Such a Pretty Face by Annabelle Costa

Chapter 33

Dinner is a tense affair. My father shows up just before the food is ready, and he greets Brody with just as much suspicion as the rest of the family. I’ve never had a boyfriend before, but I’ve seen Dad give the first degree to Camille’s boyfriends, so I know what’s coming. I already warned Brody that my father can be “intense.”

“So you’re the one dating my daughter, huh?” Dad says gruffly. He peers across the dining table at Brody as we wait for my mother to serve our food.

“Yes, sir,” Brody says politely.

“What are you in that wheelchair for?” my father demands to know.

Brody doesn’t bat an eye. “Car accident. I broke my neck.”

Dad snorts. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you can’t drive anymore.”

“Actually,” Brody says. “I can drive.”

I look at him in astonishment. I didn’t know he could drive. I can’t even imagine how it’s possible.

Dad shakes his head. “Yeah, right.”

“I can,” Brody insists. “I had a car back in college because I was a commuter student, but it was too expensive to keep it in Manhattan, so I gave it up.”

Dad looks Brody over, focusing his attention on his hands. “How in hell are you able to drive?”

“Hand controls,” he explains.

My father raises his eyebrows. “You can operate hand controls?”

Brody slides his right hand into his lap self-consciously. “Well, yeah. With some modifications.”

“No,” Dad says. “Sorry, I do have some medical knowledge. There’s no way you could drive a car. It’s just not possible.”

Brody glances at me, then back at my father. He seems to be internally debating something in his head. Finally, he says, “Um, okay.”

Mom bursts into the dining room, holding two plates of chicken with rice and carrots. She places one plate in front of Camille and one in front of my father. Brody already has his splint on and he’s working to get the fork in place. He’s just gotten it when my mother puts his plate of food in front of him, and then a plate for me.

I look down at my plate of food, which has one tiny piece of white meat chicken, a dime-sized scoop of rice, and more than half the plate covered with carrots. I knew the carrots were some sort of diabolical plot on my mother’s part to get me to diet. And of course, everyone else at the table has an entirely normal portion of carrots in front of them.

“Carrots are healthy, Emily,” Mom tells me. “You should eat more of them.”

I love how she’s called attention to my weight in front of the first boyfriend I’ve ever brought home. Also, I don’t hate carrots, but I don’t want them to make up ninety percent of my dinner.

“I read that Demi Lovato lost a lot of weight by snacking on raw carrots,” Mom adds. “In fact—”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Davison,” Brody interrupts my mother’s soliloquy on carrots. “Do you have any straws? Usually I carry them with me, but I guess I ran out…”

He’s looking at his water glass. I’ve never seen Brody drink a beverage without a straw—it must be hard for him.

“Sorry,” she says. “I don’t believe in straws.”

My mother doesn’t believe in straws? What does that mean? I had no idea she had any sort of strong opinion about straws.

“Okay…” Brody glances at me. “Emily, could you help me with the… you know, the chicken?”

My mother has given him a large chicken cutlet. I’m guessing the only way he’d be able to eat it would be to stab it with his fork and eat it whole. I lean forward and slice it for him into smaller chunks while my entire family gawks at me. Well, at least we’re not talking about carrots anymore.

I feel bad for Brody because I can tell he’s meticulously avoiding his water glass, but my mother makes the saltiest food in the world. The carrots aren’t too bad, but the rice is generously salted, and the chicken may as well be a salt lick. I have a taste for salty foods, thanks to years of my mother’s cooking, but you need a drink with it. I’d kill for a soda, but if I didn’t at least have my water, I’d be in physical pain right now.

It takes about ten minutes of eating in awkward silence before Brody cracks. He leans his head forward as far as he can, his upper body straining against the belt, and he grasps the sides of the water glass with his wrists. He tilts the glass forward carefully and is just barely able to take a sip. I can see his arms shaking with the effort of the entire process, and sure enough, he drops the glass, and water spills all over the table and the floor.

“I’m so sorry!” Brody cries as my parents glower at him. “I’m really sorry.”

