Page 66 of A Good Book

How’s your roommate? Fine.

Do you like the campus? It’s fine.

Then Grandma Bonnie asked me another question. “How’s Ben’s hearing?” she asked.

I stared at my plate, absentmindedly rearranging my turkey and mashed potatoes. “He’s deaf, but shit happens.” My knee-jerk response silenced everyone at the dinner table, but it took me several seconds to register the words that fell from my lips.

Swearing wasn’t my thing, and definitely not in front of my parents in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. And the insensitive tone wasn’t me either. There must have been a low level of anger that I was suppressing, then boom! It came out at the worst time.

As I glanced up, everyone gawked at me, except Eve. She grinned like a proud older sister.

“Well,” Grandma Bonnie cleared her throat. “It’s too bad thatstuffhappened to him. He’s so young with his whole life ahead of him. I can only imagine how devastated he must feel.”

“That’s,” I tried to recover with something between a sincere grin and regretful cringe, “what I meant. Devastated.”

And cruel.

Mean.

Unrecognizable.

“Ben doesn’t want to see anyone right now,” Mom said. “So Gabby’s a little sad that her best friend won't let her be there for him. We just have to keep him in our prayers.”

I kept him in my prayers. I prayed for him to get food poisoning this Thanksgiving, and to fall on his pile of Legos and end up with a few lodged into his dumb, stubborn ass.

And when I wasn’t praying for him, I was praying for myself—asking God to forgive me for thinking such awful things. I didn’t really hate him; I hated how he shut me out of his life.

After dinner, my sisters and I helped clean the kitchen, then I escaped to my room, thinking about calling Ben’s sister to get an update. Was he eating Thanksgiving dinner with them? Or was he still hiding in his room? Had he shown any remorse for how he treated me?

“Take off your clothes.”

I turned toward Eve after staring at my phone for more than a minute.

“Why?” I glanced down at my shirt. There was nothing on it.

“You love Ben. Take off your clothes for him. No guy can stay mad at a naked woman.”

I scoffed. “Then what? Dance?”

“No.” Eve snorted. “Well, maybe. That would be quite the picture. It might brighten his day. But I was thinking you could then take off his clothes.”

“Sex? You think the solution to him losing his hearing is sex?”

“No, Gabby. I don’t think you have a magical vagina. I’m just saying it could break the ice between you two.”

“Sex isn’t an icebreaker.”

“How do you know until you try?”

“I’m not you, Eve. I don’t just ride a guy for the heck of it.”

She chuckled, gathering her long brown hair over her shoulder while sitting next to me. “Maybe you should.”

“You’re going to Hell, and there’s nothing anyone can do to save you at this point.”

“Duh. I know that. So does the rest of the world.” She nudged my shoulder with hers.

I didn’t want to laugh. Damnation was no joke.

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