Barbie Girl (Baby Doll Series) (24 page)

I force my eyes open; I cannot leave him, not again. Never again. The room rocks as I struggle to get up. My mother is saying something to Ronnie, I cannot hear her, there is a loud ringing that has started in my ears. Ronnie shrugs
my mother
off.

I crawl on my hands and knees slipping on something wet. Something else crashes and my whole body jumps. I have to get to Everett. I bite down the scream on my lip as I try to get to my feet. My body protests with each slow step I take. Something hits the wall hard shaking it and my mother screams. I don’t have time to go back to her I have to get Everett first. I wipe at my blurry eyes with my hand, it comes away with a sticky red liquid on them.

Everett lies in the corner. “Evie,” I whisper. “Come on bud, we got to get out of here,” I plead afraid I cannot get him to safety. Ronnie might kill me tonight but I will be damned if he is going to hurt Everett again. My head hurts and I think I am going to be sick.
Please
God
don’t
let me pass out.
“
Come
on bud,” I plead t
ouching his small body. I cannot pick him up my ribs scream in protest when I try to stand.

Heavy feet crash down the hall and Ronnie is shouting my name. I ignore every protesting bone and pick up Everett, my baby. Ronnie is almost at the door. I pull open the heavy window and drop Everett down to the hard ground below us and slip out behind him. I fall down next to him. I bite down on my lip until I taste copper, holding in the scream of pain back and the bile that burns my throat.

The bedroom door slamming against the wall is followed by a series of curses coming out the window. I am up, Everett in my arms. I have to get him out of here. I can hear Ronnie calling my name as I stumble down the street. Each step sends a sharp stabbing of pain in my head. The streets are slick from the recent rain, lightning lights up the distance skies.

Mrs. Sophie’s house is
dark;
she must have gone to bed. I lay Everett down under her hedge next to her front door. “Don’t move.” It is not big enough to cover the both of us. It will keep him hidden from Ronnie. I start stumbling, I need to get help. I need to keep Ronnie away from Everett. I can hear his heavy footsteps behind me, and the taunt of my name on his lips. I need to lead him as far away from Everett as I can. I hear a sickening thump, I fall down, and the world goes black. Black.
I
am
fall
ing
into black nothingness
.
Blue flashing lights
. Black
.
A
soft cooing sound
. Black
.

I take the back of the camera off. I have been working on it for some time now. Last night I couldn’t go back into the dance it seemed juvenile, not important. I walked to my grandpa’s farm and looked through all the photos in the barn. Barbie’s words crashing into me. Why did I give a shit what these fucking people
thought?
I carried a box of old pictures and the old cameras back home. I spent the night pinning up each picture on my wall. It felt good, like I was doing something for my grams memory, and a statement to Barbie to prove to her and everyone else that I don’t give a shit what they thought anymore, the only one that matters is her.

I can’t live without her; I have to have her in my life. If she will not have me that will really suck. I can be her friend at least. I will be in her life in some way. I know she doesn’t love me, but I need to be part of her life. She made me feel more alive, I was walking around in a dream and she woke me up.

I open the envelope of the newly devolved prints. I stopped off at the local Walgreens on my way home. Out spill images of Barbie and my breath hitches, her spinning around. A sultry smile playing on her lips. Her lips on my cheek. My stomach tightens.
Shit. I messed things up
. I pin each picture of her on my ceiling over my bed, even the ones of just me, because she took them and that was how she saw me.

I can’t stay here; I grab my keys and bolt down the stairs. I need to clear my mind with all that happened. I need to try to come up with a plan to fix what I broke. I not only managed to chase away the girl of my dreams. I also managed to lose my best friend, okay my only real friend. I was wrong blaming Barbie and Third for my insecurities. It was easier than facing them…

* * *

I pull out the rusty nails from the loose boards, “Needing to work out some anger?” A deep voice says. I slam the hammer onto a nail. He chuckles, “Women, they work us up. It is what they do,” I drop my hammer to my side and look at him, his checkered shirt tucked neatly into his jeans, a shiny belt buckle holding them up. “I built that room when your grandma left me,” he sighs and walks over touching the wood as if it can bring him to a different time and place.

