Barbie Girl (Baby Doll Series) (25 page)

I flinch at the truth behind her words. “I was stupid thinking I could pretend to be someone else for a night, I thought I could be normal for one night.” Tears pour down her face.
“When
I walked in the door…” she starts to cry harder, her shoulder shake. “He had him cornered. Hitting him with a wire hanger,” she sobs. I climb in the bed no longer able to stay away from her. I want to take away her pain I pull her to me as carefully as I can, holding her against my chest. “He just sat there in the corner not moving, all because I left him, Dylan.” She grabs onto my shirt holding onto me.

“It’s not your fault.” I rub small circles on her back while she speaks. “I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to die.”

She begged me not to say anything. She told me where she left Everett. I should have left, and did what I promised, but the sensible side of me kicked in. I hate myself for telling, my hands shake as I told the officer who jots every word down on his yellow note pad, my mom watches me with horrified gasps, and a social worker takes notes as well, who shakes his head every once in a while as I retell Barbie’s story. I tell them every sickening word how her mother was there as he beat the shit out of Barbie not even attempting to stop him. How she escaped out the window to hide her little brother only to have that sick jerk chase her down.

When we are done I storm out past Barbie’s room, I must have caught someone’s attention because Third is on my heels.

“Where are you going?” he asks shortly.

“Oh so we are friends now?” I spin facing him. I catch him off guard and he stumbles backwards. I want to punch him in the face, my hands clench shut. I open and close them at my sides, challenging him. When he doesn’t say anything.
That’s what I thought
. I turn and push through the double doors that brought me here. “You need me to drive?” Third jogs up behind me a little out of breath.

We drive in silence, it hits me like a punch to my gut when Third turns down her road, he knows where she lives. He has had a glimpse into her world. While I was too worried about what she was doing to mine to even be a decent enough human being to get to know hers. I could have prevented this. I could have stopped this from happening. I always just assumed I knew her, what she was about, how wrong I was. I don’t know what I expected? That she was a troubled girl, who had a worried family, a mother who was at her wits’ end, trying to get her daughter to clean up her act.

I realize when Third turns the van onto the narrow road. I have never been to this part of town. In seventeen years I have never stepped foot on this road. I drove past it, maybe glanced over, but never stopped. The houses are packed together painted various shades of bright colors trying to be something they are not. Third stops the van in front of what must be Barbie’s house, it is sadder than the others. No bright paint or a plastic flamingo in the yard, no trying here just peeling gray paint, a lawn that grows in small limping patches of weeds. The windows are dark. No one is here of course the police tried it first I am sure.

I get out slamming my car door shut, somewhere in the distance a car alarm is going off and music of a party that is going on drift down the street. I walk through the open gate that barely hanging on its last hinge. I stand in front of the door.

“No one is here,” Third states the obvious. I run my hands through my hair in frustration. What did I think that they would be home, and then what invite me in for some milk and cookies, and I would pound the shit out of this guy who broke her, the strongest person I know.

Tears burn at my eyes threatening to spill over. “Let’s go around back,” Third suggests. I follow; I don’t have a better plan. Broken brick steps lead up to the back door, the glass door is flung open it is missing a pang of glass. Third pushes the door open and I follow him into the kitchen. Something crushes under my foot in the dark. Lights blind me temporarily “What the hell,” Third looks around. He doesn’t know what happened and I didn’t offer up any information. Barbie can tell him. I am done betraying her. A chair lies toppled over, drawers thrown about the room, and glass is shattered on the floor. A streak of blood runs down the cabinets to the floor. Third looks at me for an explanation but I don’t offer it to him. I step around him and walk down a dark hallway. Blood is smeared down the walls. My stomach lurches.

* * *

Over the next few days cops and my new social worker come through the revolving door that is now my life. I refuse to talk to any of them. I was already informed that Everett was placed in state housing. I go ballistic and despite the IV that I rip
out and the broken ribs, I try to kill someone, anyone who is close enough. They took my poor baby and put him in a home filled with messed-up kids. He must be so scared not understanding why I have not come to get him. Someone sticks a needle in my arm and I float in and out of blackness. When I come to, a guard is posted outside my door in case I try to run or kill someone. Roxie is lying in my bed trailing her finger over my no
se.

“Hi, C
hica,” I crumble into her arms and cry. She holds me until I cried myself dry.

Third and Roxie take turns staying by my side. I refuse to see Dylan, he betrayed me. I can never trust him. I hate him.

I am staring up at my ceiling each picture a stab at my heart. I was sent home, threatened if I didn’t leave my mother would have security escort me out of the hospital. I am supposed to be getting some sleep but how can I lie here, in my comfortable bed, in my comfortable life safe and sound, when she is out there, each breath she takes hurting her. My chest feels like it is about to split open with the thought of her. I answer each call on the first ring, but hang up the moment it is not my mother or Third with information. Katie must have given up, because my phone lays silent on my chest.

A car door shuts. I roll over on my side staring at the blue walls. I think about going over to the barn and working more on the room. But I don’t see the point.

I must have dozed off because my mom is shaking me awake. I sit up straight, “Is she okay?” I practically leap out of my skin.

“She is okay…in a lot of pain.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “She is one tough kid. She refuses anything more than
aspirin
for the pain.” Of course she is, why would she use something to dull the pain. She wants to remember each and every feeling. It is what will fuel her through the fight.

I flop back down against my pillow and cover my eyes with my arm, “Has she said anything? Has she asked about me? Does she want to see me?” I hate myself for being so selfish and thinking about myself.

