts. From Ecuador.” I held out my wrist for him to see.

“Cool. My dad brought my mom a bracelet like that from Brazil.” He touched the beads on my wrist. “But it's made from acai seeds.”

He gave me another grin, I smiled back, and we returned to our seats.

A guy gave him a fist bump as he passed. “Triple T.”

A basketball nickname? Tim, Trent, Trevor? How was I going to find out this guy's name?

I fiddled with my bracelet. My nails had grown out into a ragged mess, and the crosshatch of scratches on the back of my hand had healed into raised red scars. I hoped he hadn't noticed.

The teacher's scribbles on the whiteboard might as well have been written in Chinese. I twirled my ponytail, squirmed in my seat; my legs twitched. How could long-legged people like Triple T tolerate being cramped in these uncomfortable chairs? His profile from across the room was much more interesting than the mess of quadratic equations on my desk. He didn't seem to be having any trouble with his problems. He hunched over his desk, pencil moving smoothly across the page, working out the answers.

He looked up and busted me. I looked away, then back. He was still looking at me, and of course my fingers were stuck in my twirled ponytail. His grin grew wider as I tugged and disentangled my gnarly hand. I made a funny grimace; what else could I do?

Lunchtime came, and another note fell out of my locker.

What the hell? I shoved the note in my pocket, grabbed my lunch, and slammed my locker door. The sun beckoned, and I was about to bypass the cafeteria and head home when Kaitlyn and Nick appeared, one on each side.

“California Cara,” Nick said.

“You gonna sit with us again?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Uh … I was just—”

My words fell away as I spotted Triple T up ahead, flanked by two girls. Their arms were linked with his.

“Come on.” Kaitlyn and Nick steered me toward their group. The rest of the vampires had beaten us to the table by the window. That morning I had put on a black T-shirt, just in case. There was something appealing about melting into their somberness. But in this crowd, my blond ponytail stood out like a crescent moon in a midnight sky.

“Scooch over,” Kaitlyn said to Nick, who made room for her at the end of the table. The guy across from her had piercings in his eyebrow, nose, and lip. He looked at me sideways and moved over an inch. I squeezed onto the bench with one butt cheek, while he turned toward the girl on his other side. Fine by me. I gazed longingly out the window, then opened my lunch.

More Oreos from Grandma. I had left the snack pack gift in my locker. My eyes drifted up the next aisle; he sat at the same table as yesterday, laughing with the two girls he'd been walking with. Maybe I just hadn't noticed them yesterday. Why did I care? I didn't even know his name. And Triple T sounded like a Kentucky Derby racehorse.

I pulled the crust off my sandwich. Kaitlyn picked seeds out of her sandwich's bread, keeping her hand without fingers mostly hidden in her long sleeve. I tried to peek at it, but I didn't want her to notice. If I was embarrassed about my wrecked hands, how must she feel? The pierced-face guy kept bumping me with his elbow. I told myself to just stand up and go outside while I still had a chance for fresh air, but instead I watched Nick use four napkins to soak up the grease on his slice of pizza.

“He's afraid of zits marring his perfect skin,” Kaitlyn said.

“Very funny,” Nick muttered. His dimples flashed.

He ate the pepperonis first, then devoured the rest of his pizza in three bites. The greasy napkins sat in a gray lump on the corner of the cafeteria tray.

With his mouth half-full, he turned to me and said, “So what gives.” Chomp, chomp, gulp. “You moved here before school started, right? How come you haven't been to the climbing gym yet?”

How long are you going to make us wait?

Pierced-face guy shifted, almost shoving me off the bench. A lightning bolt of anger flashed inside me. I yanked the folded note out of my pocket, shoving pierced-face in the process, and slapped it on the table in front of Nick.

“It's none of your business. And stop leaving these notes in my locker.”

“Whoa!” Nick held up his hands. “Don't look at me.”

Kaitlyn read the note aloud. “I don't get it.”

“It's about the climbing gym,” I said. “Planet Granite. Apparently
someone
thinks I should be going there. This is the fourth note.”

“I didn't write them,” Nick said.

Yeah right.
I raised my eyebrows at him. Kaitlyn did the same.

Nick looked back and forth from me to Kaitlyn. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you know I'm a climber,” I said. “How do you even know that?”

“Go on, explain.” Kaitlyn nodded at him.

“Look at her hands.” Nick reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “She's either a climber or a car mechanic.”

I snatched my hand back.

“Nick!” Kaitlyn said.

“What? Okay, fine. I climb there sometimes. Everyone there knows you're here.”

“What? How?”

“Are you kidding me? Have you been living under a rock?”

Kaitlyn elbowed him.

Nick sighed, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and tapped away. He handed it to me.

