Dollhouse

by K. Weikel

  “Or what, dad? You’ll go sleep with the girl you’re cheating on mom with? And then mom will get drunk and throw me around, giving me fresh bruises and telling me not to tell anyone? And then Tobiah will go get high off of weed and drugged on meth? And what will I do? Starve myself to death to make you see what you’re doing to me—to US? Do I go and kill myself, dad? Huh?”

  The table is silent and Tobiah stares at me, half present and half angry. He stands up in a huff and leaves the room, muttering and I hear the front door slam shut. My parents stare at me.

  “I’ve had to deal with your stupid mistakes my entire life, but these past months have been worse than ever. Mom, you’ve always had an alcohol problem, but it hasn’t been as bad as when dad started cheating on you. And dad! Mom was right by calling you a hypocrite. We’re all hypocrites, dad, but you’re the worst of them. Show up at church like you do NOTHING WRONG, and then tell all of us you’re going to work so you can do your coworker? Really? I’ve seen her. I’ve seen the pictures on your computer. And both of you, for the sake of me and the sake of Tobiah, MAKE IT FREAKING WORK BETWEEN YOU! I don’t know why you do what you do, and I don’t know why Tobiah does what he does, but I bet it has something to do with you. Pay attention every once in a while!”

  I storm out of the dining room and grab my keys off of the entryway table, my wallet still in my back pocket. My parents don’t follow me, and I hear my mother crying where I’d left her.

  The car comes to life immediately and I back out of the driveway.

  I drive and drive until I reach John’s house.

  Tears soak my face by the time I reach his door and I knock on it and ring the doorbell until he answers the door.

  “Amabel?”

  I fall into his arms, sobbing. He shushes me and asks me what’s wrong.

  Everything comes out in one blob of a run-on sentence and I have to suck the snot back in a few times. He tells me to hold on and he disappears back inside for a brief moment.

  When he returns, I’m trying to control my breathing and stop crying. He wraps me in a hug, his jacket smelling like his cologne.

  “Here,” he says, handing me a pink bunny stuffed animal. “I got it for you. I wasn’t going to give it to you just yet, but you really need it.”

  I hug him again, a few more tears falling down my cheeks.

  “Do you want to go for a drive?” He asks, pulling me back a little bit.

  I smile a little.

  “But I just drove here.”

  “I know it makes you feel better. And we’ll listen to your favorite song over and over if we have to.”

  I smile and pull him closer. He kisses my head and I sniffle.

  “Okay.”

   

  My favorite song is actually pretty strange. It’s not really popular or even in my favorite genre. It actually has a bit of screaming in it, and I don’t listen to that.

  It’s Car Radio by twenty-one pilots.

  It’s stuck on replay as the road reaches far and wide in front of us. John doesn’t talk much, and he doesn’t make me talk except for when he asks if I want to hear the song again.

  “…Sometimes quiet is violent…”

  I say the words along with the track, bobbing my head in the sections where there is only music.

  “…Cuz somebody stole my car radio and now I just sit in silence…”

  It plays a few more times and I wrap myself up in John’s jacket, letting the song and the smell distract me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” He says quietly during the end of the song. “I didn’t know any of this was happening.”

  I take a moment to find words to say.

  “I didn’t want to drive you away and lose you.”

  I hear him chuckle.

  “You would have never lost me.”

  I look over to him and smile. We pull up to a red light and he leans over and kisses me.

  The light turns green.

  “…Cuz somebody stole my car radio—”

  A truck slams into us.

  “—and now I just sit in silence…”

  9. John

  I wake up to a low beeping sound. White surrounds me—white walls, white ceiling... And the sunlight streams through the window on my right.

  I can’t move.

  I can’t feel anything.

  The door opens as my brain tells me I’m in a hospital. A man in a white coat walks in, reading from his clipboard. My family follows behind him as I recognize the doctor is my father.

  My mom rushes in, teary-eyed and snot-nosed and grabs my hand.

