Page 68 of She’s a Doll

For a brief, terrifying second I froze, convinced Nicola had heard and was going to burst back into the room, wrapped in a towel. She’d discover me with her phone, yell at me, and put me back in the backpack, zipping it shut. But of course she didn’t. She was still in the shower, which meant her hearing aid was out. As long as I kept the volume down, I’d be OK.

That was what I hoped, at least.

I planted my legs wide and lurched to my feet, still hugging her phone, as big as my torso. The stolen hearing aid rattled inside my skull as I waddled forward, desperate for some sanctuary, some space. There wasn’t much on offer. Nicola’s home wasn’t anything like the one I’d grown up in. No boxes, no piles of clothes, no easy, obvious hiding places for a doll to wriggle into.

Without options, I headed to the one place I knew Nicola couldn’t get me. The one guaranteed safe space.

Behind the TV.

It was as dusty and dark as I remembered, the wires tangling around my feet and sending me toppling forward. A daddy longlegs fled, scampering silently away on hair-thin legs. I propped the phone up against the wall, sat in front of it, and tried again to swipe at the screen.

Nothing.

I rubbed my stick arm against my duct tape again. It took several attempts before the screen responded, once again flickering and glitching for a second before displaying a jumble of apps. I scanned through them, hunting for Instagram. It took over a minute to find it. Brighter. Swirlier. Stranger. Not the icon I remembered. When I opened it, the first post that appeared was Krissy’s.

Of course. Nicola didn’t have Instagram anymore. This was my account, and I didn’t have many friends.

Krissy was at the Flower Festival, pouting, sunglasses frames in the shape of blooming flowers. Her hair was longer, blonder, her eyes crinkled around the corners, and her makeup tones had changed, but none of that mattered. She was still Krissy. And she wasn’t alone. In the background stood a man, face turned away from the camera, coppery hair cut short, hands in his pockets.

There weren’t any scratches on his forearms. Not even a little one. He’d gotten away with it and I hadn’t even left a scar. Why couldn’t I have at least done that? Why couldn’t I stop him? Why⁠—no. It didn’t matter.

I swiped over to Krissy’s profile. It felt like stepping onto an alien planet. Inspirational quotes, latte art, and a dizzying amount of likes. A reel of her doing her makeup in front of a ring light started to play.

I unmuted it.

“. . . the case I’ve found for you today is wild. So strap in, true-crime girlies, because this is one you don’t want to miss.”

I muted it again, feeling sick.

There were hundreds of comments, even more likes, and an affiliate link to a “12 day detritus destroyer detox drink” in the description. None of it matched with the version of Krissy I had in my head. Back in school, Krissy and I had been the losers, the freaks, the weird kids who were too loud, or too quiet, never the right volume to fit in.

After we’d graduated, she’d started studying to be a teacher, another remote-learning course, though one I hadn’t gotten the grades to get into. She promised to drop out every week but never did. Except this wasn’t the profile of a teacher.

Kristina Maybelle Lawson was her screen name. True crime and beauty blogger was written in her bio. There was also an Australian flag emoji, which was weird. She’d always said patriotism was cringey AF. For weirdos who didn’t have anything better to fangirl over. Back in high school, it wouldn’t matter how many “aussie aussie aussies” you’d toss her way; she’d never utter even a single “oi.”

Nicola’s words crept back into my mind.

“Things have changed. People have changed. Everything has changed.”

Except I couldn’t believe Krissy had changed that much. Not really. We’d been best friends since we were six. She ate pineapple on pizza because fuck what anyone else thought. She could do the eeriest, funniest Skyrim NPC impression I’d ever seen. If I could just talk to her, she’d understand.

I opened my messages.

Krissy’s name was just below Kyle’s. A small unread-messages icon floated beside her profile picture. I tapped it and started scrolling. There were hundreds of messages, maybe thousands, some only a few words long, others unbroken paragraphs that filled the whole screen, stretching out like a carpet. Finally, I found a colored bubble, sitting on top of it all, like a cherry on top of a cake. The last message I’d sent her.

I’m sorry, I can’t right now. Catch up tomorrow?

She hadn’t responded.

A few days later, her messages began.

On Monday:

Hey. Wanna catch up?

On Tuesday:

I’m bored. Come over.