Les premières phrases

 » I watch drops of water fall from the ends of my hair. They streak down my towel, puddle on the sofa cushion. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my ears.

“Sweetheart. Listen.”

Mom says Ingrid’s name and I start to hum, not the melody to a song, just one drawn-out note. I know it makes me seem crazy, I know it won’t make anything change, but it’s better than crying, it’s better than screaming, it’s better than listening to what they’re telling me.

Something is smashing my chest—an anchor, gravity. Soon I’ll cave in on myself. I stumble upstairs and yank on the jeans and tank top I wore yesterday. Then I’m out the door, up the street, around the corner to the bus stop. Dad calls my name but I don’t shout back. Instead, I step onto the bus just as its doors are shutting. I find a seat in the back and ride away, through Los Cerros and through the next town, until I’m on an unfamiliar street, and that’s where I get off. I sit on the bench at the bus stop, try to slow my breathing. The light here is different, bluer. A smiling mom with a baby in a stroller glides past me. A tree branch moves in the breeze. I try to be as light as air.  »

Circonstances de lecture

Parce que j’avais adoré « We are Okay » du même auteur.

Impressions

Nina LaCour sait décrire les émotions avec une grande justesse. Comme dans « We are Okay », on se met très vite à la place de son héroïne et on a bien du mal à lâcher ce roman. Ici, Caitlin essaie de reprendre le chemin du lycée après le suicide de sa meilleure amie, Ingrid. Reprendre goût à la vie après une telle perte relève du parcours du combattant. Et lorsque Caitlin découvre le journal d’Ingrid, caché sous son lit, elle commence petit à petit à entrevoir la face cachée de sa meilleure amie. Une très belle histoire d’amitié et de survie.

Un passage parmi d’autres

I get down on the carpet to look under my bed. I stick my arm under and feel around, find a couple mismatched socks, and something I don’t recognize—hard and flat and dusty. I pull it out, thinking maybe it’s a yearbook from elementary school, and then I see it and my heart stops.

Ingrid’s journal.

For some reason, I feel afraid. It’s like I’m split down the middle and one half of me wants to open it more than I’ve ever wanted to do anything. The other half is so scared. I can’t stop shaking.

Did it get kicked under the bed one night by accident?

Did she hide it?

I stare at it in my hands forever, just feeling its weight, looking at the place where one Wite-Out wing is starting to flake off. Then, once my hands are steadied, I open to the first page. It’s a drawing of her face—yellow hair; blue eyes; small, crooked smile. She’s looking straight ahead. Birds fly across the background. She drew them blurry, to show movement, and across the top she wrote, Me on a Sunday Morning.

I turn the page.

As I read, I can hear Ingrid’s voice, hushed and fast, like she’s telling me secrets.

 

Nina LaCour – Hold still – 2010 (Speak)

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