Free Something Beautiful by Jenna Jones Page A

definitely would have killed him. "I was going to spend the weekend in the city, looking at apartments."
     
    "You can do that Saturday. Friday night, you're taking out Bonnie. Maybe you'll hit it off. Maybe you'll like each other. Maybe you'll date."
     
    He looked unhappily at the bowl of ice cream. "Maybe," he said faintly.
     
    "If you're not going to eat that, put it back in the freezer, please."
     
    "Okay."
     
    His mother came to him and held his chin gently in her fingers. "It's better to marry than to burn, darling," she said. "Remember that."
     
    "I remember," Micah said, and she smiled and kissed his forehead and started up the stairs. "Mom?" he said, and Ivy turned around.
     
    "What, darling?"
     
    "Do you ever miss Rebecca?"
     
    Her smile disappeared and her face went pale. She turned and went quickly up the stairs.
     
    I guess not, Micah thought and took the ice cream to his room. He turned on his computer, eating ice cream while it booted up, and opened his email program. He usually deleted emails from unfamiliar addresses without opening them, but one caught his eye: the address was "rweaver" and the subject line was "Hey, mini-bro."
     
    He heart pounded a little harder as he opened the email.
     
    Micah --
     
    I know it's been forever. It's taken me that long to stop being angry at the parents and to work up the courage to talk to you again. I miss you like crazy, and Shiloh said you wanted to hear from me. So here I am.
     
    I don't know what she's told you, so here's my life: still married to Justin, despite all the dire predictions. We just had a baby girl. Her name is Katherine and we're calling her Kitty. I'm attaching a picture. She's got Mom's eyes.
     
    Justin got a job teaching at UC Santa Cruz and we moved down over the summer. It's amazing here: so casual and simple. It's a lot like Seattle, really, but with a lot less rain.
     
    I miss you. I want Kitty to know her uncle. Maybe someday her grandparents, but we'll see how that all works out. I'm not going to hope for too much from them.
     
    Anyway. I love you. Answer me when you're ready.
     
    Love,
     
    Rebecca
     
    Micah opened the picture Rebecca had sent. It was a plump-faced baby, with big blue eyes like his mother and Shiloh and himself, a tight cap of dark hair, freckles across her nose and a wide, toothless smile. Micah smiled, biting his thumbnail, and then hit the Reply button. He typed fast: Of course I miss you. Kitty's beautiful. I want to see you as soon as possible. Love, me , included his cell phone number and his work number, and hit Send before he could think about it any further.
     
    It was a common enough story, he supposed, for a preacher's daughter to go wild: sneaking out of the house, drinking, drugs, stealing from Ivy's purse as well as Micah's allowance, coming home reeking of marijuana smoke and beer, screaming fights at two in the morning. Finally, their parents had enough, and shipped Rebecca off to Seattle to live with a childless aunt and uncle, and attend college under their supervision.
     
    The weekly bulletins from their aunt hadn't been hopeful: more fights, more stealing, more drug use. Rebecca wouldn't go to church or even to school. And then quite abruptly: "Rebecca has run away and gotten married."
     
    His parents never spoke her name, her pictures were put away, and their other children were forbidden to contact her.
     
    Micah had been only sixteen at the time and missed his sister dreadfully. There had been times he'd been afraid of her, times he'd hated her -- when she was stoned she'd been terrifying, she would punch him, slap him, twist his arm behind his back -- but when she was sober he'd never felt closer to anyone. He'd almost told her he thought he might be gay more than once, but lost his nerve each time.
     
    Shiloh had said Rebecca had read his blog -- his trip would give them something to talk about until they were comfortable again. And there would be the baby, and he'd want to hear