16 #2
As if you weren’t. As if you weren’t. As if you weren’t. As if you weren’t.
Relentless. Like a scratched CD.
As if you weren’t.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, the cold damp of the pavement sinking into my porcelain.
If I had to guess, I’d say not long. Probably less than a minute, not that it felt like it.
A car passed so slowly that the rumble of it felt like it went on for hours, reverberating through the ground and vibrating deep in my stuffing.
Only after it was gone, when the street was empty, did the front door open and Nicola’s bare feet pad down the path.
She knelt down, joint still between her lips, and gently propped me up against the brick trunk of the letter box. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that, right?”
Ditto.
“Patrick Swayze,” she muttered. “Ghost. 1990. If you’re going to be dead, you gotta stop being so derivative.”
Fuck you.
“That’s it. That’s your line. Might not be especially unique, but I believe you when you say it, and you say it a lot.”
No. Seriously. Fuck you. I don’t understand why you won’t help.
“Think about it for a sec,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll come to you. Then, when you’re ready, we can go back inside and I’ll fire up the glue gun again. How does that sound?”
You’re scared.
“Yes,” she agreed.
You think you’ll go to prison if you help me kill Kyle.
“That’s two down. If you get three, you get a bingo.”
You’re . . . you’re angry at Ginger? I guessed.
Nicola didn’t answer at first. “Huh.”
What?
“I am,” she said. “Which . . . huh. I never realized it. But yes, I guess I’m angry at her too. I’ve been angry for a very long time.”
Why? Because she wasn’t sweet on you?
“No, you shit. Because she didn’t believe me. No one did, but . . . well . . . she married him, didn’t she.”
That was when everything slid into place, like a video of a shattering teacup played in reverse, all the pieces spinning and snapping together. It was all so obvious I didn’t know how I hadn’t been able to see it before.
Kyle hurt you too, didn’t he?
“Bingo,” she sang out, voice hoarse, smile toothy and fake. “That’s one point for the cursed haunted doll.”
Kyle had hurt her too. That was why she’d reacted so strangely when I first said his name. That was why, when she thought I was a hallucination, she told herself to stop thinking of him. That was why she was so convinced I was a product of her brain, her trauma.
Nic, I thought, softer. Why didn’t you tell me?
“Because what he did to me was nothing compared to what he did to you.”
Shut up.
Nicola’s smile stretched. “Yeah. That’s what everyone says. Not in so few words.”
That’s not . . . I mean . . .
“This is fun,” she said. “A little bit of role reversal. I get to be the traumatized one while you try to figure out what’s going on.”
What did he—
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
OK . . . That’s OK . . .
“I talked about it after it happened,” she said, voice disconcertingly cheery.
“I talked a lot, to whoever would listen. And it didn’t matter.
No one believed me.” She settled back on her haunches and blew out another mouthful of smoke.
“And then I thought about killing him. I thought long and hard about it. I still think about it. But here’s the thing: I can’t.
Even if I was some kind of awesome assassin—which, let’s be real, I had to get a wrench to open a jar of pickled onions the other day, I wouldn’t be able to do it. The truth is, I’m not like you, Lu.”
Not a haunted toy?
She smirked. “Not yet. But that’s not what I meant.
What I meant was, my anger isn’t pure, or clean.
I don’t want him to die. No, that’d be too easy.
He’d become another big tragedy, like you were.
A young person gone too soon. I don’t want to see people cry over him, I want them to see him for what he is, I want them to know. ”
Ginger, I muttered.
She laughed a dry sort of laugh that sounded like it hurt. “She doesn’t want to know. She’s happy. Everyone’s happy. Everyone is living their perfect little lives in this perfect little town. I . . . I can’t . . .”
Ever thought about leaving? I asked. Starting over?
“In New Zealand like your grandma? I don’t know. This is where I’ve been my whole life.”
Is that reason to stay?
She laughed again, more maniacally this time, a harsh, barking sort of laugh that bounced off the nearby buildings.
A middle-aged couple walking a dog down the street slowed as they passed, faces creased with concern.
“What the fuck are you looking at?!” she shouted at them.
They hurried on.
“Sheesh. What’s the world coming to? A girl can’t even get high and have a menty bendy with a haunted doll on her own damn property.”
So what do we do? I asked, staring at her. If we can’t kill him, how do we make this right?
“I wanted to find evidence, lock him up.”
I can’t do that, I said quietly. I don’t have any evidence. I don’t have anything.
“Well . . . I guess that leaves one option.”
What?
Her eyes flicked back to me. She sucked one last drag from the joint and then dropped the smoldering stub to the ground. It guttered and died in the wind. “I have an idea,” she rasped, smoke spilling from her mouth with every word.
Better than just killing the fucker?
“OK. I know your heart is set on killing him.”
I don’t have a heart.
“Your weird doll insides are set on killing him,” Nicola amended. “But when Plan A doesn’t work out, you can’t stop. You’ve got to pivot to Plan B.”
And you have a Plan B?
She looked at me, eyes bloodshot, shivering. “I have a Plan B.”