Page 73 of Holding Out

She thought he was going to crow a little over his victory—he was entitled—but he just said, “I promise.”

She got Sibby to take over the desk and drove to KidsUp.When she came into the study room, Jed looked up and saw her.A look flashed across his face—it might have been the pinched fear of a trapped animal, she couldn’t say for sure—but he didn’t run away.He sat still, watching her warily, as she came and slid in across from him.

She motioned for him to take his earbuds out.She half thought he’d ignore her, but he didn’t; he wrapped the earbud cords around his phone and set the whole thing aside.Then he surprised her by reaching into his ratty backpack, pulling out a tattered sheet of paper, and dropping it on the table between them.

“I wrote it down, like you told me to.It sucks.A lot.”

His eyes challenged her to argue.

She touched the piece of paper, her heart pounding.“That’s okay,” she said.“Let’s look at it.”

She read it, slowly working through his almost indecipherable handwriting.

I dont like being home by myself in the afternoons Everything is too loud, I can hear the refridgerator huming and the floors creking, sometimes I think I can here the fight my parents had last nite still echoeing.The house feels like the shades are drawn even tho there not.

She caught her breath.

Across the table from her, he was waiting, watching her face, unable to make himself not care.

“Do you know why we write?”she asked him.“I mean, what the point is?”

He gave her a look that was one notch short of an eye roll, but she didn’t give a shit.What she was about to tell him was something her tenth grade teacher had told her.At the time it hadn’t made a lot of sense to her—but after she’d seen what Alia’s letters had meant to Nate ...Well, now she thought she understood.And she thought Jed might, too.

“We write because we’re trying to reach into someone else’s head and make them feel the same thing we feel.”

Jed’s eyes were on hers, a little less guarded than they’d been before.And she was pretty sure Griff was right.Shewasgetting through to him, for whatever weird reason.Maybe because like recognized like.

She took a deep breath.“My house wasn’t empty, like yours, when I came home from high school.My mom was home.But she was—she was, um, hurting too much to come downstairs.So it was just like you said.Just like that.It felt like the shades were drawn, even though they weren’t.”She closed her eyes, because she could still feel it—that sense, beyond sight or smell or hearing, of somethingwrong.“You nailed it.”

His eyes widened.If she hadn’t been watching so closely, she would have missed it.

“Would you let me help you with the capitalization and punctuation and spelling?I’m not a super genius at it—” She paused for effect.“But I don’t suck as bad as you do.”

A small puff of breath escaped his mouth—the closest thing to a laugh she figured he had in him.Then he put his sullen teenager expression back on and shrugged.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said.

She tried not to, but she couldn’t keep herself from looking over at Griff.Sure enough, he was looking back and the expression on his face reallywasgoing to kill her.She knew that expression, even though very few people had ever looked at her that way.Alia, sometimes.Her mother, on a really good day.A teacher here and there.

He was looking at her like he wasproudof her.And it lit her up, partly because who didn’t want someone looking at them like they’d done something good?Or important.Or smart.Or all of the above.

But right then, it wasn’t that Griff thought she was good or important or smart that mattered most.Maybe she was, and maybe she wasn’t.Maybe she’d helped Jed a ton or maybe he’d just been ready to figure it out for himself, and maybe she’d never know which.She was pleased she’d made a difference, one way or the other, but that wasn’t why Griff’s expression made her feel like fireworks were going off in her belly.

It was because when you were proud of someone, it had two parts.The part where you were all, like,That person did a good job.

And the part where you were like,And that person?

She’smine.

35

JoJo left first, followed by Jed, and then it was just the two of them in the study room.Becca got up from the booth where she’d been working with Jed and came to sit across from him.

“That ...seemed like it went well,” Griff said.

She had a bright glow to her that he knew was satisfaction at having cracked the code that was Jed.And it made her ten times as beautiful as she already was, which in turn made it hard to look at her.

“Thank you,” she said, unexpectedly.“For—” She hesitated.“For texting me to say he was here.For having faith I could do it.For—being generally awesome in a way that made me want to be awesome too.”

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