Page 65 of She’s a Doll

I’d known him as a kid. I’d seen him kick his legs as he watched Disney movies. I’d seen him play with his friends in the creek, water splashing, shoulders sunburned, face split into a wide, happy smile. But he wasn’t that boy anymore. Something had gone wrong. A monster had hatched, had eaten him from the inside out and was wearing his corpse like a skinsuit.

I couldn’t accept anything else. I couldn’t think of Kyle as human. I couldn’t face the idea that there was nothing special about him, nothing different.

Not then.

23

I floated through the darkness, jostled and jolted, my arms clanking against the cans of paint, my legs still jammed into the plastic chassis of my car. The time stream sucked at me, pulling and pushing like the tide. I tried to hold everything steady, to focus, but without any point of reference everything became a soup of fear, anger, and uncertainty. I didn’t know if it was minutes, hours, or days later when Nicola finally opened her backpack, the zipper parting, the world upending. I didn’t even have the energy to put my arms up as I fell, hard, onto a quilted blanket, bits of grass and dirt showering down around me.

“I’m sorry,” Nicola said, her voice small as she touched me, gently pulling me out of the car and setting me on my back. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you awake? I’m sorry.”

Her face swam into focus, flushed and freckled, brown eyes watery and red rimmed. She looked like she’d been crying. I didn’t care.

Don’t do that to me again.

“Lucy. I⁠—”

Don’t do that to me again!

“I didn’t have a choice.”

Bull-fucking-shit you didn’t. You don’t get to just shove me into a backpack when⁠—

“He was there, Lu. He was right th⁠—”

I know he was there! Why didn’t you give Krissy your hearing aid?

Nicola looked exhausted. “What do you think would have happened if I had? That she’d have just put it in her ear, heard your little voice, and agreed to help us take down her brother?”

She’s my friend.

“And he’s her brother.”

She wouldn’t⁠—

“She would, Lu. I’m telling you right now, she would stand by him. She’s done it already.”

She would nev⁠—

“No. Lu. Listen. Listen. The police pulled your phone records. Ginger told me they read out the text messages she’d sent you.”

When? I snarled. You said you and Ginger weren’t friends anymore.

“This was back when you first disappeared. Back when everyone was still looking for you.”

Oh, so this town did care once.

“People still care, Lu. I still care.”

No. Fuck you. You didn’t care until you found me. But Krissy will. We’ve been friends since⁠—

“The police pulled your phone records,” she said again, slowly, like she was trying to make me understand something. “They talked to Ginger about her messages, which means they had to have talked to Krissy too. She was your best friend, right? You talked a lot?”

So?

“And you phoned her the night you died. The last phone call your phone ever made was to her. That’s what you told me.”

I talked to Kyle, not her.