16
No, I said. This is fake. This is Photoshop. This is a sick fucking joke. This is—
“It’s real,” she said. “I was there.”
My anger churned. You . . . you let her marry him.
Nicola’s brow crumpled. “Lu. I—”
You let him near—
I lost grip of time. It wrenched through me so suddenly and so violently that it felt like my stitches were tearing out.
With it came the storm, a tirade of grief and rage that bombarded me, choked me, tore me apart, even as I flailed, desperately trying to grab hold, to regain control.
It was no use. Everything lurched and blurred; the sun flashed like a broken circuit; the ambient hum of the room ratcheted up, both pitch and volume, until all I could hear was a raging scream.
I surfaced for only a moment, just long enough to see that I was sitting on the sofa now, propped up. The image didn’t have time to focus before I slipped again, time flooding forward, so brutal and so unstoppable that I knew, no matter how hard I fought, I wasn’t going to stop it.
Ghost Lore Fact #1: Time is fucked up when you’re dead. Addendum: You can unfuck it, as long as you don’t mind getting a little fucked up in the process. Addendum #2: Sometimes you can’t unfuck it, no matter how hard you try. Sometimes, all you can do is hang on.
That was what I did.
I hung on, clutching to the flow of time, to my own limbs, caught in a blitz of panic and pain. My nonexistent ears rang. My chest heaved. Memories hit me like bullets. Grandma. Cookie. Auntie Dawn. Ginger. Kyle . . .
Him pinning me down, face red. My lungs burning, my throat collapsing, my vision folding inward.
I screamed.
Someone screamed back.
I recoiled, striking a wall of fabric, the sofa’s armrest.
Nicola was curled at the other end of the sofa, breathing hard, staring at me, wearing a sweaty pair of pajamas. “Are you . . . ?” she asked uncertainly.
My head snapped back and forth, taking in the room, the curtains closed against the midday sun, the TV playing old quiz-show reruns on mute. The heater in the corner was on, the dial set to max despite how warm the room already was.
“You’ve been doing nothing for . . . Jesus,” Nicola said. “I don’t know. Weeks. I thought I’d imagined you. I thought you were—”
Ginger married him.
Slowly, Nicola nodded, her breathing slowing.
“Yeah. Yeah, that . . . that happened.” She looked exhausted, skin ashy, eyes shadowed, hair stringy with sweat.
There was a stubby cigarette resting between her fingers, smoking softly.
No. Not a cigarette. The stink of cannabis hung heavy in the air. A joint.
We have to help her.
“What?”
Ginger. We have to help Ginger.
A strange look passed over Nicola’s face. “No,” she said, and tapped the joint on the rim of an ancient McDonald’s ashtray. “We don’t.”
She’s married to a murderer.
“And a few other things besides.”
We have to save her! We have to—
“Kill Kyle,” Nicola said in tandem with me. “Yeah. I heard you the first hundred times.”
What is wrong with you? I cried.
“I’m alive, Lu,” she snapped. “That’s what’s wrong. I’m alive and I don’t want to go to prison until I die. Call me a coward if you want, but that’s it.”
I stared at her.
She cursed and rubbed at her face. “Look. I don’t want to fight. I’m glad you’re back. It’s been a shitty month. A really shitty month. I haven’t watched any more Walking Dead. Do you—”
No. This is fucked up. This is so wrong. I can’t. You have to help me. This isn’t just revenge anymore. Ginger’s in danger!
Nicola put the joint between her lips and sucked, her eyes sliding shut and her cheeks hollowing out.
She tipped her head back as she exhaled, smoke billowing up at the ceiling, a shimmering cloud that hit the smoke detector square on the nose.
It didn’t make a sound, the battery compartment open and empty.
What are you doing? I said, my thoughts jagged and desperate and sick with rage.
“I’m writing a novel,” Nicola replied.
You don’t look like you’re writing a novel.
“You ever written a novel, Lu?”
I thought about that old Carmilla-Laura fanfic on Archive of Our Own. 139,720 words. 11 comments. 47 kudos.
No, I said.
“Then how’d you know what writing a novel looks like?”
You’re doing drugs.
“Exactly.”
Illegal drugs.
“It’s literally just weed, you square.”
When Kyle is out there right now, alone with Ginger.
“Husbands and wives do like to spend time alone, occasionally.”
He could be hurting her!
“Husbands and wives do that too, occasionally.”
How can you not care about this? He’s a murderer! You call yourself Ginger’s friend?
“No,” she said. “I don’t, actually. Not anymore. We haven’t spoken since . . . for a long time.”
