Page 56 of She’s a Doll

The worst part was, I’d never know. Not for sure. Any chance I had of experimenting, of figuring myself out, of being with anyone, boy or girl, was gone. I didn’t have a body anymore. Not a human one, anyway. I couldn’t go out into the world, cut my hair short, cover myself in funny little tattoos, and try kissing girls, or boys, or anyone else ever again.

Kyle took that from me.

I might be gay, or ace, or some other label I didn’t even know of. I might be an amalgamation, or I might invent my own category, just for me. But without a body, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t test any hypothesis. I was stuck. Trapped. Reduced.

All because of him.

And instead of doing something about it, instead of hurting him the way he’d hurt me, I was just watching Nicola graffiti another wall.

Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn.

Plan B was a shit plan. It made me feel impotent and small; it made me feel like an add-on in my own revenge. But it was still better than nothing. It was a way to have Nicola on my side, to have a friend, one with hands that worked and lungs that breathed and a mouth that smiled and laughed.

It was a shelter from the storm, small and flimsy, but the only piece of relief I’d gotten since I’d died.

And so I went along with her, night after night. Everywhere we went we left the same five words.

Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, Nicola painted onto alleyways, street signs, and Lawson Quarry’s front window. Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she put on the noticeboard, between flyers for free puppies. Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she spammed into every inbox she could find, into every local Facebook group, into the very atmosphere.

Whether they believed it or not, whether they cared or not, the whole town heard: Kyle Lawson killed Lucy McQuinn.

19

“I scrolled back through your aunt’s Facebook wall,” Nicola said one morning. Her breakfast was even worse than usual: a sludgy coffee in one hand, a single slice of toast, not even buttered, in the other. She leaned against the kitchen counter, sunlight hitting the speckled skin on her shoulders and injecting a hint of red into her hair.

I was sitting on the kitchen floor, not looking half as majestic, twisty legs splayed out, torso propped upright with the help of my stick arm. You looked at Auntie Dawn’s Facebook?

“Extensively,” she said around a mouthful of toast. “It was a slow day at work. I wanted to see if she’d posted anything about her sister.”

Grandma.

I thought of that photo Nicola showed me, Grandma and Auntie Dawn together, standing on the shore of a mirror-blue lake, hiking boots muddy and cheeks ruddy red from the cold. Alive. Far away, but alive.

I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear anything different.

Is she . . . ? I asked weakly.

“Alive?” Nicola took a long swig of coffee. “I think so. I didn’t see anything on your aunt’s page that made me think her sister had died. I mean, maybe she did and your aunt never posted about it, but she uploads photos of every new leaf that appears in her garden, so I don’t think under-sharing is really her vibe.”

I thought about the last time I saw Auntie Dawn, screaming as Grandma pulled her out of the room. She might only post about happy stuff.

“Maybe,” Nicola conceded around a mouthful of toast. “But she posted a lot of stuff about you when you went missing. She talked about when your grandma’s place got condemned, said there was mold in the walls and that it made her see things. She posted when her dog died and⁠—”

Auntie Dawn didn’t have a dog.

Nicola frowned. “She said she buried him at the pet cemetery. You know the place? It’s a couple of kilometers down the highway in a sheep paddock. I saw a photo.”

Auntie Dawn didn’t have a dog, I said again.

Nicola kept frowning.

I started to shake.

Cookie. It had to be. Even if Auntie Dawn had a dog, she wouldn’t bury it here. This was our town. Grandma, me, and Cookie.

“Are you OK?” Nicola asked.

Yeah, I lied. Yeah. I’m fine.