The One Thing Read Online Free PDF

admittedly no expert in dogology, I was reasonably certain that he was a yellow Lab or some variation thereof. Whatever he was, he barked
at random items—ink pens, scissors, the hem on Ben’s shorts—and then he followed us to the dining room, where he planted his oversize ass on the floor at Ben’s feet and
panted as though he’d just run the Iditarod, stealing all the good air and replacing it with dog-breath air. It wasn’t as though I hated dogs, exactly. I’d just prefer they were
smaller, calmer, and cleaner. With a long, skinny tail and a meow rather than a bark. That would be the perfect dog.
    Ben’s mom had changed into a gauzy blue dress that billowed around her when she walked and made her look like a gypsy. She’d prepared quinoa enchiladas. She pronounced the word
quinoa
like “KEEN-wah.” I’d never heard of the stuff before, and it must’ve shown on my face, because she went on to explain that quinoa was a “healthy
grain.”
    Now, I was generally opposed to health foods. In my experience, they tasted like either dirt or air—like something nasty or like nothing at all. Also, I figured the preservatives in my
diet would keep me alive longer, just by virtue of the fact that they were, well, preservatives.
    With one eye on Ben’s mom, I covertly spun my plate a quarter turn, so my enchilada was positioned at exactly twelve o’clock. It was purely out of habit and completely unnecessary,
but I did it anyway. Meals had been a challenge for me since I’d lost my sight, and if my main dish wasn’t sitting at exactly twelve o’clock, where I could locate it easily,
everything just felt screwy.
    Anyway, I’d just taken my first bite of my twelve o’clock, healthy enchilada—which, for the record, had nothing on a bag of Cheetos, but was surprisingly okay—when I
heard massive footsteps approaching the dining room. Loud and clunky, they came from some area in the left of my non-eyesight. Suddenly, Ben’s older brother—the good-looking,
olive-skinned boy I’d seen in, oh, fifty million or so pictures around the house—emerged from the nothingness and sat down directly across from me.
    If I had just one word to describe him, it would be
big
. Not fat, mind you. Just large. Muscly. He was tall, probably six feet or so, and he towered over my hundred-pound, five-four
frame. He wore a black V-neck T-shirt, jeans, and these monstrous boots that somehow succeeded in making him appear even larger. His dark hair was scratched into universal messiness—in a way
that may or may not have been intentional, and in a way that made me want to stare at the little angles created on his head. Ignoring me completely, he scooped a guy-size portion of enchiladas onto
his plate and dug in.
    Okay, so I was fully aware that this entire evening might be something my brain had conjured up on its own, that there was a possibility—more probable than not—that I was still lying
on Mr. Sturgis’s floor, dreaming or hallucinating or whatever it is that crazy people do when they’ve completely lost it.
    Still.
    There was something about this guy, invented or not, that made me keenly aware of all my physical imperfections. I was too short, too boring-faced, too disheveled. I hadn’t combed my hair
all afternoon, and I was relatively certain that by now it resembled the hair inside a man’s armpit. Also, I was wearing those baggy mom-shorts, a well-worn Loose Cannons T-shirt, and the
oldest flip-flops known to mankind. I was complete disarray.
    “Mason, this is Thera,” Ben said to his brother by way of introduction, gesturing grandly toward me.
    Without even a glance in my direction, Mason jerked his head up in a nod. “Hey,” he said in greeting, the long vowel sound rolling smoothly and richly off his tongue.
    Strange. He was such a huge, broad-shouldered guy that I’d expected his voice to be gravelly. Regardless, something about his tone was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I
was