Chapter Text
Jonathan spent the rest of the weekend reading. He’d never read a book about someone who was so much like him before. Jesse was scrawny, and sensitive, and didn’t have many friends. He lived in a rundown house with a mother who was always tired and a short-tempered father who he seemed to disappoint no matter what he did.
Jesse loved to draw. Jonathan used to like it too, but he’d get frustrated when his drawings never turned out how he wanted them to. A couple of years ago, Mom had let Jonathan be in charge of the photos on Christmas day (to cheer him up after Dad threw a coffee mug across the kitchen, narrowly missing her). He’d been so excited when they got the film developed at Melvald’s and he’d seen the pictures that he’d carefully taken, finally looking just how he wanted (except for some blurriness). Ever since then, Mom had always saved the last three shots on every roll of film for him. He’d spend hours, even days, planning the perfect pictures.
Nancy was right about Bridge to Terbithia – it did get super sad. Sadder than Charlotte’s Web even. When Jesse goes away for a day, Leslie goes to Terabithia by herself and dies. Jonathan bawled his eyes out.
Even though he’d finished reading it, he didn’t want to give it back to Nancy right away. She’d said it was due back a week from Monday, so he figured he might as well hang onto it until then. And maybe he would actually give it back to her directly, rather than getting Will to do it. Hanging out in her room had been really nice. It’d be cool to do that again. At Hawkins Elementary, boys were only friends with boys and girls were only friends with girls. But Jesse and Leslie had managed to become friends in the book, so maybe he and Nancy could be too.
He realised that would probably never happen on Thursday, when Mrs Brooks got Nancy to hand out the social studies worksheets. She’d smiled at him and said, ‘Hey,’ but when he tried to reply it had just come out as a croak, and his face got all hot. Idiot, he’d thought to himself. How come everyone else could just talk to people normally, and he found even the simplest conversation so hard?
That night, still feeling awkward and angry with himself, he’d decided to reread the saddest bits of Terabithia again. If you’re already feeling bad, why not get all the way to miserable, right? He sat in the corner of his room, in the little space between his bookshelf and wardrobe that was somehow the cosiest, comfiest spot for reading, and Chester came and curled up on his legs. Even though he could practically recite whole paragraphs by now, he still got totally engrossed in the story. So much so that he didn’t even hear his dad come home. But suddenly the book was being snatched out of his hands.
‘Hey, didn’t you hear me calling your name, you little sissy? You’re supposed to be taking the damn trash out, not crying over a storybook like a little girl.’ Chester jumped up and started growling at Lonnie, but the sweaty, red-faced man pushed him away with his boot.
Then, with a snarl that sounded more like something that would come from an animal than a person, Jonathan’s dad bent back the cover of the book, and yanked it off the pages inside. He threw the two parts in different directions, saying, ‘There! Now you’ve got something to cry about.’
Not for the first time, Jonathan wished he was grown up. He couldn’t wait for the day when he was as big as his dad – bigger, even – so Lonnie couldn’t push him around anymore. So that he could intervene when his dad went after Mom or Will, and not just be tossed aside.
But that day hadn’t arrived yet. He launched himself at his dad, screaming, ‘I hate you!’, but the man simply pushed him away with one hand and left the room.
Jonathan collapsed to his knees, and retrieved the two pieces of the book. Maybe he could glue it back together or something? He ended up taping the cover back onto the pages, but it looked sloppy and ugly, like everything in his life. Something this broken and ugly didn't belong in that beautiful bedroom in the Wheelers' big house on Maple Street. There was no way he could give it back to Nancy like this.
Why did his dad have to ruin everything?