Beautiful Losers: A Novel of Suspense Read Online Free PDF

on biological need, on sex and desire, than love. Perhaps this was the way it was meant to be. Perhaps. The thought that you can’t be truly intimate with someone you don’t really know entered and, as quickly, exited my fevered mind. Too soon I saw his expression change.
    Yet still he watched.
    Afterwards we lay in bed and ate Thai chicken and basmati rice with torn-off chunks of naan bread. Licking my fingers greedily, I asked what sort of a week he’d had.
    â€œFairly bloody.” He took a gulp from a can of chilled lager. “Usual story: a small hard-core of fourteen-year -olds making life difficult for the rest. In today’s enlightened age, there isn’t much I can do about it other than dishing out detentions. It’s deeply unsatisfying and doesn’t really get to the root of the problem.”
    â€œWhich is?”
    â€œThey don’t give a fuck. School’s an irrelevance.”
    I whistled between my teeth. My own school days were detestable. I rarely spoke about them because, by comparison to Chris’s childhood, I’d led a charmed life.
    â€œTrouble is, I kind of get it,” he said.
    â€œThat was different,” I reminded him. “You were trapped in the care home system. No wonder you were an angry kid.”
    â€œAngry and criminal.”
    â€œCriminal?” I said, arching an eyebrow. In almost four years, Chris had never told me this before. In fact, he’d revealed little other than the odd highlight.
    He flashed a grin. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t an axe-murderer or anything. A bit of stealing, that’s all.”
    â€œHow much is a bit ?”
    â€œFood, booze, cigarettes.”
    â€œYou don’t smoke,” I said, amazed.
    â€œEverybody smokes at fourteen years of age.”
    â€œI didn’t.”
    â€œThat’s because you were holed up in a convent.”
    I let out a giggle. “It wasn’t a convent, Chris.”
    â€œMight as well have been, from what you’ve told me.”
    A bleak vision of metal beds, green walls, and linoleum-covered floors, cold and clammy underfoot, swam before my eyes. I thought back to forced walks in pairs— in crocodile , as it was termed—
on sheep-shit laden hills, twice-daily assemblies, supervised reading on Sundays, the slow and deadly crushing of identity. Most searing of all, I remembered the feeling of abandonment by those I loved. I jettisoned the thought.
    â€œAnything else I should know about?” I said with a grin.
    â€œI had a penchant for spraying public property with graffiti.”
    â€œQuite the hooligan. Were you ever caught?”
    â€œNot once.” He sounded immensely proud.
    â€œWhat brought you to your senses?”
    â€œMr. H.”
    I remembered. According to Chris, Mr. Harries, his History teacher, was the first person to really take an interest in him.
    â€œGod knows where I’d be now without him,” Chris said.
    â€œWell, there you go,” I said, poking Chris playfully with a finger, making him laugh. “Stay brilliant and you’ll win those little tearaways around to your way of thinking.”
    Chris swept up the plates and dumped them down on the floor. “And how was your week?” he said.
    I told him about the radio programme.
    â€œYou’re turning into quite a star.”
    I glanced at him. Had I detected a note of cynicism? “Maybe I could start a whole new breed of psycho-celebrity .”
    Chris didn’t appear to get the joke, didn’t react.
    â€œIt’s good publicity for the Lodge,” I continued, “and a great vehicle for highlighting eating disorders,” I added, thieving a line from Jim.
    â€œI thought the press did a pretty good job. You can’t read anything these days without stumbling across My Bulimia Nightmare. The media’s full of it.”
    â€œThe media is also responsible for messages that reinforce the idea that young women