Page 80 of She’s a Doll

She finished off her hamburger, washing it down with a long, deep gulp from her milkshake. It left a mustache of bubbly pink foam on her upper lip that she sucked off. Strangely, stupidly, I caught myself thinking how imperfect she looked, how messy, how alive . . . and how beautiful.

When are you meeting her?

“She has a part-time shift at the library,” Nicola said. “Told me she gets off at six.”

What time is it?

“Twenty past five,” she said with the surety of someone who’d been watching the clock for a while now.

Forty minutes?

“Forty minutes,” she confirmed, and took another deep, long gulp of milkshake. “Thirty-nine minutes now.”

It seemed too soon. Only an hour ago, I was lying on Cookie’s grave in the grass and dirt, watching the rain and assigning imaginary voices to a spider. I wasn’t sure I was ready for the real world again. It still felt like a dream being in Nicola’s car, clipped into the seat belt as if I had a life to lose, listening to her voice and watching her eat.

I don’t . . . I don’t think . . .

“If you don’t want to see her, I’m not going to either. I’ll tell her I can’t make it. We’ll go home and watch TV.”

You could go without me, I suggested weakly.

“No.” She shook her head. “No way. You’ll disappear again.”

I won’t.

“No way,” she said, head still shaking. “No way.”

I twitched unhappily, my mind a mess of Ginger, Krissy, and Kyle. They felt like monsters to me then. All of them. Krissy, who should’ve been the one who helped me. Ginger, who should’ve been the one who helped Nicola. And Kyle, face red and contorted, teeth white and bared, forearms scratched bloody but still pressing down, heavy and crushing.

The numbness that had blanketed me for weeks suddenly felt dangerously thin. The storm of grief beyond it closer and more violent than ever before.

I wanted to run away, back to Nicola’s house, back to Cookie’s grave, back to an impossible place, where I still had a body, a life, and a grandma who could hug me tight enough that my bones clicked. But I couldn’t. There was no rewind button, not even for the dead. Running to Cookie’s grave hadn’t changed that. The only thing it’d done was hurt Nicola . . . and she didn’t deserve that.

Kyle did this. He did all of it. If there was even a tiny chance that we could make him feel a fraction of the pain he’d caused . . .

“Thirty-eight minutes,” Nicola said. “If you want to veto this, you’re going to have to do it soon.”

I have one question, I said.

“Only one?”

How are you going to explain the broken doll in your car?

Half an hour later I was in the back seat, hidden beneath the empty M-branded paper bag from Nicola’s Macca’s run. I could see, peeking out between the carefully placed rubbish, the gap between the driver’s and front passenger’s seats. Through the windshield the library’s arched roof was silhouetted against a purpling sky.

Last time I was here, I was printing off my certificate. It was a strange thought, one I didn’t know what to do with other than voice it. The librarian let me steal a plastic sleeve. That was nice. I wonder if she still works here.

Nicola’s gaze flicked up to meet mine in the rearview mirror and then danced back down again. She was back in the driver’s seat, leg bouncing, hands shoved into her armpits. She’d turned an ancient-looking radio on when we’d pulled up. The song that was playing now was full of sawing violins and raw-throated vocals. I couldn’t tell if it was a love song or a breakup song. When it finished, half a dozen ads played; then another song started, this one a cacophony of pounding drums, clapping hands, and long, happy shouts.

“Feeling kinda envious of your time-control powers right now,” Nicola muttered.

Oh yeah, it’s awesome, I said, letting sarcasm soak the words in my mind. The best part about being dead.

Another ad break.

Another song.

“I bet Ginger wouldn’t let you steal a plastic sleeve,” Nicola said, bitter. “Her eyes would go all big, and sad, and she’d tell you how she’d love to help, but that’d be against the rules and she can’t ever, ever break the rules.”