A/N okay I had this one on my laptop for a long time before I posted it. I read Catcher in the Rye for English and we were meant to do a creative writing piece about it and well I wrote this. I just felt like posting something today so here it is. I hope you like it.
She was Phoebe Caulfield your seemingly average New York City school girl. There was one dark part of Phoebe's life, her family. She stood now in the hallway of what was once a family's home. Now her Mother and Father practically lived a different life from her trying desperately to cope with the loss of one son and the insanity of another. Her mother was practically neurotic now she jumped when loud sounds were made especially if they were made by the youngest Caulfield. Her father was getting stricter and stricter about what she could and couldn't do. She wasn't allowed out by herself her friends had to come and collect her from the house or she couldn't go. This had started not long after her parents discovered the fact she'd planned to run away with Holden to go far away from everything she'd ever known.
These days the house was so empty. Phoebe was all alone when her parents were away the maid didn't count she was paid to do what her parents wanted and what they wanted was for Phoebe to be normal. But she knew that was never going to happen. Once upon a time there had been four children in the house laughing, playing, and living. It was when she was seven that everything changed. Her older brother Allie, the fun laughing boy from her memories had always been ill. She could remember her mother saying that Allie couldn't go out to play with the rest of them. That he was special that it was dangerous for him to be outside. She was seven when the quiet, somewhat lonely boy died, when her brothers fell apart in their own ways. It was Allie's death that pushed D.B. away from his younger siblings. He'd gone to Hollywood not long after. Phoebe secretly thought that he was scared, scared by the feelings that were surging through his very spirit after Allie's death. So he'd gone and surrounded himself with phonies. Holden would never forgive him for leaving then.
Holden was the next to go. Their parents sent him off to school after school as he refused to use his talent in any subject except English. For some reason her brother loved that subject. She thought it might have something to do with Allie. She knew that Holden held onto the poetry covered mitt that had been Allie's with everything in his body. It was his most prized possession. She knew the poetry on it off by heart. When Holden was home and her parents weren't he used to read to her the lines her dead brother had immortalized on the mitt. It wasn't helping the family that they were receiving weekly letters from headmasters. Holden was a trouble maker, he wasn't applying himself it was all the same none of them wanted him at their schools for very long. She wasn't particularly surprised when he stopped trying to really make friends. When his letters to her started to only consist of how phoney everyone was being.
Holden had always been her favourite. D.B. had had little time for his youngest sibling focusing more on the writing career he was pursuing. Allie, Allie she could barely remember, just occasional memories of him begging Holden to take him outside and her older brother softening to Allie time and time again. She knew she'd never understand the bond between Allie and Holden just that when he died Holden lost not only his brother but his best friend. Holden had been there her entire life right up until their parents separated them. Holden had sat by her at Allie's funeral clutching her little hand, while she wondered what could be done to save her brother. Holden broke inside the day Allie was buried when he had to accept that he was never coming back, never play on the swings again, never going to laugh at Phoebe pulling a face behind D.B.'s back again and never going to speak to Holden again.
He'd tried to hide from himself. But his only sister could see it. The way he paused every time he passed Allie's door, the way when his name was mentioned Holden would tense. So he started flunking out of school. Not really bothering to put any effort in, there was nothing she speculated to drive him now. When he came home the first Christmas having been away for so long Phoebe had run up and thrown her arms around her neck and for the first time she could remember he didn't immediately respond. Her brother used to be very affectionate showering her with hugs if she was sad or ill. She could remember Holden sneaking into her room and sleeping next to her if she had a nightmare. He responded after a second but Phoebe could tell something was wrong. She saw it more and more over the years how he wouldn't reach to take her hand anymore when they walked together. Holden had stopped reaching out when Allie died. Try as she might she never could raise the issue to her parents. It seemed trivial when she went to say it. Holden might just think she was getting too old to hold hands with her big brother.
In retrospect she knew she should have said something that would have been one of the first signs that Holden was depressed according to his Psychoanalyst. Her parents had just said that Holden had never been affectionate. Phoebe knew different. It was last Christmas that Holden had truly shown how much he cared. He just didn't trust enough anymore. That must be it the ten-year-old had thought. After Allie and D.B. he couldn't trust anyone else not to leave him. Yet she remembered his certainty in coming to her play. She had been so proud that her mother and beloved brother would be going. That they'd see her perform that which she'd worked on.
Then Holden came home. She'd thought that her family was complete.
But Holden was shattering in front of her.
So she'd made up her mind. She was going to go with him, where ever he went. He'd refused at first but she'd still followed him. She knew that he would need someone. Even if that someone was his kid sister. They'd stayed at the park until night fall. Holden was shivering after standing in the rain for hours. Phoebe had stayed on the merry-go-round for hours. She wished Holden would have come on with her but he seemed so content watching her. So he'd taken her back home after a while. He'd come with her. No fighting. That was so unlike Holden. He barely talked he just held her hand in his own larger one. Then he'd pulled the red hunting hat off his head and placed it on her head.
She'd been sent to her room the moment that she got home her mother looked ready to pass out as she came in soaked through with her supposed to be in boarding school brother. She'd sat for once in her own room and listened to the door and heard every word that was said to her brother. She wanted to cry as they said that he had to go see a special doctor. That they were going to send him away again when she'd just got him back.
Now Holden had been gone for a month. Her dear brother couldn't write from the new place. And there was no way that her parents were letting her near him after they found her suitcase and realized that she was going to go with Holden. So she was by herself.
Once she had gone to D.B.'s room because it was bigger. She never went to Allie's room. That was Holden's secret place. It was where he had gone to think every time he was expelled. Now she curled up under the covers in Holden's room. The Red Hunting Hat on her head, she had one last thought as she fell into a restless sleep. They really are phonies.