The One Thing Read Online Free PDF Page B

replaying it in my mind, picking apart the timbre, when I realized that I hadn’t replied. Staring above his head like a proper blind girl, I said, “Hi. Actually, my name is
Maggie.”
    When his eyes finally flickered toward me, taking in my ratty hair and my ratty Loose Cannons T-shirt and my ratty everything, I caught a flash of something that I couldn’t quite put a
finger on. Anger, maybe? I wasn’t sure. But I knew this: it was the first real expression he’d had since he’d sat down at the table. Half a second later it was gone, replaced by a
certain coolness.
    If I were a lesser woman I would have squirmed in my chair. Blushed. But I didn’t. Chin held high, I tossed his aloof attitude right back at him and casually carved off a bite of my
enchilada. I didn’t know what his problem was, but I couldn’t be bothered.
    “Where do you go to school, Maggie?” Mrs. Milton asked me as I pretended to have difficulty scooping up a glob of my enchilada filling. There was something questionable in there,
something brown mixed in with the quinoa. Either meat or mushrooms.
    “Merchant’s School for the Blind,” Ben answered loudly, going overboard in advertising my lack of eyesight. Then he nudged me in the foot. He was a smooth one, this kid.
    “Merchant’s,” I repeated, only because it should have come out of my mouth in the first place.
    “Mason goes to Brighton,” Mrs. Milton said cheerfully.
    In a normal, polite conversation, this would be the point where Mason would jump in and add something. But he didn’t. I could see him in my peripheral vision, ignoring my presence with
utter indifference.
    Now, I’d never been especially skilled at reeling in my temper. Particularly in situations that involved arrogant males. So I turned my head and glared at him. Dead in the eye. Mason
crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, keeping one skeptical eye on me for the remainder of the meal.
    I drummed my fingers on the table, keeping time with the drip-drip-drip of the kitchen faucet. Fine. Whatever. He probably wasn’t real anyway.
    Mason said only a few words after that:
sour cream
and
um-hum
and
nope
. Every time he spoke, I made note of the velvety way his vowels rolled off his tongue. And every
time he spoke, I kicked myself for making note of the velvety way his vowels rolled off his tongue. Because clearly, the guy was an egotistical jackass.
    I was sitting there, tapping out an aggressive faucet song and eating my quinoa-and-maybe-meat-or-maybe-mushroom enchilada, when Ben said to his mom, “So in swim practice last night? I
kicked ass.” He glanced at his brother for confirmation. “Right, Mason?”
    Mason made an affirmative noise, and Mrs. Milton shot Ben a disapproving look and said, “Benjamin Thomas Milton. Language.”
    Ben took in a monstrous breath and puffed out his cheeks, making his face almost completely circular. And then he leaned toward his mother, both palms flat on the table. “Sorry,” he
said. “It’s just that I beat my time from last year. That crappy backstroke one? And now I come in only a few seconds after everyone else.”
    “You swim?” I said disbelievingly.
    He sat up a little taller. “I’m on the swim team at North Bay Aquatic Club. The Dolphins?”
    “Benjamin has spina bifida,” his mom explained to me. “He was born with it. The bottom half of his legs are pretty much paralyzed, but his upper body is strong. He’s been
on the swim team since he was three.”
    “Wow, I’m impressed,” I said, my voice quieter than I’d intended.
    Ben’s mom smiled. “Clearly, he gets his athletic ability from his father. I can hardly walk the dog without tripping. But Ben’s dad? He was quite an athlete.” The way she
said
was
left me with the distinct impression that Mr. Milton was no longer living.
    There were a few seconds of heavy silence in which Ben squirmed in his seat and Mason cleared his throat, and then Mrs. Milton said, “Oh, I almost