23 #2
She zoomed into the bathroom. The slam of the door whip sharp.
Time began to slow down as she showered, the sound of the pipes in the wall, at first the frantic rap of a snare drum, easing into a familiar rattle. I noticed she’d left her phone lying on the quilt. I army crawled over to it and pawed at the screen with my porcelain hand. Nothing.
I tried my sharpened stick arm. Still nothing.
I hadn’t thought of this.
I didn’t know how touch screens worked, but if I had to guess, it probably had something to do with heat, or maybe electricity, or maybe human skin texture.
Three things I didn’t have. I rubbed my stick arm against my duct tape, hoping to generate a little bit of warmth, and touched the screen.
It stayed dark. Desperate, I rubbed harder, hard enough that bits of bark came off, and pushed more firmly, willing the screen to light up .
. . and it did, with a blaze of glitchy, broken pixels.
The image jerked and wobbled with electrical interference for a second before resolving into a home screen covered in app icons.
Nicola didn’t have a pin.
Of course.
She was too trusting.
The pipes were still rattling, Nicola was still in the shower, but she wouldn’t stay there forever, and I needed time to figure this out.
I hugged her phone to my chest and scrambled clumsily to the side of the bed.
I didn’t mean to fall, but I did, sliding gracelessly down the long drape of the quilt to land on the floorboards, hard enough to thump, but not hard enough to rebreak my legs.
For a brief, terrifying second I froze, convinced Nicola had heard and was going to burst back into the room, wrapped in a towel.
She’d discover me with her phone, yell at me, and put me back in the backpack, zipping it shut.
But of course she didn’t. She was still in the shower, which meant her hearing aid was out.
As long as I kept the volume down, I’d be OK.
That was what I hoped, at least.
I planted my legs wide and lurched to my feet, still hugging her phone, as big as my torso.
The stolen hearing aid rattled inside my skull as I waddled forward, desperate for some sanctuary, some space.
There wasn’t much on offer. Nicola’s home wasn’t anything like the one I’d grown up in.
No boxes, no piles of clothes, no easy, obvious hiding places for a doll to wriggle into.
Without options, I headed to the one place I knew Nicola couldn’t get me. The one guaranteed safe space.
Behind the TV.
It was as dusty and dark as I remembered, the wires tangling around my feet and sending me toppling forward. A daddy longlegs fled, scampering silently away on hair-thin legs. I propped the phone up against the wall, sat in front of it, and tried again to swipe at the screen.
Nothing.
I rubbed my stick arm against my duct tape again.
It took several attempts before the screen responded, once again flickering and glitching for a second before displaying a jumble of apps.
I scanned through them, hunting for Instagram.
It took over a minute to find it. Brighter.
Swirlier. Stranger. Not the icon I remembered.
When I opened it, the first post that appeared was Krissy’s.
Of course. Nicola didn’t have Instagram anymore. This was my account, and I didn’t have many friends.
Krissy was at the Flower Festival, pouting, sunglasses frames in the shape of blooming flowers.
Her hair was longer, blonder, her eyes crinkled around the corners, and her makeup tones had changed, but none of that mattered.
She was still Krissy. And she wasn’t alone.
In the background stood a man, face turned away from the camera, coppery hair cut short, hands in his pockets.
There weren’t any scratches on his forearms. Not even a little one. He’d gotten away with it and I hadn’t even left a scar. Why couldn’t I have at least done that? Why couldn’t I stop him? Why—no. It didn’t matter.
I swiped over to Krissy’s profile. It felt like stepping onto an alien planet. Inspirational quotes, latte art, and a dizzying amount of likes. A reel of her doing her makeup in front of a ring light started to play.
I unmuted it.
“. . . the case I’ve found for you today is wild. So strap in, true-crime girlies, because this is one you don’t want to miss.”
I muted it again, feeling sick.
There were hundreds of comments, even more likes, and an affiliate link to a “12 day detritus destroyer detox drink” in the description.
None of it matched with the version of Krissy I had in my head.
Back in school, Krissy and I had been the losers, the freaks, the weird kids who were too loud, or too quiet, never the right volume to fit in.
