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“My home life has nothing to do with this story.” He delivers a sardonic smile.
“Of course it does. It affects you, and you’re the documentary.”
He sighs, spinning his chair back to his laptop. The screen saver has come on, a photo of Holden and Trevor bouncing across the screen.
I zoom into the photo, but Holden wakes the computer. “How does Trevor feel about you doing this contest?” I ask.
“He wishes he could compete.”
“What’s stopping him?”
“He’s not old enough, for starters.”
“Shouldn’t he be a freshman this year? I haven’t seen him at school.”
“He lives in Harrisburg.”
It’s implied that he lives with Holden’s dad, but the fact that he didn’t say it makes me question how things ended between Holden’s parents, and how a sweet kid like Trevor, who was so close with his mom and brother, would decide to go with his dad. It... doesn’t make sense. I hate when things don’t make sense. He wasn’t a bad parent, Holden’s dad, but he never exactly seemed like #1 Dad material. He just did the job. The job and not much else.
“Do you see him often?” Harrisburg is only fifteen minutes away, but it’s a different city, a different school district, across a gaping river. It feels far.
I shove my foot against his chair, turning him toward me.
“Yeah.” He’s not really giving me anything to work with here. He doesn’t want to talk about personal things, and I don’t know if it’s me, the camera, the topic, or any combination ofthe three. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t think my family has anything to do with the contest.”
Fantastic. This again.
Maybe over time, he’ll open up. Or maybe I’ll have to pry myself into his life the way I used to wish he had tried to pry into mine after I told him he wasn’t my best friend anymore. But it’s fine. I can work with this. If Holden’s story doesn’t have a heart, I’llgiveit one.
“So, the next event,” Holden says with a smirk, “is based offExtreme Racing. So, should be a piece of cake.”
Says the guy who got pulled over for going too slow.Mara couldn’t stop at naming just one of her favorite Holden moments earlier. I have an arsenal of them now.
Taj is dating Nita López, who works at the Carlisle Sports Emporium, which is how Mara, Holden, and I end up there for “practice.” Historically, the place is deserted on Tuesday nights in autumn. It’s too cold to race around the outside track, the wind lashing at your face, the darkness heavy in your eyes despite the outside lighting. Not exactly convenient practice weather, but it’s the best Holden is going to get, apparently.
Nita sets us up with two go-karts and two baskets full of the fuzzy dice no one ever wants to buy with their ticket earnings in the arcade, smiles at my camera with slightly crooked pearly whites, and then leaves to operate the front desk, insisting that Taj knows what he’s doing.
I, on the other hand, do not have that much faith in him.
“I got this for Mar-Mar,” he says, shoving a helmet on her head. He offers up a second one to me. It looks too small for my head and has a flower sticker on it. I have no clue where he got these from, so I can only assume they’re from his personal collection. “Saine Sinclair?”
“No thanks, Taj Chakrabarti.” But I kind of wonder if I’ll need it when he takes the go-kart for a test drive and hits the bumper walls a few times, his dark hair blowing into his eyes.
Holden sits in his go-kart with Mara beside him, the basket of plush dice snug between them. He practices taking his hand off the steering wheel, grabbing a die, and fake-throwing it.
I try to rig my phone to record him in selfie mode, but I can’t get it secure enough that I feel comfortable with him driving around.
“That would have been a flattering angle,” he says sarcastically as I untie my phone from the wheel.
“Aren’t they all?” I ask sweetly, batting my eyelashes.
He grins back, all teeth and squinted eyes, and a little warmth beats back the cold on my cheeks. “Thank you for noticing.”
I cross to Mara’s side as Taj lets out a whoop and comes to an abrupt stop next to us.
“Film Holden?” I offer her my phone with a shaky hand. If she drops it, I don’t have over a month’s rent at that shitty apartment to buy a new one outright and I’d want to be mad at Mara, but it wouldn’t really be her fault. So then I’d just repress my anger and have no phone, and that sounds fucking miserable. But it’s better than her dropping my camera or the rental.
“Don’t drop it or I’ll kill you.” The words slip out, but thankfully Mara laughs.
