Love Hurts by Brenda Grate Read Free Book Online

usual result of a bedtime story. She kissed his soft hair and tucked the comforter around him, smoothing it over his tiny body. She saw a wrinkle and reached to straighten it out, but then she clenched her fist and pulled away.
     
    “Is he okay?” Jilly knelt by the fireplace, picking up shards of glass. The rest of the laundry had been folded and put away. Anna wanted to help, but steered herself instead to the sofa, unwilling to endure any more of Jilly’s looks.
     
    “Yes, he’s asleep.”
     
    Jilly’s outburst had thrown up an obstacle. How to get around it? Maybe it was unscalable.
     
    “I’m sorry.” Jilly rocked back on her heels and studied Anna’s face. “I scared you. I’m sorry.”
     
    Anna said nothing.
     
    “It’s just …” Jilly ran her hands through her hair and dug her fingers into her scalp. “It’s just that I’m so tired of pretending.”
     
    “Pretending? Who’s pretending? I thought we were always honest with each other. Last night was a shock, yes, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing okay. We don’t have to let her affect our lives.”
     
    “Don’t you realize she never stopped affecting us? She’s been here all along. We’re a part of her no matter how much we pretend. How do I live with that?” The bleakness in Jilly’s face terrified Anna.
     
    “How can I help you?”
     
    “You can’t help me. You can’t help until you admit that you’re hurting just as much as I am.”
     
    Anna didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say. She studied Jilly until the light went out in her sister’s eyes and Jilly turned away.
     
    Jilly went back to the fireplace and picked up more glass, making a small pile of it beside her. Anna couldn’t help but think it was just like their family. Shattered in so many pieces. Jilly kept her back toward Anna, her shoulders hunched around her ears. The stiffness in her spine felt like a reproach. Anna knew she’d failed her sister, but she didn’t know how to be what Jilly wanted. She wasn’t like her sister. Anna kept her emotions under lock and key. If she threw the door wide open ... She didn’t want to think about that.
     
    Anna got up and found her purse by the door. Without a word, she left. The door closing behind her sounded final and she wondered if it would ever be open to her again.
     

     
    Jilly picked up a large piece of glass and examined it. It was pale green with raised swirls. She drew the glass down her arm, applying very little pressure, yet the blood welled up from the cut, a line on her arm like a line in the sand. The bright red blood held her gaze and she stared at it, mesmerized. The same blood ran in Mamma’s veins that ran in Jilly’s and now Matthew’s. Their connection was one that nothing could break. Sangue , Mamma told her once, sangue was blood in Italian, but it meant so much more than just a physical thing. It was a covenant, or a curse. Am I cursed?
     
    She touched it with her finger, drew it to her mouth and tasted it. It had a repugnant copper taste. She wanted to spit it out, but swallowed instead. The blood they shared didn’t bind them together, she thought, it forced them apart. Even her sister, as close as they were, was pushed away by their blood, by the very memories they shared.
     
    Again, Jilly drew the glass across her arm, intersecting the other line, watching the blood well up and begin to drip. She wished she could drain her blood and get a transfusion. Would it take away my pain? Would she become someone else, part of another bloodline? She wished it were so easy.
     
    Jilly turned her head and caught sight of herself in the glass cover of the fireplace. Who is that person? She gripped the glass so hard her fingers stung. The girl in the glass had the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. She hurt herself to try to take away the pain. Who does something like that? Jilly threw the piece of glass at her and turned away. She didn’t want to know anything more about