Page 125 of Echoes of the Banshee

“Yes, Mother.”

Benson

There’s No “I” in Dignity

Idon’t see Thea and Zair at breakfast and I don’t even have English class to look forward to seeing her.

As soon as I sit in my seat two girls come over, one sitting on my desk. The smell of shifter following them.

“Benson right?” desk girl asks.

“Yes?”

“My name is Ally, this is Misty,” standing girl says.

“Hi?”

Ally giggles. Misty rests her hand on my shoulder.

“You have a big game this Saturday right?” Misty asks me. Oh, soccer fans. I can do that.

“Yes, it’s the division championship.”

“I saw your save last game, it was amazing. How you were able to stretch that far. I hadn’t thought your hands were big enough,” Ally says, voice dropping.

“Oh, my hands are plenty big,” I tell her, confused. They both giggle again. Misty takes my hand and puts it up against hers.

“Wow, it’s like three inches bigger than mine.” Her mouth falls open. “Bigger than any hand I’ve seen.”

I’m officially confused.

“Is any other part of you bigger than anyone I’ve seen,” she tags on.

Oh god.

Ally takes my other hand as my brain short circuits. Measuring from my thumb to my pinky. “Ten, my goodness. And around?”

I make a noise in my throat. Thankfully the teacher comes in and they return to their seats. Misty spends the class eating a lollipop while staring at me.

They follow me as I rush to my next class. Where a demon of some kind does the same thing. When I get to Otherfell it’s somehow, impossibly worse. Girls of every species asking me for dimensions. What in the world is wrong with these girls? Two come and tell me I’m a DD. After I google what catching print is, I’m somehow more horrified. I preferred when it was just my hands.

“You have big ears,” one girl said while wiggling her eyebrows.

“I’m a goblin,” I point out despite it being rather obvious.

“So all goblins got girth.”

What the hell?

The day just keeps getting weirder. Zair is in a terrible mood at soccer practice and I keep my distance. Dylan and I keep looking at him wondering if he’s going to go off. When we finish I avoid all the girls in the stands and go straight to my dorm.

My phone keeps ringing and I silence it. Laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. Concerned that more than a dozen girls offered to sleep with me today and I felt zero inclination.

In goblin lore, that’s what happens when a you find your hearthstone.

That all other girls stop mattering. That’s how we know she’s the one.

I didn’t even see her today.