Don’t Make Me Turn This Life Around Pagán, Camille (best novels for teenagers .txt) 📖

glass, a couple was making out. And by making out, I mean they were really going at it—right in front of the restaurant in broad daylight. And they weren’t even young!

Paul turned back to me. “We coasted,” he said quietly. “And it turns out that coasting is just quitting in slow motion.”

FIVE

I’ve heard divorce described as a slow death. Mine was more like a spontaneous amputation. When I’d tried to tell Tom that I’d just been diagnosed with cancer, he’d mistaken my sobbing for a sign I’d figured out what he’d been working up the courage to tell me for months: he wasn’t actually attracted to women, including but not limited to me. As such, we went from being what I’d thought of as deliriously happy to a complete farce in the span of mere minutes. So when Paul referred to the “unraveling” of his relationship with Charlie, I didn’t really know how that worked. If a marriage unspooled itself over time, didn’t that mean there were ample opportunities to rein it back in? I had a strong suspicion that it wasn’t something that had just happened to them. It was a decision that Paul had made—again and again and again.

Now he needed to decide to reverse it while he had the chance.

I was still stewing when Shiloh got home from work that night. The girls were eating dinner at their friend Cecelia’s, so I’d made a quick salad, knowing that Shiloh would grab something from his work cafeteria.

“Hey, you,” he said, kissing me. “How was your day?”

“Interesting,” I said, following him into our bedroom.

“Interesting good, or interesting bad?”

“Maybe a mix?” I admitted, watching him unbutton his shirt. I didn’t really want to tell him about my conversation with Paul. Saying it aloud would make it . . . real, I supposed. And the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that it was only a matter of time before my brother saw the error of his ways.

“Rupi proposed a new project,” I said, my eyes still on him. Now he was in his boxers, looking far fitter than a fifty-five-year-old man had any right to. “She wants us to do a camp for kids who’ve lost a parent to cancer.”

“Really?” he said, running a hand through his curls. Like mine, they were partially gray, but it looked good on him.

“I know,” I said. “I told her it’s the opposite of what the foundation does. But she thinks we’re in a rut, and apparently some of the other employees do, too. I told her I’d think about it.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” he said, reaching into the dresser for a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. “But do you think that’s true about being in a rut? You guys have been doing so well.”

That’s what I’d thought about my brother’s marriage. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “I’m not super jazzed about the idea, but Paul tells me that coasting is just quitting in slow motion.”

Shiloh smiled. “You know I love him, but I’m not sure you should be taking business advice from an avowed pessimist.”

It was the perfect opportunity to tell him that Paul and I hadn’t been talking about my career, but I couldn’t make myself say it. Yes, Shiloh and I had both been through a divorce, so I knew that sometimes an ugly ending could blossom into a beautiful beginning. That didn’t mean I wanted to so much as utter the D word in our bedroom.

“I do worry I’m in a rut, though,” I admitted.

He sat beside me on the bed. “At work, you mean?”

“Well, maybe,” I said, thinking about how lately it had taken every ounce of willpower I possessed to open my inbox each morning, knowing I would have to spend the next hour or three responding to emails. “But I’ve been feeling . . .” I wasn’t sure how to describe the weird funk I’d been dealing with. I hadn’t told Shiloh that I’d been worried about a recurrence, because I didn’t want to spread doom and gloom any sooner than I had to. But now that I knew it had been a false alarm, why didn’t I feel better? I’d had time to process my clean bill of health.

“It’s more than that.” I took a deep breath, then added, “I’d actually been worried my cancer was back.”

“Oh, Libby,” he said, looking at me with a mix of tenderness and surprise. Then he kissed my forehead, and my eyes welled with tears. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to get you worried,” I said, sniffling. “Anyway, Dr. Malone said it was normal to expect the worst.”

“Maybe for other people. But that’s not really your style.”

“I know,” I said, though I didn’t add that Dr. Malone had made a similar comment. “What’s even weirder is that after she told me I was healthy, I should have been jumping up and down and feeling alive. Except I didn’t feel much of anything.”

As he pulled me close, I realized this was the entire reason I’d just confessed this to him. Just the warmth of his body and the weight of his arm around my shoulders were enough to make me feel better than I had in days.

“Hey,” he said softly. “That’s normal, too. Remember how I told you how depressed I was after I went into remission? My dad had to remind me to eat and shower.”

“Well, your wife had just left you,” I pointed out.

“Sure, but wife or life? I’d argue that I got the better reward—not to mention a fantastic upgrade on the spousal front,” he said, pulling back to wink at me.

I laughed. See? I told myself. He adores you. Don’t mistake a defeat or two for having lost the battle.

“Anyway,” he added, “all I’m saying is you can feel incredibly grateful without being overjoyed.”

“What is it?” I asked, because his smile had just morphed into a full-on grin.

“You want to feel more alive?”

“Yes . . . ,” I said hesitantly, still thinking about what