Page 9 of She’s a Doll

I needed to talk to Krissy.

I needed to explain to her.

I needed . . . her.

A friend.

I closed Instagram and opened my recent-calls list. Krissy’s number was at the top.

I’ve analyzed every particle of this memory, right down to the atomic level, to the subatomic. I’ve spent days, weeks, months, years trying to wring some meaning out of it, some understanding. More than anything else, I’ve tried to identify where exactly I went wrong. What I could’ve done differently. What it would’ve taken to make the dominoes fall in another direction. But the more I think about it, the more arbitrary and stupid it seems.

I called Krissy . . .

5

. . . and Kyle answered.

“Hey, Lucy.”

“Oh . . . eh . . . hey, Kyle. Is Krissy there?”

“I don’t think she wants to talk right now.”

“Oh . . .”

Kyle and Krissy were twins. They both had the same sharp face, coppery hair, and gray eyes. Whenever I went over to Krissy’s house, Kyle was there, playing the part of the annoyed older brother, or the annoying younger brother, whichever suited him on the day.

Kyle had never answered Krissy’s phone before.

“. . . well . . . can you tell her I’m . . . sorry, I guess?”

“Have you two had a fight?”

“No. I don’t think so. It’s just . . . It doesn’t matter. Just tell her I called.”

“Yeah. Sure. Oh, by the way, I saw your cosplay on Insta. It looked awesome.”

As it turned out, that was the exact thing I needed to hear.

“Really? You reckon?”

“Yeah. So much better than all those other girls. They look like Barbies. You look real.”

I should’ve told him not to be such a sexist fucking pig. But I didn’t. I knew it was wrong, but in the moment, I wanted to shut my eyes and let myself believe it. No nuance. No niceness. No but-what-ifs. Just me (the real girl) versus them (the fakes). It was an ugly, petty kind of vindication, made all the uglier and pettier by me knowing how ugly and petty it was. But, for a few short seconds, it made me feel a little less small.

“I was the Hatter. I don’t think any of them got it.”

“Oh. Like Alice in Wonderland? That’s clever.”

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, yeah. I reused an old cosplay. My grandma and I made it. Mostly from scratch, but she had some old Pride and Prejudice-y costumes lying around that we ripped apart. That’s where the top hat came from.”

“That’s really cool. You and your grandma both like old books, then?”

“I guess. Is that weird? That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Nah. It’s cool. What are your favorites?”

I didn’t stop talking for a while after that.