Read Online Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James - Free Book Online

thing in the world seem like fun. She can turn an ordinary day into a party. Everyone else seems just, so, well, lifeless and empty in comparison.”
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “Shit. Sorry! I don’t mean you.”
    “That’s okay. I’m only kidding.” I laugh. “It sure sounds like you’ve got it bad, though.”
    “Yep. Pathetically, ridiculously in love. With a girl who’s scared of commitment.”
    I wonder if he’s right. I’d always assumed that when someone said they were afraid of commitment it was really just a convenient way of getting out of an unwanted relationship. A way of dumping someone gently, without destroying the ego of the poor soul being dumped. It’s me, not you, I just can’t commit is certainly a less bitter pill to swallow than Hey, I just don’t like you enough to hang around. See ya later . But he may be right about Alice—there’s definitely something about her, something secret and closed, and despite all her apparent warmth and openness, this part of her remains hidden, untouchable.
    “Did she say that?” I ask.
    Robbie is staring out toward the beach, deep in thought.
    “Robbie?”
    “Sorry?” he says. “Did she say what?”
    “Did Alice actually tell you that she’s afraid of commitment? Or is that just what you think?”
    “She didn’t say it. God.” He laughs. “Imagine Alice saying something like that. No. She didn’t say it, but it’s pretty obvious, and it would make sense, don’t you think?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know how you can tell these things.”
    “I mean because of her mother and stuff,” he says. “Her real mother. All that rejection. She’s bound to be wary of love.”
    “Her real mother? What do you mean?”
    “Oh.” He stares at me. “She hasn’t told you?”
    “No. She hasn’t told me anything. What? Is she adopted or something?”
    “Yeah. Shit! I probably shouldn’t say any more. I should wait and let her tell you herself.”
    “You’ve practically already told me,” I say. “Her real mother rejected her and she was adopted. I already know she doesn’t like the people who adopted her. Or at least, I assume they’re the ones she calls her parents.”
    “Yeah. She hates them.”
    “Now it all makes a bit more sense. I didn’t understand before. I wondered how she could say such horrible things about her parents, call them fat and stupid, and then in the next breath turn around and say something really nice about her mother. It’s because they’re two different people. She has two mothers.”
    “Yep. Her real mother, her biological mother, is called Jo-Jo.”
    “Jo-Jo?”
    “Yeah. Hippie for Joanne. She’s a hopeless old junkie. A more selfish, self-absorbed woman you’ve never met.”
    “But Alice—”
    “Totally loves her,” he interrupts. “Worships her. And Joanne’s filthy rich. She inherited a pile of money from her parents. Now she lavishes it on Alice. Gives her whatever she wants. And there’s this weird snobbery stuff happening. Even though Jo-Jo is useless, she acts superior to the people who adopted Alice. And Alice totally buys into it.”
    “So that’s why she has all those expensive clothes, why she doesn’t need to work,” I say. “Jo-Jo gives her money.”
    “Yep. Some kind of guilt thing, I suppose. She was too messed up to look after Alice and her little brother when they were kids, so she throws a whole lot of money at them to make up for it.”
    “Brother? Alice has a brother?”
    “Yeah.”
    “A brother.” I shake my head, astounded. “Wow. I had no idea. She’s never even mentioned him once. What’s his name?”
    Robbie frowns. “I don’t actually know. Alice gets weird when she talks about him. Just calls him her baby brother. I know he’s been in some kind of trouble with the law, something big, but I’m not exactly sure what. Drugs probably, like his mother.”
    I’m astonished to learn that Alice has a brother, that she was adopted, that she has secrets almost as