Page 219 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
A weak one, in case you need to be there to pick up my sister’s broken heart,I mouth.
“It isn’t fucking funny,” she stammers.
I slink away from her and pull out my phone.
Ignoring her for a minute as she takes her first sip and voices her distaste for it, I reply to Dollie.
Lucky:
No wonder you’re aching.
You deserve a night with your Barbie movie and buttered popcorn.
After sending, I drop a message to Annabelle. The bold text sits on a plain black square as it lands on her screen.
“I can explain, but I’m not in the mood right now,” she reads the message that appears on her device. “Well, you’d better.”
Another buzz takes her eyes down to her phone again.
“It wasn’t malicious. You can’t tell her.” Her eyes turn into globes again, all her fury spinning in them. “No, you will tell her, and you can do it tonight! You know…” she trails off, swigs, then starts talking again. “I thought it was so sweet how you were caring for her last night, brushing her hair after she was hurt.”
I can’t explain all that. I continue to communicate through a series of dropped messages.
“Oh, well, isn’t thatunlucky!”
Look, I just wanted her to talk to me. I didn’t know what to do. I was missing her, and then you set up that app.
“How did you even know about the fucking app?”
Can I use your number? These little graphics are starting to piss me off.
“Well, your bullshit is pissing me off. But give me your phone.”
Taking a quick glance at her hand, examining every finger, every crease of her hand, I scan her for germs. I hesitate, my phone locked in my hand between us.
My lips move, stringing together a sentence explaining why I can’t hand it over to her.
I need to know your hands are clean.
“Do you want me to sanitize first?” She doesn’t ridicule me or even so much as sigh as she sets down her half-drunk bottle. The orange liquid is now somewhere behind the label. I keep my eyes there as she pulls a sanitizer from her purse and drops a blob of the gel into her hand.
When she extends her hand again, I give her my phone.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You’re literally texting her right now.” Annabelle flashes me the message on my screen.
Dollancie:
Did you guess I liked the buttered kind because of the color?
My attempt to claim the device back and answer the message fails when Annabelle steps back and pulls it from my reach, inputting her number.
The empty conversation sits on my screen when she hands my phone back. A wave of fear rushes through me, thinking that she’s deleted Dollie from my phone. Then I notice the name up top.
Annabelle.
I click out of this empty conversation and back into the one below it. Dollie’s message has been answered with a simple yes.
Rolling my eyes, I return to Annabelle’s chat draft and send my first message.