“No.” She laughs before she says, “She is something else, has quite a mouth on her. She almost gave poor Doctor Grant a heart attack…. Something about giving his wife a run for her money,” she lets out a nervous laugh. I drop my arm and look at my mother, she still wears the teal scrubs from last night’s shift, her brown hair falls out of the messy ponytail it is in and she bites at her lip nervously.

“Mom, what is it?” she stands and walks over to the pictures I have hung, and looks at a picture of me at the fifth grade science fair holding a second-place ribbon. First place went to Jenny she made a volcano. That was the year Grams got sick and stopped taking pictures.

“There are going to be some rules that are going to be in place, one toe out of line and I am pulling the plug on this,” she turns in my direction.

Confusion must read on my face. “I am not stupid. I know what might happen having two teenagers with raging hormones under the same roof.”

I sit up all the way now. “Mom?”

“And you are going to have to move down to the basement.”

Before she can finish anymore, I have crossed the room and start hugging her. She is so much smaller than me. She laughs and pushes me off her.

“I am serious, if I catch you in her room… Or her in your room she will have to go. I cannot risk my family’s well-being no matter how much I want to help.” She sighs.

“Mom you don’t have to worry I have a girlfriend.” Or at least I did. She doesn’t seem convinced. “Mom I am with Katie. Remember?” she sighs and shakes her head.

“Fine,” I hug her again picking her up off her feet and spin her in a circle. “This is not going to be easy, there or a lot of…issues we are going to have to deal with…” She bites at her lip again when I set her back down.

“Mom,” she looks at me her eyes matching my own. “Thanks.”

She smiles. “Don’t thank me yet. Now clean your room,” she wrinkles her nose at me. “Your father went to go get Everett.”

Third comes over and helps me move a few boxes of clothes and a couple of books down to the basement. Everything else I leave. “You are going to leave you
Star Wars
Lego
set for the kid to destroy!” Third carefully examines the
Death Star
.

I shrug, “What am I going to do with it.”

He gapes at me. I sit down on my bed, I need to do this. This is going to be harder than it seems. Just a few words, but they are caught in my throat “Third…I…I am sorry” I look up at him, his round fat checks blow in and out.

“It’s cool,” he finally says.

“No, no it was not cool I was a shitty friend. Hell, I have been a shitty friend for a while. I am sorry man.”

It is the beginning of a very long list of “I am sorry” that I will be giving out. Next is Katie. If I want things to work out I have to fix things with her. “Can I ask you a favor? Will you drive me over to Katie’s?”

Third sighs shaking his head, “Sure.”

I don’t know how long I have been sitting here like this, hunched over staring at the chipped nail polish on my hand. I don’t move when the door to my room opens, another nurse to check on me and take my vitals, to look at me with sympathy and shake her head. I hate them. I hate every one of them. I hate Dylan for betraying me, for making me feel something other than numb. The shuffle of white nurse shoes comes into focus.

“Barbie?” I know her voice it is the nurse who has come in repeatedly to take care of me, insisting I talk. She wears his face and I hate her for that. “Barbie I have come to talk to you,” she says her voice soft, a whisper. I hate her.

“Dylan already spoke enough for me, don’t you think?” I snap. Pain shoots through me with the utterance of my words. She ignores my jab at her son.

“I came to talk to you about a proposition,” she says her voice stronger, business-like. I look at her now in the face, her eyes the same dark brown like his, I want to rake my fingers down her face. I hate her. I hate him.

“I don’t want anything you have to offer, so save your breath,” my words are cold and clipped. “Barbie I can’t even begin to imagine what happened to you… What you had to live with all these years.” She lets out a long breath as if her next words are heavy in her mouth “My kids are my world and I would do anything for them. That’s the first thing you need to know, if you hurt any one of them or put them in danger, I will end this.” She continues to ramble on with this nonsense, “Of course I will expect from you, exactly what I expect out of my own children. Go to school, get good grades, help out around the house…watch your mouth.”

I blink at her several times what is she saying? “I don’t understand.”

She looks at me locking me in place with her eyes. “I am offering you to come and live with us, Everett too.” She adds quickly.

“But, I already spoke with a social worker. I am being sent to a home for troubled girls, or didn’t you hear the news?” Everett they are placing him with foster parents, it is easier to place younger children is what she said. I guess I didn’t help my case of not needing to be in a home for at risk girls when I tried to attack him. “Why?” I ask. If this was Dylan’s doing I want no part of it, of him trying to make up for the damage he did. He cannot fix this.

“Because I cannot believe your mother did not try to help you,” she says honestly. “And if you were my child I would hope someone would step up and try to help,” she sighs. I can now see the tiredness in her eyes, I have not been an easy patient, after the social worker visited, I had security set outside my room. I tried to run, I wanted to find Everett and run. “What about Dylan?” I ask. I hate myself for wanting to know how he feels. “He doesn’t know yet. I wanted to come to you first.”

* * *

Two days after my mother came and spoke to me in my room; my dad has his hands warped around Barbie’s waist as he helps her climb the steps. With each step I could see the hurt pass over her face. I hate my dad for touching her so carefully, his patient words with her slow incline. I hate myself. I lean against the landing of the stairs watching, not speaking, and not apologizing for the betrayal she feels toward me. I hate myself that she will not make eye contact with me and every piece of me is screaming at her to just look at me. She reaches the top of the steps and her eyes catch mine for a moment and I shatter in a million fragile pieces.

* * *

Each step is hell, a new form of pain. I was not sure it was possible for me to feel any more pain than I did that night. I was wrong. I grit my teeth through it, and smile at Mr. Knight. He is such a sweet man generally concerned about my wellbeing.