“She left you?” I ask, shocked to find out about this revelation. All my memories of my grandparents, they seemed so happy.

“Sure enough, she had this thing for Norbert Jones, sorry son of bitch.” He sits down on a bale of hay.

“But, you seemed so in love.” I remember when my grandmother was alive how grandpa would love to come up behind her when she was cooking and wrap his arms around her.

“Love ain’t always easy,” he shakes his head.

“How did you get her back?” I ask.

“I didn’t. I came out here and built this room, it took me weeks. I put every hurt into it. Then I thought to myself, Bill you are going to be all right, it is going to hurt like hell, but you’re going to be okay. Then she walked through those doors,” he points to the barn door “Hell I thought I gone and fell of the ladder and died. She was like an angel standing there. Her long brown hair…” he shakes his head clearing the memory. He picks up a hammer, “Working with your hands is a great way to clear your head.” He starts in on a nail, “It’s going to hurt like hell son, it will never go away, but you are going to be okay.”

* * *

Katie has texted relentlessly with back to back calls to my cell. What part of, “I need some time to myself,” does she not understand! Shit. When I shut off my cell, then she started calling my house. I am sure when I turn on my Facebook I will have at least a dozen messages or so from her as well.

I get in the shower. My grandfather was right, it still hurts like hell, but my head is clearer, I am thinking of a plan on how to get her back. It is going to start with rebuilding my grandma’s dark room. Let time settle things for a while. I wrap a towel around my waist, the phone rings again. This chick is crazy, she is going too far. I grab the receiver off the holder. “Damn it, what part of leave me alone don’t you get!” I snap into the phone.

“Excuse me! Is that any way to talk to your mother young man! And who taught you to answer the phone like that?” My mother scolds me on the other end.

“Mom. No. I mean I am sorry Mom,” I sigh plopping down on to my bed.

“Never Mind. Dylan I didn’t call to yell at you. I am calling you about your friend Barbie…”

My chest tightens. “What?” I ask sitting back up.

“There was an accident,” I don’t hear her other words my heart pounds so hard that I cannot hear anything, only the blood that is rushing through my body. “Dylan? Dylan did you hear me?” My mom’s panicked voice says in the phone.

“Mom” I plead with her. “Mom please. Please tell me everything is okay.” She slipped and broke her ankle in a pair of her ridiculous high heels.

“Dylan we need you to try to talk to her, she is not speaking, and the cops need to know what happened. Mrs. is on her…” I drop the phone. Pulling on whatever I can grab off the floor. My feet pound down the steps three at a time and I am running as fast as I can in the direction of the hospital. Shoes in my hand.

Mrs. Berry drives slower than molasses. She keeps reassuring me that Barbie will be okay. She tells me they think she is in a state of shock; a neighbor found her early this morning she was passed out, lying in a puddle. My stomach lurches and I think I am going to be sick right here in Mrs. Berry’s Lincoln town car.

“That poor girl was pretty bloody when they found her, incoherent, who could do such a thing to a lovely girl like that.” She clucks. “Her mother cannot be found so what happened is a mystery.” She continues.

I am about to strangle poor Mrs. Berry if she comes to a stop at another damn yellow light.

“It’s a darn shame,” she rattles on, her car idling at the red light three blocks away. I hop out of her Lincoln and I run. Mrs. Berry is out of her car calling my name, but I don’t stop running. I run through the sliding double doors ignoring the shout from the receptionist. I know this hospital with my eyes closed. I used to come and hang out with mom on her shift and I would explore every nook and cranny of this place.

