Page 51 of She’s a Doll

“For fuck’s sake, Lu. I didn’t mean it. You hurt yourself.”

I kept ignoring her as I staggered into the hallway and picked up the pace. As promised, the cat flap was unlocked. I dragged myself through, my stick arm doing most of the heavy lifting.

The world beyond was shockingly bright, the sun hanging high overhead, clipping the shadows back to narrow strips. Despite it, the wind was cold, cutting straight to my stuffing. I knew what wind like that meant. Winter’s last stand. September, probably. Maybe already October. Soon the Flower Festival would march into town, a brief temperate celebration before the heavy, oppressive heat of summer descended. Already, in the neighbors’ yards, there were spatterings of flowers, tiny white and yellow blooms, clinging to stalks and branches as the wind whipped by.

I staggered away from the door, stumbling down the cracked concrete path, broken foot getting more broken with every step. I made it all the way to the letter box before collapsing, exhausted and shaking with anger. I’d thought Nicola was on my side. I’d thought she’d help me. I’d thought the worst of this was over. I’d thought . . . I didn’t know what I’d thought.

But I was wrong.

I was so fucking wrong.

This wasn’t over. It was never going to be over. I was dead. I was trapped. I was alone. I couldn’t kill Kyle. I didn’t know why I’d been stupid enough to ever think I could. Without Nicola, there was no way I would even find him, let alone take him down, and she didn’t care.

She didn’t care.

Not about Ginger, and not about me.

The burn of that betrayal bubbled bitter inside me, twisting my insides and making my duct tape clench.

But despite it, pathetically, my mind kept tumbling past her refusal to help and replaying the four words she’d tossed at me through a mouthful of smoke.

You were sweet on Ginger, I’d said.

“As if you weren’t,” she’d replied with a lazy sort of certainty, like it wasn’t even a question, like everyone already knew.

It didn’t matter.

Killing Kyle was what mattered. It was the only thing that mattered.

But still, behind my eyes, those four words were stuck on repeat.

As if you weren’t. As if you weren’t. As if you weren’t. As if you weren’t.

Relentless. Like a scratched CD.

As if you weren’t.

I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, the cold damp of the pavement sinking into my porcelain. If I had to guess, I’d say not long. Probably less than a minute, not that it felt like it. A car passed so slowly that the rumble of it felt like it went on for hours, reverberating through the ground and vibrating deep in my stuffing. Only after it was gone, when the street was empty, did the front door open and Nicola’s bare feet pad down the path.

She knelt down, joint still between her lips, and gently propped me up against the brick trunk of the letter box. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that, right?”

Ditto.

“Patrick Swayze,” she muttered. “Ghost. 1990. If you’re going to be dead, you gotta stop being so derivative.”

Fuck you.

“That’s it. That’s your line. Might not be especially unique, but I believe you when you say it, and you say it a lot.”

No. Seriously. Fuck you. I don’t understand why you won’t help.

“Think about it for a sec,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll come to you. Then, when you’re ready, we can go back inside and I’ll fire up the glue gun again. How does that sound?”

You’re scared.

“Yes,” she agreed.

You think you’ll go to prison if you help me kill Kyle.