18
We couldn’t spray-paint the arsehole’s car.
He kept it locked away in his garage: a big, modern, fancy one that would make a halfway decent fallout shelter, complete with a heavy roll-down door, zero windows, and a camera mounted under the eaves.
We couldn’t put the ad in the newspaper either.
Apparently, they had “concerns” about some of the wording.
But that didn’t stop us. Or, more accurately, it didn’t stop her.
Nicola. The bread, butter, and brains of the operation. You’d think I, being the ghost and all, would have more input into the actual haunting thing. But mostly, I just sat in her backpack, injected a witty one-liner here and there, and watched her work. And boy did she work.
Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she wrote in letters that she shoved into every mail and PO box we passed.
Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she typed up in bold print on a wanted poster she made with a photo swiped from LinkedIn.
Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she copy-pasted into the mouths of a dozen sock-puppet accounts on a dozen different platforms, posting on every community page, every newsletter, making new ones as quick as the old ones got banned.
She was relentless. She was tireless. She was amazing. So amazing I couldn’t help but hate her a little. Because, juxtaposed beside her amazingness, I felt like a sidekick. No, worse than a sidekick. Like a toy, a prop. The MacGuffin to her shining, noble hero’s journey.
My one contribution to Plan B came in the form of a long, Shakespearean tirade that Nicola transcribed into a message for Kyle.
It began with Hi Kyle, long time no see and ended with Got bored of waiting for you in hell, so the devil gave me a hall pass to come back to escort you down via express lane.
See you soon, arsehole. This time, I’ll bring the vodka.
He didn’t respond, which made me feel small and petty. No, not petty, pathetic. Like a child throwing stones at a mountain and expecting it to move.
“Stones can cause avalanches,” Nicola replied, fishing that thought out of my mind with frightening ease.
That was something I was still getting used to. Any thought I had, as long as I had it loud enough, ran the risk of being broadcast straight to Nicola’s hearing aid. So while she worked, I hung around and tried not to radiate too much negativity.
I couldn’t have done a very good job, because she kept escalating, chucking bigger and bigger rocks at that mountain, looking for the avalanche.
Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she spray-painted across a public bathroom mirror. Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she submitted as a theme idea for this year’s Flower Festival. Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she put in every geocache in a fifty-kilometer radius.
You’d think, with all this going on, I wouldn’t have the time or mental energy left for an existential crisis, least of all on the topic of my sexuality.
You’d be wrong. In the long hours between missions, my mind kept wandering back to the four words Nicola had underarmed at me so casually when she was high.
“As if you weren’t.” Her response when I’d accused her of being sweet on Ginger. But it wasn’t just what she’d said; it was the way she’d said it. So sure. So confident. So unbothered. Which felt like some kind of sick joke, because those words had hit me like a nuclear bomb.
Because yeah.
Yeah.
I had been sweet on Ginger. I hadn’t realized it. Or, more accurately, I hadn’t allowed myself to realize it. Which felt . . . sad.
Nicola obviously wasn’t ashamed of her queerness.
She also hadn’t been ashamed to admit she’d had a crush on Ginger.
She owned those things with an ease, a confidence that made me seem small and silly in comparison.
Her sexuality was just another aspect of herself.
Mine was a top-secret document, all the lines redacted except for an “and” here and a “but” there. A mystery, even to myself.
“As if you weren’t.”
But not, apparently, to Nicola.
Which felt unfair.
I should have been the one to figure that shit out.
Me. Not her. I should’ve been able to decode why my palms felt sweaty and my chest tight when Ginger smiled at me.
I should’ve known why I wanted to buy drinks I’d thought she’d like, sparkly and sugary, even if I thought they were kinda disgusting.
And yeah, OK, I admit it, the 139,720-word Carmilla-Laura fanfic was also a hint that I maybe on purpose wasn’t looking at too closely.
But, in all fairness to myself, the fanfic had a “No Archive Warnings Apply” tag, which meant no kissing, no sex, just . . . vampiric longing. Which, weirdly, felt more natural, more normal than any amount of kissing and sex could ever be.
How could I be sweet on Ginger when the idea of kissing her, of kissing anyone, felt . . . complicated. How could I be a lesbian and also not? How could I like girls but not want to have sex with them?
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.
The worst part was, I’d never know. Not for sure.
Any chance I had of experimenting, of figuring myself out, of being with anyone, boy or girl, was gone.
I didn’t have a body anymore. Not a human one, anyway.
I couldn’t go out into the world, cut my hair short, cover myself in funny little tattoos, and try kissing girls, or boys, or anyone else ever again.
Kyle took that from me.
I might be gay, or ace, or some other label I didn’t even know of. I might be an amalgamation, or I might invent my own category, just for me. But without a body, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t test any hypothesis. I was stuck. Trapped. Reduced.
All because of him.
And instead of doing something about it, instead of hurting him the way he’d hurt me, I was just watching Nicola graffiti another wall.
Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn.
Plan B was a shit plan. It made me feel impotent and small; it made me feel like an add-on in my own revenge. But it was still better than nothing. It was a way to have Nicola on my side, to have a friend, one with hands that worked and lungs that breathed and a mouth that smiled and laughed.
It was a shelter from the storm, small and flimsy, but the only piece of relief I’d gotten since I’d died.
And so I went along with her, night after night. Everywhere we went we left the same five words.
Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, Nicola painted onto alleyways, street signs, and Lawson Quarry’s front window.
Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she put on the noticeboard, between flyers for free puppies.
Kyle Lawson Killed Lucy McQuinn, she spammed into every inbox she could find, into every local Facebook group, into the very atmosphere.
Whether they believed it or not, whether they cared or not, the whole town heard: Kyle Lawson killed Lucy McQuinn.