  “Amabel!” She sobs and kisses me on the forehead. The smell of alcohol isn’t very traceable on her.

  “Mom...” I croak.

  My throat feels like it’s lined with thorns and my head feels like it’s being split in two.

  I see my brother look at me with clear troubled eyes as he sits in a chair at the end of the bed. He seems fidgety and nervous.

  My father stares down at his clipboard, reading something aloud. I don’t know if I choose to not hear him or I just can’t hear him, because nothing reaches my ears.

  “What happened?” I ask as the memories come back.

  “Someone ran a red light and completely caved in the driver’s side of John’s car.” My dad says, the words coming out with little emotion. “You were lucky, Amabel.”

  “Where’s John?” I ask, my heart rate speeding up as the beeps mimic it.

  My mom looks at me with sad eyes and I look back and forth between them.

  “Where is he?” My voice cracks.

  “He died on impact, Amabel.”

  I don’t know who it was that told me this news. I don’t care.

  He’s gone. My one happiness, my one distraction, gone.

  Warm tears start to create rivers on my cheeks as I shake my head, not wanting to believe it. He can’t be dead. He can’t be dead while I’m still alive this can’t be happening—

  “No!” I practically scream. I rip my hand away from my mom and she bites her lip as a tear or two fall from her eyes. “No!”

  “Amabel—”

  “No! No he can’t be—”

  “Amabel Ray Doll,” my dad says in a low voice. “Calm down. People are sleeping.”

  “I don’t care! I don’t care dad, do you care?! Do you see what’s happening to me, to John?! John...” I sob, placing my head in my hands. My stomach twists and wrenches inside of me as I try to catch my breath. My body hurts, my lungs hurt, my head hurts.

  He was everything... without him I would have gone insane long ago. Without him...

  He’s gone...

  “I’m sorry, honey,” my mom tries to calm me down.

  I shiver her away and try to get out of the hospital bed, the drip attached to my arm yanking at my skin. I pull it out as my mom tries to make me stay in the bed.

  I stand up and scream as my left hip cries out in agony. I fall back into the bed and hit it.

  I lay sobbing.

  “Go away,” I grumble through my breathing fits.

  “Amabel—”

  “Go away!” I scream and throw a pillow at them. “Leave me alone.”

  “Amabel,” my dad says in a low tone. “I know this is hard for you—”

  “Go! Away!”

  I bury my throbbing head into the mattress, the cold fitted sheet putting pressure on the wounds that are apparently on my head and my nose that is now bleeding.

  I hear their footsteps leave the room and I turn myself over, my body’s senses finally awakening with pain.

  I stare at the ceiling as I try to control my breathing.

  “I’m sorry,” I hear a voice.

  Tobiah.

  He’s still in here.

  I groan in response and cover my eyes with my hands. I can feel the scratches and cuts on them as they touch my skin.

  “For everything.”

  I lay still, not saying a word. Tears still flow from my eyes and
sniffles echo between the walls of the room.

  I hear Tobiah sigh and stand up. His footsteps get further away and a door opens.

  “I promise I’ll help make it better.”

  The door shuts and I’m left to mourn.

  10. Doll Face

  I miss the entire week of school.

  The week after that is a mess. Everything is planned and I can go to almost nothing, and everyone keeps rubbing the memory and the truth of John being gone in my face, making me bleed in every way but physically. I put on my doll face and pretend I’m okay, pretend his death doesn’t weigh on me as hard as it should, pretend everything has changed at home. But really the only change has been my mothers’ overprotection. She still drinks and tries to hide it, but I can smell it on her as soon as she walks in the room, almost.

  My dad is always gone still, though I can’t tell if he’s home any more than he used to be.

  I can’t smell anything when both my parents leave for the next series of days and it’s just Tobiah and I at home, but I never hear him leave. I wonder if he’s doing crack at those times or not, or if he’s just sleeping...

