Nothing to Lose (28 page)

I should have welcomed Lisette, or at least introduced myself. That would be the normal thing to do. But I wanted to put off the time in my life when I became Lisette’s stepsister.

As long as I didn’t meet Lisette, everything could be the same. Everything could be possible. My father would still like me best, even though Lisette was his real daughter. I could still imagine that Lisette and I would be best friends. As long as I stayed in the tree house, there was still the possibility that Lisette might love me. But as soon as I approached her, that would all end. She’d take one look at me, with my curly hair and freckles, and realize I wasn’t worth knowing, just like girls at school did.

I ducked my head lower and went back to reading about Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp, BFFs even though Becky was evil, and about Dobbin, the grocer’s son, who was in love with the wimpy, goody-goody Amelia and stood by her for years, even when she married his unworthy friend George. I had a secret crush on Dobbin and pictured him looking like Warner Glassman. The book was eight hundred pages long, and it was the second time I’d read it since Sunday.

Which I knew Lisette would think was completely weird.

Everyone did. Most of the kids at school, even in the smart classes, which I was in, didn’t read books that weren’t assigned, certainly not classics. Sometimes, I’d try to act like them, force myself to slip a
Seventeen
or an
Elle
into my binder or spend the time before class texting. But always, by lunchtime, I’d be at the media center, begging for my Brontë or Austen fix. It was pathetic.

I pressed my face hard against the slippery slats of the tree house floor, looking down at her crying.

Mother and Daddy’s arguing had continued all week, and I’d read and read to drown out the yelling, but it didn’t always work.

“There must be someplace else,” Mother had said.

“We’ve been through this. There are no relatives on Nicole’s side.”

“On your side, then. Maybe she could move in with your mother.”

“Give me a break. My mother’s eighty.”

“There are other alternatives besides relatives.”

“Don’t go there, Andrea. I’m not putting my own daughter in foster care for your convenience.”

“Not convenience, safety. Who knows what sort of upbringing this girl has had. She could be into drugs or … worse. But maybe you don’t care about Emma.”

“Of course I care about Emma. I’ve always taken care of your daughter.”

Your daughter
. My father’s words were like a shard of ice through my heart.

“Besides, I’m sure Nicole’s done a fine job raising her. She was always a sensible woman.”

“Unlike me, I suppose.”

“Who said anything about … never mind. I know you’ll see reason in this. The girl is coming to live with us, and that’s final.”

And with that, a door slammed.

I’d known better than to ask Mother any questions, but the day before, she’d come into my room without knocking and sat on my bed. Taking me by the shoulders, she’d said, “Don’t worry, Emma. This is just temporary. Your father loves you. We won’t let anything change that.”

Which is when I started worrying that it would.

Now, I stared down at Lisette. I still couldn’t see her face. She’d pulled the piece of fabric from her bag. It turned out to be a shawl, which she sniffed deeply before draping it around her stooped shoulders. She knotted the broken bag, then pulled it the rest of the way toward the doorstep. Guilt tugged at me, urged me out. I knew I should go down the ladder. I didn’t. In my lap, my hands were working. I pulled out a page of
Vanity Fair
, then a second. Only when my hands were so full of the crumpled, ripped pages that I couldn’t hold any more did I stop. What was I doing?

Lisette rang the doorbell. No one answered. She rang a few more times, then she sat down on the garbage bag and cried some more, great, racking sobs that shook her shoulders. We sat that way for a long time, me in the tree house, Lisette sobbing by the door.

It struck me for the first time that my father was a jerk. A real jerk who’d left his wife and daughter and had never seen her again, just like my own father had. Lisette and I were the same.

Finally, the air was quiet. This was my chance, my one chance. I had to sneak down when she wasn’t looking.

The tree house creaked as I made my way down the ladder. Instead of walking toward the porch, I went in the opposite direction, toward the street.

Just as I reached it, she looked up. She stared at me full in the face and smiled through her tears.

In that moment, I knew I hated her.

Lisette was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, more beautiful than Courtney or any of the popular girls at school, more beautiful than my dolls. She looked like a grown-up, like one of those people on
Inside Edition
. Her eyes were the same color as the sparkling, royal blue shawl, and her lips were large and a shade of red my mouth only got if I drank a red Slurpee. I knew the girls at school would soon make her their queen, and that made me hate her even more.

“Are you Emma?” she said, and I could only nod, frozen.

“Oh, God! I’m so glad!” She rose to walk closer to me. Her eyes fell on my book. I should have left it in the tree house.

But Lisette’s eyes grew even wider. “Wow, you’re reading that?” When I nodded again, she said, “You must be really smart.”

I went through a big-time internal debate about whether to nod again or deny it. Finally, I said my first words ever to my new stepsister.

“Well, I’m bad at math.”

“Really? Math’s my favorite. I’m bad at English. Maybe we can help each other out.” Then, she opened her arms and said, “Oh, Emma, I know we’re going to be just like real sisters.”

And, in that moment, I really wanted to believe her. A sister had to love you, right?

NOTHING TO LOSE

BREATHING UNDERWATER

BREAKING POINT

FADE TO BLACK

DIVA

BEASTLY

A KISS IN TIME

CLOAKED

BEWITCHING

Cover art © 2012 by Howard Huang
Cover design by Sasha Illingworth

Nothing to Lose

Copyright © 2004 by Alex Flinn

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Flinn, Alex.

Nothing to lose / by Alex Flinn.—1st ed.

   p.  cm.

Summary: A year after running away with a traveling carnival to escape his unbearable home life, sixteen-year-old Michael returns to Miami, Florida, to find that his mother is going on trial for the murder of his abusive stepfather.

ISBN 0-06-051750-6

ISBN 0-06-051751-4 (lib. bdg.)

ISBN 0-06-051752-2 (pbk.)

EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN 9780062208224

[1. Runaways—Fiction. 2. Wife abuse—Fiction. 3. Murder—Fiction. 4. Mothers and sons—Fiction. 5. Trials (Murder)—Fiction. 6. Miami (Fla.)—Fiction.] 1. Title.

[Fic]—dc22