The Art of Holding On and Letting Go by Kristin Lenz

Author:Kristin Lenz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Elephant Rock Productions, Inc.
Published: 2016-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

28

I pumped the pedals on the bike as fast as I could, wind stinging my face. To have to dread something as simple as a handshake. She fell hard for a guy who turned out to be a total creep. I had crushes on guys, other climbers, and now Tom, but nothing like what Kaitlyn had experienced. I didn’t even talk to Tom outside of school and driver’s ed. Kaitlyn thought she was in love. She trusted Eric, and he broke her heart. It was so unfair.

What a different person she must have been before then. Katie with red hair and a sprinkle of freckles, happy and in love. Anger squeezed out all of my other feelings, and I pumped the pedals even faster, gasping for breath.

Back home, I stowed the bike in the garage. I wasn’t ready to face my grandparents. My eyes were probably red from crying, and tears threatened to spill again, remembering the pain in Kaitlyn’s voice. I tried to push away the panic that was creeping around my throat. Was this how Grandma’s anxiety attacks started? I swallowed a rush of saliva, feeling like I could puke.

I sat down next to the goose on the front porch, focused on my breath, and waited for my heart to stop hammering.

I knew how Kaitlyn felt to some degree. Both of our lives had changed course in the past year; we couldn’t go back to the way things were. Kaitlyn had confided in me, trusted me to share those painful feelings with her. I still hadn’t told her much about my parents and Uncle Max. Why was I having so much trouble opening up to her?

I looked at the goose, and she looked back with her knowing glass eyes.

Because, if I talked about it, it would make it real. And I didn’t want it to be real. I didn’t want to open up to anyone. I didn’t want to feel settled here. I wanted to go home. And some part of me truly expected my parents to show up tomorrow, the next day, two weeks from now. And we’d all go home together.

I thought about the woods surrounding our cabin and the walks I used to take with Dad. When I was little, we’d walk hand in hand. I’d feel the pressure of his fingers squeezing mine and knew that meant to pause.

One time, he whispered, “Shh. Can you hear it? The trees. They’re talking.”

I stood perfectly still, head tilted, listening. Then I said, “I can hear them breathing!”

And my dad laughed and laughed. It became our private joke. “Wait, I hear someone breathing out here,” Dad would say in a scary voice. “Oh, silly me, it’s just the trees.”

Since they were homeschooling me, Mom and Dad would often recite poetry when we were hiking and climbing. One of my dad’s favorite lines was, “Give me my scallop shell of quiet.”

“That’s our cabin, Cara, and these woods. Our own scallop shell of quiet.”

That was what I needed right now, and I wasn’t going to find it inside my grandparents’ house.

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