Page 100 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
I feel like shit while I’m there and long after I leave.
I was due to leave when my phone buzzed.
The clover tattoo worked. It got Dollie talking to me.
It’s been close to three hours now, and we’ve talked on and off. During the last hour, it has been harder to keep up with messages between filling drinks and collecting glasses. But every time the busy bar lulls, I pull out my phone again.
And I feel less empty knowing Dollie still likes talking to me. Just as long as she doesn’t know it’s me.
And she can’t know it’s me, her freak brother.
LittleDoll:
You’re not supposed to drink on the job.
I ignore Dollie and the fact that I may be developing a slight drinking problem, and I stick my glass under the shot dispenser, after I check Valaria isn’t around.
Fresh wounds greet my line of vision, and I make it my mission to roll down my sleeves as soon as I’m done. Cutting myself is becoming a daily occurrence.
03Lucky03:
Trust me. If you worked here, you’d understand.
The crowd is again full of jesters and clowns, and it’s not even the staff who are yet to get the memo. It’s customers here to torment me. It happens every so often, but it’s more noticeable when it’s just the customers.
My frustration comes out in a sigh as my attention clings to each shiny mask and glowing white face.
One face looks too familiar.
It takes me back in time to our first months in a monster’s care.
“Please, we’ll be good,” I beg on my knees in the dirty water.
Dollie sits on the dresser, like always. Rocking, like always. Her head hits the wall over and over again, and I hear it between her yelling random words that don’t make sense to me.
Is she doing it on purpose?
Flared nostrils let out only a hint of my anger.
“You don’t know how.” Colin nods in Dollie’s direction. “I’ve tried to be nice, but you both always throw it in my face. What is it that’s wrong with her, anyway? I thought you were the crazy one?”
“Fear,” I mouth, feeling that word as he gets too close to my face with his dirty breath.
It’s probably more than fear. And it isn’t craziness. It just doesn’t make sense to Colin. With me? I get it. Sometimes, things only make sense in your own head.
The world outside isn’t meant to understand.
“I don’t. No, I don’t! I don’t!” Colin proves his evilness as he copies Dollie’s every scream. Each word hurts my ears and blows my sweaty hair from my face.
Stepping around me, he moves to Dollie. Unlike me, she doesn’t go silent when he nears.
Her rocking intensifies, and those screams, too.
“I can get her to be quiet if you leave?” I approach them in the water just as he clamps a dirty glove over her mouth.
She inhales his germs and attempts to claw at his hand, desperate to get him away from her face. He whispers a cruel threat that echoes around the room and in my ears repeatedly.
“If you don’t be quiet, I’ll hurt your brother.”
