The Boy Next Door by Annabelle Costa Read Free Book Online Page B

head.
    And then when Danielle and I were alone together later, buying ourselves some low-fat frozen yogurt, she made a comment to me, “Honestly, sometimes I’m not even sure it’s worth it. He does give excellent oral sex, though. Best I’ve ever had.”
    To top it off, Danielle spent the rest of the day flirting shamelessly with Mario. I’m still not entirely sure if the two of them ended up hooking up. It wouldn’t surprise me.
    But what really made me hate Danielle, what really made me despise her with every bone in my body was this:
    I was having dinner with Jason, Danielle, and yet another of my boyfriends. (God, I had a lot of boyfriends back then. What a slut I was.) Anyway, the restaurant, chosen by Danielle, had two steps to get inside. Jason can manage two steps, but it took him a bit of effort and he wasn’t terribly happy about it, I could tell. And then when we got seated at our table, Danielle said, “Won’t it be nice when you won’t have to worry about stairs anymore?”
    I looked at Jason, who was shaking his head like this was something he really, really didn’t want to talk about. But curiosity got the better of me. “What do you mean?” I asked her.
    Danielle brightened. “Well, there’s this new experimental treatment that Jason’s going to try. It’s in very early stages, but the success rate’s been really good and they’ve been able to get a lot of paraplegics walking again. I pulled some strings and Jason’s been enrolled in the study.”
    I looked at him in shock. I couldn’t even imagine Jason not being in a wheelchair.
    “I’m not doing it, Danielle,” he said tightly.
    My boyfriend, Rob, spoke up, “What are you—nuts? Wouldn’t you want to walk again?”
    “Exactly!” Danielle said triumphantly.
    Jason’s green eyes met mine. “This study is time consuming and . . . and painful. And the success they’ve had is with people who have been injured less than six months. I was injured over twenty years   ago.”
    “That doesn’t mean they won’t have success with you,” Danielle said.
    “Didn’t you read the information they gave us?” Jason said. “It said some of the subjects, especially the ones with older injuries, were left with chronic pain.”
    “There are always risks,” Danielle snapped. “Isn’t it worth it? For the chance to walk again?”
    “No,” Jason said. “It’s not.”
    Danielle later laid down an ultimatum for him: either he enrolled in the study or they broke up. Since they’re not together now, you can guess what Jason’s choice was. When we talked about it, he said that he couldn’t be with a woman who wouldn’t accept that he was disabled. He’d been in a wheelchair practically his whole life, after all, and he was totally comfortable with it. He didn’t feel like it was something about him that needed to be changed.
    So I guess in that sense, Melissa is a huge improvement over previous girlfriends. As far as I can tell, she actually really likes him and has no issues with his being in a wheelchair. She’s as big a financial success as he is, so she’s obviously not using him for his money. She’s actually, in many ways, the perfect girl for him. The only problem with her is that she doesn’t seem to like me. But I’m not going to make a big thing about it, because Jason’s had so much bad luck that I’d never begrudge him a great girl.
    So I guess we’re going to have a double date.

Four
    Faithful and reliable as always, Larry calls me again the next day. He reiterates that he had a great time and he’d love to see me again. “I’d love to see you again too,” I say, still lying through my teeth.
    “Wonderful,” Larry says.
    “So, Jason and Melissa were thinking that we could double date with them,” I suggest.
    “Oh,” Larry says. “Wonderful.” That must be his favorite word, which is funny, because he says it with so little enthusiasm.
    So that’s how we end up next Saturday night at a Greek diner in