Page 76 of She’s a Doll

I felt sick. Do you hate me?

She stopped pacing and stared down at me. “What do you think?”

It’s OK. You should hate me. I⁠—

“For fuck’s sake. I don’t hate you. I never did. I’m angry at you, Lucy McQuinn. I’m really fucking angry.”

Oh . . .

“You knew what you did would hurt me,” she plowed on. “You knew and you did it⁠—”

I didn’t know.

“If you thought about it for even a second, you would’ve realized you were throwing me under the bus. But you didn’t. You didn’t think about me. You didn’t say a thing. You went behind my back and fucked my life up, just so you could maybe trade me in for someone you liked better.”

No, I said. No. That wasn’t it. I . . . I was just . . . You put me in your backpack, and it was . . . it was like dying, Nic. Being put in that dark place, not being able to get out. I . . . I just wanted to talk to Krissy. That’s all I wanted to do. I thought she could help us, and you . . . you put me in the dark.

“I listened to the message you sent her,” Nicola said. “The police played it for me. They played it over and over again. The bit where you said, ‘I know this is a fucked-up thing to hear’ was their favorite. They said that was my conscience talking, and that I should listen to it. Every time I said ‘I didn’t do it’ or ‘leave me alone’ or ‘no comment,’ they’d play it again like some fucked-up game of Marco Polo. They think I used AI to re-create your voice.”

AI can do that now?

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah it can. And guess who could’ve told you that? Me. If you’d asked.”

We were both shaking now, her hands, my whole body. The only thing keeping me anchored was the book clutched to my chest, big enough that it felt a little like hugging a table, but I wasn’t willing to put it down, no matter how awkward. I just . . . I wanted Krissy to know, I whispered. I thought if she knew . . .

“She doesn’t want to know, Lu,” Nicola said, voice lower. “She doesn’t.”

But . . . she’s my friend.

Nicola cursed under her breath and sat down heavily beside me, heedless of the mud that squelched beneath her.

Claudia retreated deeper into her crevice, tucking her long stripy brown legs beneath herself and watching on in silent judgment. All the commotion. It’s disgraceful. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

“I’m sorry your friend didn’t believe you,” Nicola said, voice hoarse. “I’m sorry she let you down. I know what that feels like, and . . . I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry I let you down.

“You didn’t, actually. You betrayed me, you fucked everything up, you ruined my life, but you didn’t let me down.”

I didn’t know what to say to that except . . . I’m sorry.

“Yeah,” she said, and bowed her head. “I know. I know you are. I am too.”

We sat there for a long time, Nicola with her elbows resting on her bent knees, head down. Me curled around the book, trying, uselessly, to keep it dry as the rain came thicker and heavier. This wasn’t my favorite of Grandma’s books, but it was hers, creased and dog-eared. I knew it would naturally fall open to that full-page illustration of the Hatter. The page that Grandma and I had used to make my cosplay.

I hadn’t thought about this book since I’d died, but now it suddenly felt precious. More precious than anything else she could’ve given me. I didn’t want it to get wet. Perhaps I thought part of that thought out loud, or perhaps Nicola noticed the way I was trying to shield the book with my body, because she picked up the book with me on top of it and bundled both of us into her coat.

She smelled of sweat and smoke and something I couldn’t name, something uniquely her.

I kicked and wriggled until my face poked through the zipper. She was looking down at me, water dripping off her hood, shimmery and slow. Time wasn’t moving right, like a YouTube video on 0.75 playback speed. But that was OK. I didn’t mind sitting a little longer with Nicola.

“This wasn’t your aunt’s dog, was it?” she asked after a while, low and tired.

He was my grandma’s dog. My dog. We got him when I was little. He was little too, a puppy from a friend of a friend. His paws were too big and his head too heavy. He was the color of mixed cookie dough, so that’s what we called him. He wasn’t a very good guard dog, but he tried, he tried really hard. He was the only one who knew Kyle killed me.

She exhaled and rubbed her eyes. “So there was a witness.”

One.