Normally the cold air and the smell of disinfectant are comforting to me, but now they cause my stomach to turn threatening to bring up this morning’s fruit loops. My sneakers squeak against the white and blue speckled linoleum floor. I push through another set of swinging doors. “Hey whoa,” Dr. Grant holds up his hands. I don’t want to hurt the guy but I am fully prepared to deck him if he tries to stop me. “Dylan. She is over here,” he nods to a dark room.

My breathing catches up with me and my chest heaves with the caught air. I start toward the room. My body moves in slow involuntary movements, I feel like I might fall over my own feet. I brace myself for what I am about to see.

I push open the door, the room is small and I feel like I am looking in on someone else’s horror not my own. This is not Barbie, my mother made a mistake. I see a small figure in the bed, the bed swallowing her, she seems so small. So fragile. A machine beeps in the distance. In a chair next to the bed is Third, He has his head in his hands. He is wearing his Darth Vader tee that says, “Who is your daddy?” and a pair of stained sweat pants. The sound of my feet on the floor causes his head to snap up. How long has he been here? Deep purple circles or present under his eyes, anger flashes in them.

“Where the hell have you been?” he says in an angered whisper.

“Me?” I start to get angry.

He rises to his feet; his pale blue eyes are bloodshot. His hands flex into fists at his sides. “I have been calling you, hell everybody has been fucking calling you.” He is angry.

“Is she okay?” I ignore
him;
looking over at the hospital bed I can only see the back of her head.

“Yeah I guess, if you consider a few broken ribs, and a concussion, okay, then yeah she is freaking dandy!” Third spits. He has every reason to be pissed at me, but this is not the place to have it out.

“Third,” I am about to tell him so, but he cuts me off again.

“She has been asking for you,” he crosses his arms. “Just see if you can get her to talk. Shit man she will not talk to anyone,” he washes his face with his hands, desperation in his voice. “Get her to talk.” He repeats before he leaves the room.

I walk over to were Third was sitting. My breath catches. She has stitches across her forehead and several bloody scratches on her face, her cheeks are swollen with angry red and purple bruises. Shit. I reach under the blankets and grab on to her hand, it is so small in mine. She always seemed so strong, I never once thought of her as fragile. Who could have done this to her. Anger surges through me.

“Dylan?” her voice comes in short raspy breaths and I cringe at the sound.

“Hey,” I do my best to smile at her, but she starts to cry, silent tears falling out of her amazing blue eyes. I start to cry myself, angry tears burn my face, and I want to hurt whoever did this to her. “Shhh,” I pull her hand to my mouth and kiss it. She tries to sit up but grimaces in pain, she gives up and cries harder lying back down. I will break whoever did this to her. I am going to make sure they feel each pain she feels tenfold. “Barbie, don’t move. Please,” my voice shakes. I push her hair back out of her face. And she presses her face into my hand. She needs me as much as I need to touch her.

I bring my forehead to hers, “Tell me what happened. I am going to kill the person who did this to you.” Anger pulses through me with a mixture of grief.

She shakes her head back and forth and chokes on a sob.

“You have to tell me,” I demand my voice rising with anger.

“I can’t,” she chokes out.

“Why the hell not?” I grimace at how harsh I sound. “Who are you trying to protect? Is it Tyler?” My hands shake as I imagine punching the guy in the face, fine if she will not tell me I will beat it out of him. I stand.

“If I say anything they will take him away,” she sobs.

“So you will protect the jerk so that he doesn’t go to jail!” I shout. I don’t want to be angry with her when she is so broken, but how can she protect someone that could do this to her.

“Not Tyler. Everett.” I fall back to the chair. Everett? “What does Everett have to do with this?”

She turns her face away to the wall.

“Last night I thought things could not get any more screwed up,” she laughs but there is nothing funny behind it. “I was so confused with what you said to me. I was finally starting to feel okay. Like if you didn’t forgive me that I was going to be fine, and then you told me you love me. I was so confused.”