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

bothered; Hector had already loaded Pedro into the taxi he was taking to the marina. But in the distance I could see a sliver of the ocean, shimmering and silver in the late morning light. So much had changed since the last time I’d been to Puerto Rico. The ocean was unaltered, though, and there was something comforting about that. I couldn’t see it, but I knew Vieques was out there in the distance, constantly shifting even as it remained the same. I let my gaze linger for a moment before looking at Shiloh. “But it’s time to go.”

THIRTY

When we arrived at the apartment, I set my bags in the hall and walked from room to room. The kitchen, which I’d long said was too small for more than one person, was clean and lovely and well lit. The rug in the living room was wearing thin and stained from—well, from children—but looking at it made me remember the time Shiloh and I simultaneously decided there were no other contenders at the carpet store where we’d purchased it, right after we’d first moved in together. And our bedroom! How had I ever complained about it being cramped or loud? It was our own space in a solid brick building with a roof.

It was so very good to feel grateful without having to remind myself to do so.

As soon as the girls threw their things in their room, they asked if they could go over to Cecelia’s.

“Libs? What do you think? I don’t mind if you don’t,” said Shiloh, who was pulling clothes from his suitcase.

“Go ahead,” I told them. “But be back in an hour for dinner. Charlotte—”

“Already checked,” she said, holding up the finger she’d pricked to use a test strip.

“You’re the best,” I told her. “And, Isa?”

Isa paused in the doorway. “Yeah, Mom?”

“Bookstore tomorrow?”

She grinned. “Yeah.”

As soon as they were gone I sat on the end of the bed next to Shiloh’s suitcase. “Hey,” I said, looking up at him. “Can we talk?”

He’d been about to pull out the last of his clothes, but he pushed the bag aside and sat beside me. “Of course.”

I took a deep breath. I’d thought about bringing it up on the plane ride back, but the girls had been in the same aisle as us, and besides, I hadn’t wanted to give the couple behind us something to talk about. “I want to know what’s going on with us.”

His face went kind of sideways, but he didn’t say anything.

“To be specific, I’m referring to us not having sex,” I said. “It’s been at least a month, and I just want to know what’s going on. Don’t just say you’re tired or you’ve been stressed. You know this is what happened with Tom. He was always ‘exhausted,’ ‘overworked,’ or ‘fried,’” I said, making air quotes around each word. “I’m not implying that you’re not attracted to women, but I do want you to know that I’ve been having major flashbacks to my divorce, and this has been harder on me than I’ve let on. And then you got that weird call on the beach, and you know that my brother’s getting a divorce, and—my mind is just going all over the place. I want you to tell me the truth, so I don’t have to keep guessing.”

“Crap,” he muttered.

“‘Crap’ as in you’re not into me anymore?” I said. I sounded offended, and maybe I was jumping to conclusions. But I was done beating around the bush.

He lifted his head. “I didn’t think about the Tom thing.”

“Yeah. Well. I have.”

He looked away, and I suddenly felt more afraid than I had when I’d been sitting in front of Dr. Malone waiting for her to give me my test results.

“Oh, Libby,” he said after a minute. “You really think I don’t want to sleep with you?”

I almost said no. I wanted to say no. But I lifted my chin and stared him straight in the eye. “Yes,” I said. “That is what I think. Because if you wanted to, we would have. I know I’ve been opaque about a lot of stuff lately, but I’ve been pretty darn clear about wanting to do the deed with you.”

“That call I got on the beach?” he said, putting his head in his hands. After a moment he raised it and looked at me. “That was my doctor.”

For all they’d done to keep me—not to mention my husband and daughter—alive, the very word doctor hit me with the same kind of panic beachgoers got when they heard someone say shark.

“What did your doctor want?” I made myself say.

Shiloh looked at me. Like, really looked at me—so raw and vulnerable that I was tempted to burrow under our covers before he could go on.

“I found a lump.”

The breath flew out of my lungs. “What kind of lump?”

His face was drawn. “The kind that showed up in my groin. I found it in the shower at the end of June.”

That was how he’d discovered he had leukemia in his twenties. “June,” I said quietly. “That was two months ago. Why didn’t you tell me?” But as soon as I heard myself say this, I knew why. “Were you afraid?”

He looked like he was going to cry. “I’m sorry, Libby. I know you’ve been having a tough time since Charlotte’s diagnosis. Then your dad died and . . .” He took my hands in his. “You were concerned about your own tests, and I didn’t want to give you one more thing to worry about. And every time we were going to be intimate, I thought about how I was keeping this thing from you, but . . . then I started thinking about the fact that I might have cancer again, and I couldn’t get into it. So when I say it isn’t you, I really mean that. It isn’t.”

“Oh,” I said. And then I didn’t say anything else for a solid minute, because I was too overwhelmed. Finally, I said,