Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Well,” Grandma Bonnie cleared her throat. “It’s too bad that stuff happened 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.
“Can you even imagine what it must be like to not hear?”
I slowly shook my head.
“Well, I don’t know how he feels, but I can imagine just from my own experience with shitty tragedies that he’s feeling scared and lonely. Lost and confused. He may never hear anyone speak to him again. Sure, he’ll read words on a paper. He might even learn sign language. But he’ll never hear his favorite song or the whisper of a lover in his ear while making love. However, he can still see the beauty of a woman’s body. And he can feel her fingernails digging into his back and her breath on his cheek. He can see stars behind his eyes, and waves of pleasure as an orgasm rips through his body. And for a moment, he might even forget that he can’t hear.”
Fire ignited in my cheeks and down my neck. Eve talked about sex with the ease of reading off a grocery list.
I cleared my throat. “Just because you slept with my math teacher doesn’t mean I’m going to take advice from you.”
She giggled. “Your math teacher was so hot. I wonder what happened to him?”
I smirked. “I heard he got ran out of town after a sex scandal.”
Eve stood and held out her hand. “Come eat pie. You don’t have to choose between Heaven and Hell right now.”
On Friday, I shopped with my mom and sisters.
On Saturday, I returned to Ben’s house to see him one last time before going back to school.
“He ate Thanksgiving dinner with us, but since then, he’s been locked in his room again,” Carmen said as I slid off my wool jacket and hung it on the hook. “Did you and your family have a nice Thanksgiving?”
I smiled. “Yes. Thanks for asking.” I stepped toward the stairs with a lot more hesitation than I had the day he tossed me out of his room.
“Tillie is in her room. She’ll get him to open his door.”
I nodded nervously while mumbling a soft, “Okay.”
Madonna blared from Tillie’s room, and it broke my heart to think that Ben couldn’t hear it and yell at his sister to turn down her “stupid music,” because he wasn’t a Madonna fan. Ben preferred more sophisticated music.
I came prepared, pulling a paperclip out of my pocket and straightening it to open Ben’s door. There didn’t seem to be any point in knocking first. In hindsight, I should have announced my arrival with a note under his door. Ben’s back was to me, hair wet, green towel around his waist, and rivulets of water running down his back. He dropped his towel, and I slapped my hand over my mouth to muffle my gasp, realizing in the next second that he couldn’t hear me.