Page 38 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
Her voice continues in my head, rambling on about how this house—her pride and joy—has all but fallen to ruin. She’d hate it and hate the scribbles that said I was too close to one family member, too.
My sweet Dollie.
Those people weren’t wrong in thinking I was a little too close to her.
They just couldn’t fucking know exactly what feelings we shared. She didn’t even know.
So how could they know what we’d been to each other.
A lifeline.
Maybe that’s why, without her, I want to fucking die.
The low hum of her voice pulls me from my thoughts.
I take the first step into the reading room and head to the kitchen, pulled along by her odd tune.
Dust and wood shavings line the soles of my boots as one foot continues in front of the other. I fucking hate mess, but yesterday afternoon, after returning home from Mrs. Bannadosi’s house and replacing the window—the pane and glass—I’d been too tired to spend the next god knows how many hours trying to get the house to my level of clean. So, I’d left it to fester on the floor and in my mind. It’s been fucking torture.
More and more assumptions on the wall greet me as I get deeper into the room.
Ambrose La’Darragh fucked his sister and killed his parents because they caught him pinning her down and didn’t approve.
Local scum murdered his parents because they wouldn’t let him rape his sister.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen these lies. No new ones have been written for a good twelve hours, but fuck, the words still sting almost as much as the truth. I guess the bastards went in for the kill this time.
But it never happened like that. I never ended my parents’ lives because they caught me defiling my little sister. I never touched Dollie like that.
Dollie, who is here in this house, only two rooms away from me.
I drift into the dining room—a space I hate because it screams of family time.
Quiet steps take me through the room, my boots avoiding the creakier boards as I continue toward her voice.
Each step makes my heart ache more, and my nervous fingers rub it away.
Am I happy she’s home? Should I be?
A wall separates me from the girl who ignored all my letters. Who saw that I needed someone more than ever and turned her back.
The pain she caused haunts me… until I see her, and everything, the past, the anger, the hurt, it all melts into a blur around her.
Messy hair and a pink apron, with frosting on her nose, bring a smile to my lips. She looks the same, but older, curvier, beautiful, and kinda like Mom.
And she’s home.
I knew it last night. The strong scent of chocolate and roses that is perfectly Dollie was the dead giveaway.
I’d wanted nothing more than to stalk through this house and find her. To tell her I was here, too. To demand to know how the fuck she could just cut ties like I meant nothing to her when she was still my everything.
I’d found her at the door, take-out food overpowering her sweeter scent.
But I’d chickened the fuck out.
Memories attacked me, those letters and inked struggles that never got a reply.
She’d given up on me years ago, and there I was, lurking in the shadows with a still-bleeding arm, desperate to see her.