  Depression hits me hard. I’m not afraid to admit it and there’s not anything else to call it. I mean, what do you call that emptiness in your body, in your heart that completely devourers who you are and all you stand for. What else is it that makes you wish you didn’t exist?

  If depression isn’t the word then I don’t know what is.

  Do I wish I was dead? No. I know God put me here for a reason.

  But I do wish I were never born...

  Dahlia says nothing to me until she blocks me off from leaving the classroom. I abruptly stop using my crutches, leaning on the top padded part of them.

  “How are you?” She asks.

  “I’m fine.” I say a little more sassily than I mean to. “I’m going to be late for class.”

  She sighs and moves out of the way to let me through.

  And she also makes the decision to follow me down the hall.

  “How are you really?” She asks.

  “I told you.” My irritation is growing as she walks beside me. “I’m fine.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “Look Dahlia!” I explode. The hallway falls silent. “I’m fine. I don’t need any pity or something to make me feel better, I just want to be left alone!”

  “Listen here, Barbie,” She hisses. “You can’t keep pretending like everything in your little life is perfect! You can’t hide forever, Amabel!”

  “Yeah? Well you would have no idea what I go through each day. Your little family of adopted kids is happy and you have nothing to hide.”

  I start to walk away, as much as I can walk on crutches.

  “Everyone has something to hide, Barbie. Especially you.”

  I shake my head as I get farther away from her.

  “At least I don’t have to hide my flaws!” She calls as I turn into a classroom.

  ~

  People can’t stop glancing at me as I walk by them. I can hear their voices as they turn into whispers when I pass by them.

  Tyrice, Dahlia’s brother blocks off my path as I make my way to my history class.

  “No one talks to my sister like that,” he says, his face hard and his eyes locked on me as if I were a lions’ prey.

  “Look, I’ve been through a lot—”

  “Does it look like I care, Barbie?” So he calls me that too. “It’s not my fault that your brothers a crack head and—”

  “Hey!” I shout, but he keeps on talking.

  “—that your mom is an alcoholic—”

  “Stop it!”

  “—and that your dad is a dirty, rotten cheater.”

  I stare at him, not knowing whether I want to cry or scream at him. I can feel the warm tears in my eyes and my throat start to hurt as I try to breathe through my runny nose.

  “That was low,” I whisper.

  The hallway had fallen silent again. Everyone stares at me. They pity me. They hate me.

  The only sound I can hear is the clicking of my crutches and the sound of my heart pounding inside of me. Everyone knows. Everyone knows...

  Everyone knows...

  My doll face is broken and everyone can see through it now.

  ~

  The bowling alley isn’t far from the school; I realize this as I Google it on my phone. I end up crutching my way there, growing painfully tired and I disappear into the building. I sit and watch the people at the alleys make strikes and gutter balls and it makes me feel okay for a moment in time.

  I ignore my brother’s calls. I don’t think I can handle anyone talking to me right now.

  It’s probably not a good decision to do that to him because he’s my ride home, but I don’t want to go home. Suddenly I feel this hatred and this despise for my family. Why do they have to do what they’re doing? Why can’t they be normal? Why can’t they see what they’re doing to themselves? To me?

  I don’t know how long o stay in the bowling alley, but soon they start to close and I make my way to the front of the building. My phone rings again and I press the reject button, even though it’s my mom that’s trying to reach me. The little percentage in the top right hand corner says my phone is about to die. Maybe I should head home now... Maybe I should call my brother.

  I unlock my phone and pull up my call app, when I hear something behind me.

  I turn, expecting it to be someone from the bowling alley coming back because they forgot something.

  Instead, there is a man, clothed in rags and his beard is greying. He wears an orange baseball cap that is old and torn in different places and he holds a beer in his left hand, some of the liquid falling from his mouth.

  My heart pounds in my chest and I realize I can’t run.

  I pretend not to notice him and I tap on my brother’s name. It starts calling him.

  He answers immediately.

