Page 43 of She’s a Doll

“Let me tell you something funny about dead people,” Nicola said, finally, finally starting to sound angry. “Something maybe you missed on your little jaunt down to hell. No one speaks ill of the dead. If Kyle dies, he’ll become perfect, just like you did. All that edgier-than-thou bullshit you and Krissy used to pull in high school? Forgotten. No one will want to hear anything bad about Kyle once there’s a tombstone over his head.”

I don’t care. I don’t care what people say. I don’t care what people think.

“Well I do. If we find something we can give to the police, then everyone will know what he is. They’ll hate h⁠—”

You think I’m stupid. You think I’ve missed some big, obvious clue because I didn’t understand, because I wasn’t smart enough to get good grades or get into a good school like the rest of you.

“Wha⁠—”

But I do understand. You’re the one who doesn’t understand. He took everything from me. Everything. My life. My future. My family.

Nicola dropped the whiteboard onto the coffee table with a loud clatter. “I’m trying to help you, Lu. Last I checked, I’m the only one who is, so maybe clean the ectoplasm out of your ears and listen to me. I can’t kill Kyle. I can’t. I . . .” She takes a slow, deep breath and rubs her face. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m not . . . I promised myself I wouldn’t get upset. I just want this to work out OK. And if he just dies, he’ll get flowers on his grave. He’ll get flowers.”

Did I get flowers?

“No,” she said after a pause. “You don’t have a grave. You’re a missing person.”

So why does it matter who gets flowers?

“It matters because . . . because it does. I need people to know what he is. I need them to see him, really see him. They need to know that Kyle’s a monster, that you didn’t run away, that your grandma isn’t the one who killed y⁠—”

What?!

Nicola winced and fiddled with her hearing aid.

“I think we need to rewind,” she said. “There’s a lot you missed, OK? There’s a lot you need to know. Like . . . a ton.”

They blamed my grandma?!

“Look. No. No one blamed your grandma. Not officially. I think there was just . . . talk, you know? She didn’t help out with the search stuff. She seemed strange in the TV appearances. At first, when everyone thought you’d just run away, she referred to you in past tense.”

Because she knew I wouldn’t just run away for no reason!

“The police never said anything. It was never official. But, you know, she had a criminal record⁠—”

That was nothing.

“⁠—this big, mean-looking dog⁠—”

Cookie never hurt anyone.

“⁠—and rumor was she was a hoarder.”

Why does that matter? She took me in. She made a space for me.

“I know, Lu. I know. But, you know, once people heard that she had some mental illness⁠—”

I froze time and screamed.

I screamed and screamed and screamed. The sound bombarded me, inhuman and ugly, trapped within my own head, making the gluey cracks throb and my porcelain smile ache, as if it were about to shatter and break.

My anger was a thick, palpable thing. It wrenched at my limbs, clenched tight in my bloated, plastic-stuffed torso. I didn’t even realize I was moving until I hit the floor, my body collapsing forward with a jarring thud. Everything felt wrong, the deep rumble that was Nicola’s voice slowed to an inhuman drawl, the pixels on the TV bleeding and blurring, the overhead light flickering. A world that had felt almost safe a moment before made alien, made ugly.

I crawled, not knowing where I was going until I got there, clambering into the nook behind the TV, a mess of wires, spiderwebs, and dust. I couldn’t curl up, so I folded myself in half, hugging my stiff, gluey legs to my chest, shaking so hard my porcelain rattled against the floor.

“⁠—nd you . . . Lucy?” I heard the floorboard squeak as Nicola moved. “Where’d you go?”

My grandma was trashy, I spat. That’s what you’re saying. We were poor, and bogan, so it was easy to blame her when I disappeared.