Page 258 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
I search for something to distract me from my rising temperature, other than the crack on my phone screen that’s tormenting me to no end. I dropped it yesterday, dizzy at work. Then again, when I came home and took Bubbles out. She lies on the floor next to me, chewing on one of the socks I’ve kicked off.
If that weird dog tries to kiss me later, I think that’ll be the thing to kill me off.
She perks up each time Dollie calls into this room and asks if I’m ready for something to eat. I’d told her an hour ago I wasn’t feeling like food and said no more.
Every time she looks my way, my mind wanders to a dangerous place where I picture the look she’d have had on her face yesterday, moaning behind that closed door.
It drifted into my head all last night with each text she sent to Lucky, telling him—me—all the shitty things Shane has done lately. He never asked about our parents or how Dollie was feeling. I knew that. He wanted her to keep her distance from me. I knew that, too. He blew her off because she was ill, and he cared more about catching it than he did about her well-being.
I never told her this, but shitty people do shitty things.
A sigh hurts me as I click the first video I find on an app loaded with millions of them. It’s an attempt to distract me from hating on Shane because I don’t have the level of energy it requires.
A trailer for a new and interesting horror movie starts with the final girl screaming too loudly.
Feet scurry through the house as I drop my phone, and it hits me in the dick.
Karma for getting aroused by Dollie, probably delivered by my father, if he does, in fact, haunt this house like she thinks.
She skids into the living room, a hot mess of bed hair and heavy breathing. A magic eight ball is clutched tightly in her hands, and her trembling body is covered by a giant hoodie—mine. It looks so good on her that I can’t help smiling. Can’t stop fucking looking at her almost endless legs.
And then I see her feet, and she has the most ridiculous slippers on. I can only assume they belong to Shane, and that steals my smile.
My eyes hurt from rolling so far.
“God, I thought that was you screaming. I thought you were having another nightmare. You scared me.”
I say nothing.
“You can communicate, you know.”
I swallow down my nerves because despite ignoring the situation, it’s still here, and beneath it, so is the pain from her snapping at me yesterday.
Her phone buzzes in her pocket. I opted for email over hand or mouth movements, because at least that way, I could avoid looking at her. She reads my message back aloud.
“Those slippers are repulsive.” She giggles. “They’re…not mine.”
I didn’t think they would be, with the big furry toes and dirty-looking nails.
AmbroseLa’[email protected]:
I’ll get you a better-looking pair when I get paid. Assuming I don’t go over my sick days and lose my job.
I gotta be getting close to Valaria’s last nerve by now.
I cough, trying my hardest to keep the germs from Dollie and her weakened immune system, even though she already shares what I have.
That said, she’s up on her feet and I’m not.
“I’m sure you can work some of that Irish charm on your boss.”
Is that a hint of jealousy I hear? What even makes her think my boss is a woman?
“Anyway, how are you feeling?”
I respond with a series of emails whenever she talks to me.
AmbroseLa’[email protected]:
