Clara tucks her hair behind her ears, her black nails shiny and fitting with her outfit. They take me somewhere.
“Can I paint your nails to practice?”
For a minute, I’m unsure. The majority of guys don’t wear nail polish, and I’m talked about enough. Nyx and Annabelle, who visit occasionally, tell us the stories, and it makes me never want to leave the house again.
Dollie’s smile flattens. “No one will see.”
I shrug, offering her my hand because it’s true.
We don’t go out on bikes or rollerblades like all the other ten and twelve-year-olds. We spend our time as we have for the last three years, locked in her pink room.
A pink chair with a padded seat, barricading the door, was my idea, originally. Dollie places it there through habit mostly these days.
“Pink?”
There are a dozen pinks on the shelf at our side.
I shrug again, giving her my hand to pick whichever she pleases. An excited smile lifts the corners of her lips, and her eyes sparkle in a way that reminds me of her younger self.
Innocence, that’s what it is.
I spread my fingers slightly as she struggles with keeping the polish off my skin.
“It’s even harder to do my own.”
Dollie’s fingers move before me, flaking paint along her cuticles.
It’s because I have bigger hands, I tell her silently. That’s why it’s easier.
“Yeah. They’re huge. Like shovels. You could dig graves.” She laughs, and the sound is a sweet melody to my ears. I don’t care that mocking me led to it. Dollie always keeps her teasing away from things that bother me, like the scars that make me ugly.
She doesn’t touch those with words, just featherlight caresses as we huddle down to sleep up in her dome.
It’s my favorite place on earth.
A glass sphere filled with pillows that’s currently letting in too much light.
A knock on the door startles us both. The tiny paintbrush rushes over my skin, and a pink streak follows.
“You guys want some company?”
“You only just left from tutoring us.” Dollie feels the same way I do.
“That was two hours ago.” Mom’s voice almost makes me pity her. She or my father have never sat us down and spoken to us about their part in our disappearance, and I’ve never told them that I know.
Sometimes, I wonder if they suspect it in the distance I keep. In how I keep Dollie glued to my side with my arm around her whenever they are near.
“What do you say? Family night?”
Something happens to my face, all the scars twisting in hate over such a ridiculous idea.
“Do you hate Mom and Dad?” Dollie whispers, quiet enough that Mom probably won’t hear.
I don’t hate Mom and Dad,I mouth. I should, but I don’t.
“Oh, I know you don’t, hon.” Clara’s gentle voice brings me back to the present. “Pay no mind to them.”
She points behind her, to the others who have noticed I’m here.