Of course, they couldn’t possibly have hated him more before he spilled the water, so what’s the difference? He could literally set fire to their house at this point and it wouldn’t change their opinion of him.

“I’ll clean it up,” I say. I push myself away from the table and head in the direction of the kitchen to grab some napkins.

Camille leaps out of her seat too. “I’ll help you.”

I glance at my sister in annoyance. Cleaning up a spilled glass of water isn’t a two-person job. It’s obvious what Camille has in mind, so it doesn’t surprise me one bit when she grabs my arm the second I enter the kitchen. “Emily,” she says, “we need to talk.”

I yank paper towels off the roll by the kitchen sink. “No,” I say. “We don’t.”

“You can’t seriously like him,” she says.

It’s the same thing she said to Brody about me. It makes me wonder if she meant it both times. Does she think we’re both so completely undesirable that nobody could really like either of us?

“Well, I do.” I crumble a wad of paper towels in my fist. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

Camille sighs loudly. “Look, Emily. I didn’t want to tell you this, but while you were in the other room with Mom, Brody… well, he hit on me. I told you that he used to like me in high school, and… I guess he still does.”

If I hadn’t heard everything Camille said to Brody, would I have believed her story? I might have. That would have hurt.

“He was saying all these completely inappropriate sexual things to me,” Camille says. “As if I would ever be interested in a guy like him! Even if he wasn’t your boyfriend.”

“Camille,” I say. “I heard everything you said to Brody. I was in the bathroom.”

Camille’s lips form a surprised little circle. She takes a good few seconds to recover her composure. Despite everything, it’s amusing to watch.

“Okay, fine,” she hisses at me. “He didn’t hit on me, okay? He was ridiculously loyal to you. But it doesn’t matter. Brody Nolan is not a good guy. You need to trust me when I say to stay away from him.”

“Yeah,” I snort. “I trust you, Cammy.”

Camille puts her fists on her hips. “Emily, this is for your own good. You have zero experience with men, and I… well, I’ve got lots. More than I’d like, to be honest.” She drops her arms to her sides. A sad expression comes over her. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. And Brody will hurt you. I know him. I’ve seen him hurt so many girls. I’ve seen him hurt himself.”

For a moment, my resolve weakens. Camille may be bossy and judgmental, but she cares about me. And I can tell she means what she’s saying. She genuinely believes that Brody’s going to break my heart.

But she’s wrong.

“Camille,” I say. “I love Brody. And if you’re not cool with that, you can go fuck yourself.”

_____

The rest of the meal is mostly silent. Nobody offers to refill Brody’s water glass and even if they did, I’m pretty sure he’d rather die than attempt to take another drink. In the end, he leaves over most of the food, explaining that he wasn’t very hungry. Nobody suggests dessert or coffee.

I walk him outside, where we wait on the porch for Maggie to arrive with the portable ramp and the van. He can’t go anywhere until Maggie gets here, and she’s also going to be my ride to the train station, since it’s too far to reasonably walk without major thigh chafing.

“Your family seems nice,” Brody says, as he watches the street, the wind tousling his brown hair.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I scoff.

Brody grins up at me. “Well, they didn’t try to stab me or anything. So that’s a plus.”

“Just you wait,” I mutter.

Brody looks up at me with nervousness in his blue eyes. “When you were in the kitchen with your sister, she didn’t… I mean, did she say anything about me?”

“I know you didn’t hit on her,” I assure him.

His shoulders sag. “Okay, good. I would never, ever… like, not in a million years, Emily. I love you. I promise, you can trust me.”

“I know.” I hesitate. “I also heard you tell her to go fuck herself.”

“Oh.” His cheeks turn pink. “Well, yes. I did do that. Sorry—she got me riled up.”

“It’s okay. It’s pretty much the same thing I said to her.” I put my hand on his. “There’s nothing Camille could say to me that could convince me not to be with you.”

But for some strange reason, I think again of what Camille said to me: I know Brody will hurt you. He won’t though. I know he won’t.