Excerpt from Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Bruce shrugged. "We don't have a relationship anymore."

"We were taking a break," I said.

Bruce gave me a small, condescending smile. "Come on, Cannie. We both know what that meant."

"I meant what I said," I said, glaring at him. "Which makes one of us, it seems."

"Whatever," said Bruce, attempting to shove the stuff into my arms. "I don't know why you're so upset. I didn't say anything bad." He straightened his shoulders. "I actually thought the column was pretty nice."

For one of the few times in my adult life, I was literally speechless. "Are you high?" I asked. With Bruce, that was more than a rhetorical question.

"You called me fat in a magazine. You turned me into a joke. You don't think you did anything wrong?"

"Face it, Cannie," he said. "You are fat." He bent his head. "But that doesn't mean I didn't love you."

The box of tampons bounced off his forehead and spilled into the parking lot.

"Oh, that's nice," said Bruce.

"You absolute bastard." I licked my lips, breathing hard. My hands were shaking. My aim was off. The picture glanced off his shoulder, then shattered on the ground. "I can't believe I ever thought seriously for even one second about marrying you."

Bruce shrugged, bending down, scooping feminine protection and shards of wood and glass into his hands and dumping them back into the box. Our picture he left lying there.

"This is the meanest thing anyone's ever done to me," I said, through my tear-clogged throat. "I want you to know that." But even as the words were leaving my mouth, I knew it wasn't true. In the grand, historical scheme of things, my father leaving us was doubtlessly worse. Which is one of the many things that sucked about my father -- he forever robbed me of the possibility of telling another man, This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me, and meaning it.

Bruce shrugged again. "I don't have to worry about how you feel anymore. You made that clear." He straightened up. I hoped he'd be angry -- passionate, even -- but all I got was this maddening, patronizing calm. "You were the one who wanted this, remember?"

"I wanted a break. I wanted time to think about things. I should have just dumped you," I said. "You're..." And I stood, speechless again, thinking of the worst thing I could say to him, the word that would make him feel even a fraction as horrible and furious and ashamed as I did. "You're small," I finally said, imbuing that word with every hateful nuance I could muster, so that he'd know I meant small in spirit, and everywhere else, too.

He didn't say anything. He didn't even look at me. He just turned around and walked away.

Samantha had kept the car running. "Are you okay?" she asked as I slid into the passenger's seat clutching the box to my chest. I nodded silently. Samantha probably thought I was ridiculous. But this wasn't a situation I expected her to sympathize with. At five foot ten, with inky black hair, pale skin, and high, sculpted cheekbones, Samantha looks like a young Anjelica Huston. And she's thin. Effortlessly, endlessly thin. Given a choice of any food in the world, she'd probably pick a perfect fresh peach and Rya crispbreads. If she wasn't my best friend, I'd hate her, and even though she is my best friend, it's sometimes hard not to be envious of someone who can take food or leave it, whereas I mostly take it, and then take hers, too, when she doesn't want any more. The only problem her face and figure had ever caused her was too much male attention. I could never make her feel what it was like to live in a body like mine.

She glanced at me quickly. "So, um, I'm guessing that things with you two are over?"

"Good guess," I said dully. My mouth tasted ashy, my skin, reflected in the passenger's side window, looked pale and waxen. I stared into the cardboard box, at my earrings, my books, the tube of MAC lipstick that I thought I'd lost forever.

Copyright © 2001 by Jennifer Weiner