Page 210 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
Reaching her, she’s frozen, eyes not on the words but on the blood that she just questioned me about.
Whipping around, her hair encapsulates her like a safety blanket. “Last night, I was focused on you. I had to pass, even though it hurt. I can’t today. I really don’t think I can.”
The bloody mess ahead brings a haunting image of Mom into my mind. I kneel before her, her bloody fingers on my face. Her eyes apologizing for the smears she left on my face. Dad is at my side, lying on the floor. Big hands hold together his gaping stomach as I drop the blade.
Blinking back to reality, a tear falls, landing on Dollie’s cheeks to join her own.
“Where’d you go?” Dollie’s voice is soft and caring, just like it was last night. Her eyebrows slightly dipped in the center, showing the same concern.
Back in time. To a night I wish never happened.
Shaking away those thoughts, feelings of hurt and guilt, and the memories I struggle to outrun, I offer Dollie my hand.
There’s only a minor reluctance before she takes it, and we both step onto the carpet. Her sweaty palm sticks to mine.
She grips me tighter, and I barely breathe as we approach the blood. Both of us edge in toward the banister that looks down on the first floor, avoiding it. Dollie’s movements are a little more rigid than my own.
This is a small but hard journey for us both. Dollie avoids upstairs, and I haven’t walked this way in daylight since returning home. I haven’t had to look bad memories right in the face.
Sweat binds us together, but it doesn’t bother me because it’s her.
Another step challenges us both, and I’m close to offering her an alternate route. The one I use daily to avoid this walk through time, but Bubbles spots us. She starts pouncing on the bottom step and screaming like a maniac, and that keeps us moving.
The key turns as we near the first of the gargoyles, and my back straightens because why did Dollie never think to take this guy’s key.
Shane’s squeaky shoes move through the foyer, his eyes on Bubbles before us, standing at the top of the stairs.
Squinting, he sees my towel-dried hair and the glossy look in both of our eyes and mistakes it for something else.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Nothing.” Dollie shrugs, the movement lifting my hand that’s still joined with hers.
It’s clear Shane spots it from the disgust that hikes up his lip.
Noticing, Dollie breaks away from me and puts a foot of space between us, then another. She continues edging away from this staircase and the bloodstains surrounding it until she makes it to the next one.
I feel the distance instantly, and I follow her steps.
“Where did you go last night?” she asks Shane, pausing on the top step. Her fingers clutch the gargoyle and tremble slightly.
“Nowhere. I was in the right place. You were the one somewhere else,” he replies with an attitude.
“I texted you to meet me, but you didn’t come.”
“I know. I was fucked by then. I couldn’t see straight.” His gaze turns nervous as it lands on me, and I refuse to pull my eyes away until he does. His attitude changes quickly, lifting with a false smile as he speaks to Dollie again. “Hey… you’re up there. How brave of you.”
“Where were you, Shane?”
“With my parents. That’s why I was so drunk. You know they aren’t easy to be around. You didn’t miss much, I don’t think.”
“If you didn’t want me there, you shouldn’t have asked me to go. Why didn’t you send someone else for me? What was the reason?”
“It wasn’t like that. I get that you don’t trust me, but you up there with him doesn’t look good, either.”
He has the cheek of the fucking devil.
A whole minute ago, he was praising her bravery. Now, he’s twisting the blame because she has questions he doesn’t want to answer.