That doesn’t matter! She’s in dan—
“Her house. She’s in her house with her husband.”
Fuck you! I cried. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you!
She let out a throaty chuckle. “There’s the disembodied voice I know. You know, the store has felt kinda empty without you. I only get cursed at by customers now.”
You have to help me!
“No,” she said, rougher now, anger creeping in around the edges of her voice. “I don’t, Lu. I don’t have to help you. I don’t have to do shit. I got you out of the store. I glued you back together.”
You liked Ginger, I said, my mind finally latching on to what she’d said before. You said you couldn’t compete with me. You were sweet on Ginger.
Nicola snorted. “As if you weren’t.”
The nakedness of that statement hit me like a cinder block.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Nicola continued before I could recover.
“You think I haven’t looked in the mirror and said every fucking word you’re thinking right now?
Coward. Loser. Fuckup. You’re right. It’s true.
But it also doesn’t matter. Kyle is a monster.
I get that. But I can’t . . . I can’t do anything about it.
No one held a gun to Ginger’s head when she walked down that aisle. ”
She didn’t know.
“She knew enough.”
If you liked her, then you can’t just leave her, I tried. We need to help her. We need to do something.
“What?” she said, waving a hand. “What do you want me to do, Lu? I wanted to help you. I wanted to figure this out, find some evidence, do this properly, but you didn’t want that.
I found your grandma, but that wasn’t enough either.
You were literally a broken little voice in a box when I found you.
Now look. You could start a YouTube channel if you wanted. ”
I don’t care about YouTube.
“Well, you should. You’d make a killing. Haunted Doll Streams. It’s a niche, sure, but I think there’d be some dedicated fans. You could watch horror movies and comment on how accurate the ghost representation is.”
Kyle needs to die. It’s the only way.
“The cat flap is unlocked,” she said, and put the joint between her lips, inhaling deeply. “Go. Have fun. If you do manage to find Kyle, give him a good few licks for me while you’re at it.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t understand it.
None of this made sense. She didn’t make sense.
She was supposed to be Ginger’s friend. Even if she hated me, even if she’d decided gluing me back together was the worst decision she’d ever made, even if her plan was to take me back to the dump tomorrow, she should still help Ginger today.
Even if she wouldn’t help me kill Kyle, she should still do something.
I threw myself off the sofa and fell gracelessly to the ground. My foot hit first, porcelain collapsing beneath me with a sickening crack. I sprawled forward, sick with humiliation and anger.
“You OK?” Nicola asked.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t even turn to look at her as I pushed myself upright and began lurching toward the door, ignoring the crunch as more porcelain splintered and broke away from my ruined ankle.
“Lu,” Nicola called out after me.
I ignored her.
“For fuck’s sake, Lu. I didn’t mean it. You hurt yourself.”
I kept ignoring her as I staggered into the hallway and picked up the pace. As promised, the cat flap was unlocked. I dragged myself through, my stick arm doing most of the heavy lifting.
The world beyond was shockingly bright, the sun hanging high overhead, clipping the shadows back to narrow strips.
Despite it, the wind was cold, cutting straight to my stuffing.
I knew what wind like that meant. Winter’s last stand.
September, probably. Maybe already October.
Soon the Flower Festival would march into town, a brief temperate celebration before the heavy, oppressive heat of summer descended.
Already, in the neighbors’ yards, there were spatterings of flowers, tiny white and yellow blooms, clinging to stalks and branches as the wind whipped by.
I staggered away from the door, stumbling down the cracked concrete path, broken foot getting more broken with every step.
I made it all the way to the letter box before collapsing, exhausted and shaking with anger.
I’d thought Nicola was on my side. I’d thought she’d help me.
I’d thought the worst of this was over. I’d thought . . . I didn’t know what I’d thought.
But I was wrong.
I was so fucking wrong.
This wasn’t over. It was never going to be over. I was dead. I was trapped. I was alone. I couldn’t kill Kyle. I didn’t know why I’d been stupid enough to ever think I could. Without Nicola, there was no way I would even find him, let alone take him down, and she didn’t care.
She didn’t care.
Not about Ginger, and not about me.
The burn of that betrayal bubbled bitter inside me, twisting my insides and making my duct tape clench.
But despite it, pathetically, my mind kept tumbling past her refusal to help and replaying the four words she’d tossed at me through a mouthful of smoke.
You were sweet on Ginger, I’d said.
“As if you weren’t,” she’d replied with a lazy sort of certainty, like it wasn’t even a question, like everyone already knew.
It didn’t matter.
Killing Kyle was what mattered. It was the only thing that mattered.
But still, behind my eyes, those four words were stuck on repeat.