Becky's Doll

Chapter 22

I TRIED WASHING, SCRUBBING and dunking in cold water and soap. But my hands remained unmitigated in it's blackened colour. I constantly stomped my foot frustratedly on the floor, the thick carpet muffled the noise before it could reach downstairs. By the end of the day, the charcoal black colour had engulfed both my hands and stopped in a rim around the wrists and merged into my pale skin in a light grey hue. It looked as if I had dipped both my hands in black ink.

I scratched at my burnt palms completely agitated at it's unwillingness to, at least dim in colour. The only calmness I felt was when the rapid spreading of the blackness had suddenly gone hiatus. I don't know why this is happening to me. Was I subjected to some sort of modern day disease or some irreversible mutation? Or maybe it was the adverse affect of the foul tasting food I had ingested from the police office. Panic arose within me, sending my heart for a marathon.

Someone rapped at the door, dragging me out of my troubled thoughts. Pulling on some gloves to hide away the current hideous situation I was facing, I opened the door. A rather fresh faced Scarlett greeted me with a small smile. Though the swollen red eyes indicated that she still grieved over her best friend's brutal death.

"Yes?" I asked. She stared sceptically at the gloves on my hands but gratefully didn't bother to comment.

"Allie. Your favourite person is downstairs lounging on the sofa," She announced.

"My favourite person?" I asked as I knotted my fingers of one hand with the other. Scarlett looked at me as if I had uttered the dumbest thing in the world.

"Ezra, your favourite person. He is downstairs and looks sad and broken. So go and grace him with your presence," She said rather over dramatically. My eyebrows creased at the mention of his name. The sudden darkening of my visage didn't go unnoticed by the fourteen year old.

"What happened?" She asked concernedly. I turned my head not wanting to strain my deteriorating energy by giving a vivid explanation to an airhead and she would undoubtedly require constant clarifications. I sighed as response.

"Scar, will you tell him I am not at home. I don't want to see him. Please, you have got to help me," I begged. She looked at me with her lips in a confused pout.

"Why? Did you guys fight?" She whispered unnecessarily low.

"Just tell him I am not at home. Please, Scar. Can't you do this for me?" I asked, successfully avoiding her enquiry. She put on a thinking face that looked rather ridiculous on her.

"And I thought you guys are the most perfect and cutest pair in the whole town. I could almost hear the church bells ringing in my ears,"She said, her eyes gleaming dreamily.

"Scar, we weren't even dating," I interrupted huffily.

"Yes, I know. Both of you are so naive. I mean it's damn obvious," Scarlett insisted. I sighed impatiently. My hands felt irritatingly cold under the cover of the gloves.

"Scar, I don't think I want to see him now. Please tell him, I have gone somewhere or that I'm still stuck at the station," I requested. Her face fell.

"Allie, if he is not your boyfriend then he is certainly your close friend. All your school life, you lived as a loner refusing to associate with others. And then you found Ezra. You can't even imagine the shock I received when you introduced him to me. By the way your face would glow when ever you are around him, I instantly knew that you appreciated his company too," Scarlett trailed.