Read Online Hanging by a Thread by Karen Templeton - Free Book Online Page B

good at. After about five thousand years, my grandfather finally carts éclair and milk back out into the living room and I realize I have no idea how to get the conversation going again. Or even if I want to.
    I get up to put my plate in the dishwasher; Luke says, “He’sright, you look beat. And I’m slime for bein’ so caught up in my own crap I didn’t stop and think how tired you might be—”
    â€œOh, please. When have any of us ever been too tired to help each other?”
    He gets a funny look on his face. “You sure?”
    â€œNo. And if you expect advice, fuggedaboutit.” I dig an éclair out of the box, not bothering with a plate. “But I can listen. And I really want to know why you think Tina wants out.”
    The muscles tense in his face. “Because things have been strange between us for a while now.”
    â€œHow long?”
    â€œI dunno. Months. A year, maybe.”
    I nearly choke. A year? How did I miss that?
    â€œYeah,” he says. “I don’t understand it, either, we always got along so good. I mean, you and me, we always fought, got on each other’s nerves, right?” Our gazes bounce off each other before he looks away. “But not Tina and me. I mean, the way she’d look at me…like I was her hero, y’know?”
    Yeah. I know. Because he was. Because he was the big strong protector and she’d been the damsel in distress for as long as any of us could remember. But it worked both ways, because Tina’s wide-eyed worship fed Luke’s ego like no other. Nobody had ever needed him the way Tina did, and nobody had ever made her feel as safe as Luke did. In other words, they were the perfect match.
    â€œBut now,” he continues, “I dunno, it’s like we don’t even have anything to say to each other anymore. I come home, we eat dinner, we watch TV, we go to bed. We have sex—occasionally—but I’m not sure why we’re bothering, to tell you the truth.” His eyes lift to mine, dark with hurt and confusion. “I’m scared for her, El, that she’s gonna fall apart again, like she did that one time in high school. I’m not stupid, I know something’s bothering her. But why won’t she talk to me?”
    In silence, I finish off the éclair, wishing there were aboutsix more. Both because I need something to keep my mouth occupied and because my mood’s just swung dangerously close to self-destructive. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m tired, or my hormones are being punks, or what, but once again, my reaction surprises me.
    It’s not that I don’t feel for him, or Tina, because I do. My closest friends are both hurting, for godssake. Who else are they gonna come to if not me? Because that’s the way it’s always been. Except for one time, when I found out I was pregnant with Starr, I’ve always been the one the other two turned to to fix things between them. And up until this moment, I was fine with that, maybe because their needing me made me feel a real part of something. But now…
    Now I realize just how long I’ve actually only been on the outside looking in, living vicariously through somebody else’s relationship.
    How screwed up is that?
    So now, even as my mouth performs its appointed task as Duenna to the Deluded, my brain is desperately trying to scratch out of the kennel I’ve kept it in for the past twenty-something years. While I’ve been doing all this repair work for their lives, my own has fallen to rack and ruin.
    What the hell does any of this have to do with me? I want to scream.
    But I keep all this under wraps because Luke looks so miserable.
    â€œNo comment?” he says.
    Great. If I plead the Fifth, he’ll take that as a confirmation of his suspicions. If I reassure him Tina never said anything about their marriage being on the rocks, either he’ll think