After we’d graduated, she’d started studying to be a teacher, another remote-learning course, though one I hadn’t gotten the grades to get into. She promised to drop out every week but never did. Except this wasn’t the profile of a teacher.
Kristina Maybelle Lawson was her screen name.
True crime and beauty blogger was written in her bio.
There was also an Australian flag emoji, which was weird.
She’d always said patriotism was cringey AF.
For weirdos who didn’t have anything better to fangirl over.
Back in high school, it wouldn’t matter how many “aussie aussie aussies” you’d toss her way; she’d never utter even a single “oi.”
Nicola’s words crept back into my mind.
“Things have changed. People have changed. Everything has changed.”
Except I couldn’t believe Krissy had changed that much. Not really. We’d been best friends since we were six. She ate pineapple on pizza because fuck what anyone else thought. She could do the eeriest, funniest Skyrim NPC impression I’d ever seen. If I could just talk to her, she’d understand.
I opened my messages.
Krissy’s name was just below Kyle’s. A small unread-messages icon floated beside her profile picture.
I tapped it and started scrolling. There were hundreds of messages, maybe thousands, some only a few words long, others unbroken paragraphs that filled the whole screen, stretching out like a carpet.
Finally, I found a colored bubble, sitting on top of it all, like a cherry on top of a cake. The last message I’d sent her.
I’m sorry, I can’t right now. Catch up tomorrow?
She hadn’t responded.
A few days later, her messages began.
On Monday:
Hey. Wanna catch up?
On Tuesday:
I’m bored. Come over.
On Wednesday:
Why aren’t you answering your texts? Are you mad at me? Did something go down at Ginger’s party? You can totally spill with me, you know that, right?
On Thursday:
OK, I’m fully freaked out now. Answer your phone.
On Friday:
The police came by this afternoon. They said you’re missing. They think I know something, which is crazy. They asked me for DNA. Seriously, Lucy, you need to come home.
On Saturday:
Please come home. I’m sorry if I was a bitch. I was just funked out that you got invited to Ginger’s and I didn’t, and that you didn’t tell me. It’s shit. This whole situation is shit. I overheard someone today say you’d been kidnapped. It’s fucked. Please just come home.
The messages kept going like that for weeks.
They talked about you on the radio today.
I don’t even listen to the radio, but I listened to it.
Honestly, it was spooky. They said stuff like “life of the party” and “she lit up the room.” Dead girl stuff.
It scared the shit out of me. It also made me mad because you’re not dead. I know you’re not.
I’ve got your 21st birthday present in my room. It’s wrapped and everything. When you come home, it’s yours.
They’re offering a reward for you now. Did you know that? You’re in the paper, and not just the local paper either. Your photo is on the news in Sydney.
If this is some weird, fucked up joke I’m literally going to kill you, just FYI.
Then months.
Less people came to your vigil thing this month. Dad said I shouldn’t get so upset about it, but it’s not fair. We still don’t know anything. The police are doing nothing. They accused your nan which is such bullshit.
People are posting RIP on your photos. I’m so fucking angry. I wish I could log onto your account and delete all those comments. It’s fucked up. Like, if you’ve been kidnapped and you see those, that’d be the worst.
I’m really sorry, Lucy. I’m sorry we didn’t hang out that weekend. I’m sorry everything went to shit. I hope you’re OK. Seriously, I know I wasn’t always the best friend or whatever, but I hope you’re OK.
Then years.
I bought you a 22nd birthday present.
I’m dropping out of university. I don’t know why I thought I wanted to be a teacher.
I hate school. I’ve always hated school.
I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’ll figure it out.
If you were here, I know you’d just tell me to stop crying and get on with it.
You were always a bitch like that. I miss you.
I wish you were here.
Fuck, if you’re not dead . . .
I bought you a 23rd birthday present.
I made a video about you. Is that weird? Yeah. It’s totally weird. It did really well on YouTube. Because, you know, unsolved case and all that. I just wanted to vent, because the police have done nothing for years. I didn’t think I’d get paid for it.