by K. Weikel
“Amabel Ray—”
“No, I’m not done,” I say, jabbing my finger in my dad’s face as he stands up. My mom brings her knees up to her chest on the couch, something I got from her. Suddenly, I’m disgusted by the action and the fire is fed and grows bigger inside of me. “I’ve been half-starving myself for I-don’t-know-how-long now, just so I can keep up the image you want me to. I’ve been in dozens of clubs at school and applied to handfuls upon handfuls of colleges just to make you happy. I don’t even know what I want to do, but dad wants me to be a doctor, so that’s what I was going to do. I’ve thought of killing myself, I’ve had depression for the longest time, and I can’t get out of it. John died, and if that wasn’t hard enough, I was in a wreck, and then was almost murdered by a drunk man at a bowling alley, and I wish it was me instead of Tobiah, but if that happened, then who would be telling you all this now?
“What would it take to make you change your ways? Revelations two twenty-one talks about the time given for someone to change, but they don’t want to change. They’re stuck in their sinful ways, and they refuse to get out. They’re stuck in the ways of the world and they don’t want to get out. So what would it take to get you two out?”
My parents just look at me. I can’t tell what’s going on in their mind, but I know they don’t know what to say. Here I am, their daughter, shouting and yelling at them about their faults and their wrongdoings, and then there’s them, who try to stray from rudeness and from prying. I am going against all they have brought me up to be.
“Amabel,” my dad says quietly and reaches forward to touch my shoulders. I back away, not wanting either of them to touch me, either of them to say anything to me but I’m sorry and we’ve changed our minds. “Amabel, nothing you say will change our decisions.”
My heart shatters and twists into a black hole.
“I’m done.” I say. “That’s it.”
I turn away and ignore them as they call my name and try to follow me. I’m faster.
I go all the way up to the attic, my leg sending pain through my body. I still need my crutches, but I need to walk. I need to get away. Away from them, from all of this… all of it.
I stuff my bag full of random things in my room, although I don’t expect to stay out overnight. I just need the effect. I need them to see what they’re doing. I need to make a statement and make something stick out to them.
I hobble downstairs, my parents waiting on the bottom.
“Where are you going?” My dad asks, looking infuriated.
I push past them, feeling him grab my arm and yank it back towards him. I nearly trip over my crutches.
I glare at him for a moment.
“Let go.”
“No. Amabel, you’re going to sit down with us and talk about this in a civilized way.”
“No I’m not,” I say. “I’m done. That’s it.”
I rip my arm away and open the door, my dad following me. I step out into the night and crutch down to the sidewalk. My dad’s footsteps sound from behind me, but I’ve gotten better at working with the crutches. I’m fast.
He falls behind as I turn a corner and another. I don’t know where I am anymore after a few more turns. I don’t recognize it through my tears. But there are so many headlights, so many street lights, so many voices… Too many.
14. Headlights
Buildings seem to pass by quickly as I keep crutching on. My leg is crying out in pain, but so is my heart, and it wins over my leg.
Streetlights shine down as I go under them, people seem to be talking on their phones a lot, cars zoom by, needing to get somewhere. Six o’clock traffic. Isn’t it great? It drowns out the thoughts of everything and everyone everywhere and each little thing that needs to be fixed in my life, each little thing that needs to be erased from my memory.
People look at me strangely and a few ask if I need help, but I just shake my head and keep going forward, not knowing where it is I’m actually headed.
My phone rings constantly.
They’re trying to call me.
So they couldn’t follow me and stop me from heading out into the city, but they have the audacity and the energy to call me? They couldn’t get into their expensive little cars and come find me, but they could call me to ask me where I am? Are you serious?
Great parenting, mom and dad.
I sit down on a bench.
I’m exhausted.
“That’s my seat—hey, it’s you!”
The drunken slur startles me. I look up to see the low-life that stabbed my brother.
Rage takes over my bloodstream and I stand up, my leg screaming out. He looks worse than that night, but my brother can’t even see that now. It’s this man’s fault. It’s his fault I’m grieving, his fault my brother is dead. Gone.
I swing my fist around and connect it with the man’s nose.
“You killed my brother!”
A few people stop to watch and move on.
“I—”
“This is all your fault!” I push the alcohol-smelling man roughly and take a step back, breathing heavily. “You have no idea what you’ve done to my family—what you’ve done to me!”
“Don’t yell at me, kid!” The man slurs.
“I will yell at whoever I want to fricking yell at, and right now it’s you, because it is your fault!” The man tries to talk over me, but I don’t let him. “You chose to be drunk. You chose to prey on a minor. You chose to send that knife into my brother! Don’t tell me it’s not your fault!”
“Hey!” The man shouts as I keep on yelling. “Shut it. Shut it! The cops—the cops are right there.”
“Good! Let them hear! This man killed my brother!”
The man shoves me.
I stumble into the road.
Headlights.
Epilogue
Amabel Ray Doll’s closed-casket funeral was the next week. Her parents were torn and they finally cracked. Everyone saw through the charade.
Her dad eventually stopped seeing the other woman and decided to work on what he had with Amabel’s mother. He encouraged her to stop drinking, and today is her one-year anniversary of staying sober. They had Amabel buried right next to Tobiah, and they visit the graves often, telling their children about all of the good things in their life. They apologize for their actions, their parenting… they said they should have known better. They had turned into their parents, something they’d sworn never to do.
Mark Doll quit his job as a doctor and decided to help out Sarah Doll at the bakery. It has really flourished since then, and it’s usually packed with customers.
The drunken man that had killed both of the kids was arrested thrown into prison after pushing Amabel into the street.
Dahlia was at the funeral. She never thought Amabel would be the type of person to die young, even with the situations that had been at hand. She didn’t know her long, but she feels horrible about everything that happened.
Dahlia’s family prays for her every day, and Sarah and Mark have gotten extremely close to them. At church, they don’t hide anything from anyone anymore. If they need help, they go to the pastor or his wife for counseling and advice.
And they know that both of their children are watching from up above, proud of what they’ve turned into. Especially Amabel, who had seen what no one else had.
About the Author
K. Weikel self-publishes all of her books. She edits the contents, the covers, and the pages all herself.
Dollhouse was inspired by Melanie Martinez’s song called Dollhouse, and K. Weikel took what she had to offer in her song and put it into a story. She feels like things like this really do happen, and that people fake it ‘till they make it, even when they’re not going anywhere.
If you or someone you know is being abused, please find help. Don’t wait it out.
If someone has an addiction to drugs or to alcohol, help them out and try to encourage them to stop. They
’re killing their bodies, even if they say ‘it’s alright, I’m fine—look nothing has happened yet.” Don’t wait it out for them to come to their senses. Help them.
And for any of you going through something similar to this, don’t be afraid to speak up. Silence is never the answer, especially when it’s something like this.
Other Books by K. Weikel
The Vampire’s Carnival
Figures
Match
Caged
Catrina Billowson
The Haunted Mansion #1
The Haunted Mansion #2: the Haunted Band Room
The Haunted Mansion #3: Revenge
Coming Soon
Trapped
Unnamed
Labyrinth
Krystal’s World
Face It