The
Rock and Ice
magazine website. “Juniors Rock!” was the heading in bold print, then “Tragedy Looms.” Below was a close-up shot of me holding my third-place medal, followed by an older photo of Mom, Dad, and Uncle Max.

“The magazine is on a rack right at the counter at the gym. Everyone who climbs there knows who you are.”

I zoomed in on the photo of my parents and Uncle Max, wanting it to be bigger, clearer. My body stilled, my mind went blank, all of my anger draining away.

“So how come you haven't been there yet?” Nick said.

Kaitlyn elbowed him again. “Leave her alone.”

What was I supposed to say?
Well, Nick, let's see, my uncle is frozen and buried on a glacier in the middle of nowhere and my parents are traipsing all over South America while I'm stuck in high school hell.

The clamor of the cafeteria was suddenly too much to bear. I stood up, muttered, “I gotta go,” and flew out of the cafeteria, leaving my lunch behind.

I found my lunch sitting in front of my locker at the end of the school day. Kaitlyn? I peeked inside the bag; it looked like everything was still in there, even my sandwich with the crusts pulled off. My stomach growled.

“Cara?”

Kaitlyn leaned against the locker next to mine.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” I held up my lunch. “Thanks.”

“Nick can be really thoughtless sometimes.”

I shook my head. “He wasn't … I just … It's hard to explain.”

“You don't have to, not to me.”

I fiddled with the beads on my bracelet, unsure what to say. “Nick keeps trying to get me to try climbing, but hello?” She held up her misshapen hand. “Not the best sport for me.”

I smiled. “Most people think climbing is all about your hands, but your legs are just as important, maybe more so.”

“Really?”

“For sure.” I nodded at her hand. It was the first time I was seeing it fully exposed, the contorted shape and smooth skin where fingers would normally be. “Can you use it, I mean, like, does it hurt?”

“No, it doesn't hurt, and I'm actually pretty lucky to have a strong pincer grasp.” She demonstrated by holding her backpack with her thumb and first finger—her only finger, and it was half-formed.

“How did it happen?”

“Just born this way.”

“Sorry to keep asking.”

“Whatever. A lot of people are freaked out by it. Which makes me kind of freaked out by it.” She pulled her long sleeve over her hand again.

“I know a climber with missing fingers,” I said. “An accident with ropes and frostbite. He still climbs though.”

Kaitlyn was quiet a minute, and I busied myself pulling books out of my locker and putting them in my backpack.

“Well, maybe I'll try it someday,” she said.

“You should, definitely.”

There was something about Kaitlyn's face, her big blue eyes, a genuineness that couldn't be covered up by her dark makeup. An offer to teach her to climb was on the tip of my tongue, but I kept it to myself. I didn't plan on venturing to Planet Granite anytime soon.

I ate my sandwich on the walk home from school. For once, Grandma and Grandpa weren't waiting for me when I walked in the front door. A clatter came from the kitchen, and I breathed in deep. Mmm, freshly baked cookies. Even better, the rich, buttery scent had conquered the usual mothball odor.

The door to the curio cabinet stood open in the living room. Weird. I peered at the shelves full of angel figurines. Grandma never let me touch them when I was younger, but I had studied all of them through the glass. My favorites were the five baby angels. One sat in a baby carriage, another in a bubble bath, and three more in cradles. I pulled out the one in a bubble bath and ran a finger over the iridescent bubbles.

I had never thought to ask her why she started collecting all of these figurines. The cookie scent grew stronger, and I returned the angel to the cabinet and followed my gurgling stomach to the kitchen.

Grandpa was helping himself to a cookie right off the pan. “Ooh, ah, hot, hot.” He pulled the cookie apart and a drop of chocolate plopped onto his shirt.

Grandma huffed. “You couldn't wait just one minute for them to cool off?”

“Oops.” Grandpa grinned at me and tried to lick the chocolate off his shirt.

Grandma huffed even louder, but I couldn't help laughing.

“Do you have a lot of homework today?” Grandpa asked me.

I shook my head. Of course I had a lot of homework, but I had no plans of actually doing it. Agatha Christie was calling my name. I helped myself to a cookie.

“Good. I thought we could go for a little drive and check out the rock climbing gym.”

I paused with the cookie half in my mouth, the chocolate burning my tongue. Grandma poured milk into a glass, but she paused too, raising her eyes to Grandpa.

“I figured you must be missing climbing after all these weeks,” he said.

I swallowed the bite of cookie, scorching my throat. Grandma pushed the glass of cold milk toward me, and I chugged.

“Did my mom tell you to do that?”

“No, there was a flyer at the library. There's even an after-school club that meets there.”

I almost snorted, but I knew Grandpa was only trying to help. An after-school club,
right
.

“I don't think that's a good idea—” Grandma pointed a spatula at Grandpa.