Being In Love With Holden Caufield

My mother has been trying to convince me to come out of my room for two days. I tell her it’s the weekend now, I can do whatever I want - I have no purpose in leaving my room. Everything I need is right here. The only things I need are my books. But here she is, pounding on my door again, telling me I have a visitor. I know who it is. And I don’t want to see him.

I am perpetually disappointed in boys because none of them are like the only boy who understands me – or rather, the only boy who would understand me if he were real. Holden Caulfield. He’s the only one who understands the misfortunate bleakness of the world, the terrible phoniness of it all – the only one other than me, and J.D. Salinger I suppose, the man who pulled Holden from his imagination like a beautiful, silvery web of precious knowledge. But J.D. Salinger is dead, and even if he were alive he would be way too old for me.

No one knows about my love for Holden. No one knows I’ve even read Catcher in the Rye. No one else would understand it. I don’t want anyone else to understand it. All the girls in the ninth grade already think I’m insane for not being ‘like totally in love’ with this boy standing outside my door. Jason Brona is a big freaking ray of sunshine, and all the girls love him. And it will never cease to confuse me how he managed to fall in love with me, the eternal polar opposite.

My mother is pounding on the door now, demanding I let “this nice boy” in my room. She is apologizing to him profusely, telling him she doesn’t know what’s gotten into me. But she does know what’s gotten into me – an extreme case of introversion. It’s always been this way and it’s not going to change. I am unimpressed at her efforts, setting a library copy of A Separate Peace set like a tent over my face, my cat curled up on my empty stomach, a cup of once hot tea now cold on my bedside table
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They say there are two types of people in the world: those who like dogs, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and coffee, and those who like cats, Catcher in the Rye and tea. I’m clearly the latter.

The knocking is persistent and I finally, with a huff, grant them allowance to enter. And there he is, that perpetually smiling Jason Brona, standing there with some sad looking wildflowers, clearly aware of just how amazing everyone thinks he is. I would like to wipe that smug, “sincere” smile right off his mug. He’s just another phony, just like the rest of them.

“Hey Madison,” he greets as he crosses the threshold into my room. “Missed you at school this week. Are you feeling any better?”

What he doesn’t know is I’m fine and I have been all week. I just didn’t really feel like going to school and being around all the fake people in my grade, with their drama and their privilege and everything. “A bit,” is how I respond.

He approaches me with this despondent little bouquet, the buds purple and blue and pink and yellow like in a painting, but not quite as good. “I brought these for you. They’re not much, but I thought they’d maybe cheer you up.”

I take them from him and tuck them into an empty cup on my bedside table. “Thanks,” I respond curtly. I don’t understand what he wants me to say – Come and make out with me Jason! Come fall in love with me Jason! The girls in my grade think he’s sweet and sensitive, but I’m convinced it’s a façade. We sit in silence for a while; I don’t think he knows what to say next. There’s nothing I really can say to him, nothing that he’ll really understand.

Next thing I know, he’s crossing the room to my bookshelf, reaching for my tattered, worshiped copy of Catcher. The breath catches in my throat, angry and also afraid as he pulls it from the shelf and holds it in his big, tan hands.

“I love this book,” he tells me, flipping through the pages absently. Those words are all it takes to get me up and out of bed, running across the room to snatch the book out of his hands. The anger fills me like champagne in a flute, bubbling and fizzing to the top until it spills over. Jason Brona has his phony hands all over my secret getaway, all over my Holden Caulfield, and I absolutely cannot stand the sight of it.

I rip it out of his hands, scowling at him and his shocked expression. “You don’t know the beginning of loving this book,” I growl at him, hugging the book to my chest.

“I’m sorry?” he responds. He makes me sick.

“You’re a phony, Jason Brona! Just like the rest of them!” I cry at him, having totally snapped. “You parade around acting all sweet to get the girls to like you and then decide to prey on me so you can tell your friends you got quiet little Madison Gardener to like you - isn’t it so funny!”

I am breathing sharply in between sentences now, my voice rising as I put that boy with the shaggy bronze curls in his place. “A guy like you could never possibly ‘love’ this book the way I do. This book is the best thing to ever happen to me. This book changed everything about my life. Now get out of my room. I have no time for insincerity.”

Jason is stunned for a second, his puddle colored eyes all dull with what appears to be hurt. We are quiet again for a while, just staring at each other, my breathing almost gasps. I immediately regret overtly expressing my love for Catcher, afraid that Jason may tell someone and that suddenly everyone will be reading my precious book, pretending they understand it the way that I do.

“You know how Holden says that ‘people never notice’ anything, Madison?” he suddenly says in the silence between us.

I nod. I’m surprised he can come up with a direct quote off the top of his head. Even I can barely do that.

“I think you maybe need to open your eyes a little bit. You’re so busy convincing yourself everyone is so phony that I think you’ve started to miss out on what’s actually real.”

I open my mouth to argue but no words come out. No one’s ever talked to me like that before. The bubbles of anger subside into embarrassment, covering me like a stark white sheet.

“You’re so different; I can’t help but like you. And that’s a real thing. It’s just like Holden says. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to. That’s exactly how you work, Madison. And I’ve fallen for it.”

He leaves and shuts the door behind him with finality, and I can’t help but feel like the phony one.