  “Amabel—where are you? I looked everywhere—”

  “I’m at the bowling alley. Please come get me.”

  “Yeah—yeah I’ll be there in a minute. I’m close by. Give me five.”

  “Hurry,” I say quietly as the footsteps behind me get closer.

  “Okay, I—”

  The phone dies.

  “What’s your name?”

  The voice of the man sends chills up my spine and I feel like I can’t breathe. I can’t run from him. I can’t run.

  I don’t look at him. I don’t speak to him.

  “Hey I asked you a question,” he slurs, and I can smell the alcohol now. He’s even closer than before. “Hey!”

  He grabs my shoulder and flings me around, making me fall to the ground. I cry out in pain as I land on one of my badly injured wrists and I try to stand up.

  “What are you doing here, little lady?” The man smiles. He’s missing his two front teeth and his gums are dark.

  “Waiting for my brother,” I squeak, having trouble standing.

  I finally get on my feet and he grabs my arm.

  “Come here.”

  I pull and twist, hitting him and trying to get away. I cry out for help.

  But no one is here.

  “Stop,” he growls. “Stop struggling.”

  “Help!” I scream as he touches my face.

  I hit him straight in the nose with my good hand and hobble off, my leg hurting with each step.

  There’s a sharp blow to the back of my head and I hit the ground. The world spins around me and I feel hands on me. They flip me over and he man sits on me. I feel something sharp and cool up against my throat and a new wave of panic washes over me.

  I feel hot tears start to stream down my face. I start to pray to God. I don’t know if it’s out loud or if it’s in my head, but I try to let him hear me, to let him let me live.

  “I said stop struggling,” the man hisses, pressing the blade harder against my throat. I start to feel my breathing get shallow and my vision go blurry.

&n
bsp; I hear a car pull up.

  “To...” I gasp.

  A car door slams.

  “TOBIAH!” I shriek.

  The man is thrown off me and my brother looks down at me. The man stands back up drunkenly and Tobiah approaches him.

  “Leave.” He says, and turns back to me.

  He offers me a hand and helps me stand on my leg.

  “Are you okay?” He asks. His eyes are perfectly clear. He’s okay.

  He jerks forward and cries out loud.

  The man pulls the knife from Tobiah’s back. I catch him as he falls forward into me. Everything goes numb. Everything goes silent. Even my screams. Even my sobs. Even the drunk man’s footsteps. Even the mumbles he grunts as he walks away.

  I dig in his pockets for his phone and dial 911.

  They answer. Tobiah is barely breathing. He looks at me with tired, pained eyes, and I see the brother I once knew. Before my parents became dishonest. Before the drugs.

  “I’m… sorry, Amabel,” He whispers, the blood seeping onto the pavement.

  I shake my head as the person on the other line starts to talk to me and ask me questions.

  My brother dies in my arms.

  I can’t finish telling the woman what happened. Tears take me over and rivers flow from me. He lays so still…

  I stare at him as the tears fall, hoping this was a joke. Looking for the slightest hint of a smile. Of a breath. Of life.

  The ambulance shows up. They bring me with him. Someone asks me questions. I don’t know who. My body has gone numb. My insides hurt like they are being crushed. My parents are distraught, even my dad. But I don’t notice any of it.

  John’s gone. My brother’s gone.

  And it’s all because of me.

  11. Why

  My face is a mess as I crutch myself out of the hospital. Makeup runs down it like ravines and, suddenly, I wish I was in one. I wish that it would have been me that died instead of them. Me instead of them. Why am I still alive? Why didn’t God just let me die?!

  I make across the street, going as fast as I can on crutches, sobs shaking my body. I keep going. I don’t know how far or how long I go for. I just do.

  It’s not even a gloomy morning. The sun is shining down like nothing bad ever happens. It shines down like it has its own case of doll-syndrome. It’s the one with a doll face. Why can’t Dahlia just call the sun plastic instead of me?

  I shake my head. I’m being irrational.

  But I need to be.