Free Nothing to Lose by Alex Flinn

run away from to come here. “Tell me about Mount Rainier,” I said instead. “I’ve never seen a mountain. Is there really snow at the top all year long?”
    She smiled. “Yup. And little waterfalls all over that you can find just by hearing them. And animals hiding, but you can see them if you walk quietly. It’s really pretty.”
    I leaned and kissed her. It was different than her kissing me. Different than kissing other girls, too. I’d kissed plenty of girls at parties after football games, had some girlfriends, even done some stuff before Mom married Walker and it all fell apart. But somehow I felt like Kirstie knew what it was like to stand in the middle of a crowd and still be all alone.
    I kissed her again now, on that double Ferris wheel that turned and dipped, turned and dipped, until I couldn’t tell if the feeling in my stomach was motion sickness or maybe longing.
    Below, Cricket was letting people off the wheel. I reached for the grab bar, still dazed.
    “Are we getting off?” Kirstie said.
    “Ride’s over. I thought…”
    “Do you want to get off?” she said, then smiled at the double meaning. “Do you want to get off the ride?”
    The sun slipped behind the funhouse. It left a gray-streaked outline of itself. The fair lights were up, pink and green and blue. The lights were loud and the fair music was louder, and Kirstie’s hands, her hair, her word, destiny , all stayed in my ears, shutting out everything else, all the bad stuff.
    “No,” I said. “No, I do not want to get off this ride.”
    That night Kirstie told me about Mount Rainier and the Mississippi River and all sorts of places she’d seen and I hadn’t. And then my mouth was on hers again, not caring about, not knowing who was watching or what they thought, and all the fair music, the sounds, and lights, and smells gave way to one song:
    You were meant for me ,
    And I was meant for you.
    I never wanted to get off the ride.
    When I got home, the light in the kitchen was on. I went to turn it off
    A voice stopped me.
    “Happy birthday, dear stepson,” it sang.
    Walker. My radar was going nuts. Walker in a good mood, his face like a big, pasted-on smiley face, and almost as real. My every instinct screamed flight. But that wasn’t the right thing to do. Instincts were all wrong here.
    “Happy birthday to you,” he concluded.
    I turned. “Hello, Walker.”
    Did my voice shake? He stood, back toward me, by the table. He was still dressed from work, in a gray suit so expensive and clean it gleamed like a knife in the fluorescent light. Smoke curled around his balding head. He turned.
    “Out late celebrating?” Still pleasant.
    “Yeah.” I huddled closer to the doorway.
    A frown.
    “I mean, yes. Yes, sir.”
    “Your mother said it was your birthday.” Like he’d meant to throw a party. “How old?”
    “Sixteen.” You bastard.
    “Sixteen…” Walker took a long drag on the cigarette, then released a puff into my face.
    Don’t react.
    “And never been kissed?” he said.
    “Can I go to my room now?”
    “No.” Walker took another drag. “Hey. I’m just trying to talk to you.”
    “Right.”
    “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “What?” But I remembered and gave in. “Yes. Yes, I’ve been kissed.”
    “Wouldn’t have thought so. Mama’s boy like you.”
    Which I ignored.
    “Been laid, too?”
    Which I couldn’t.
    “No, sir.”
    “Good. Women are nothing but problems. But you’ve got a girlfriend? Or maybe a boyfriend?”
    I looked away. A small ant, the kind Mom called a sugar ant and said you couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard you cleaned, made its way up the door frame. Did Walker see it? Not yet. But he would. I thought about the best way to kill it without Walker freaking out.
    “You dumb, boy?”
    “What?” I shifted from foot to foot, and as I did, moved my hand up to cover the ant.
    “You don’t like me much, do you?”
    I squashed the ant, my eyes never leaving