Hold Tight

by Harlan Coben

Life is so much easier in towns like this when you’re a good athlete.

It was all so damn fragile, that was the thing. Obvious, sure, but for the most part we block—we refuse to think about how easily our lives could be torn asunder, because when we recognize it, we lose our minds. The ones who are fearful all the time, who need to medicate to function? It is because they understand the reality, how thin the line is. It isn’t that they can’t accept the truth—it’s that they can’t block it.

Tia had never liked going to Adam’s sporting events because as much as she didn’t want to, she ended up caring too much. She loathed those pushy parents who lived and breathed their child’s athletic prowess—found them both petty and pitiful—and wanted to be nothing like them. But when she watched her own son compete, she felt so much, worried so about Adam’s happiness, that his highs and lows wore her down.

If you look at anything from the outside, it is easy to make sweeping ungenerous judgments.