The Dollhouse

Part 4

Chapter 4

I've been looking for you for an hour."

Thorn. The guy won't leave me alone. I'm outside on the basketball courts. Not too far away from me, the basketball team is practicing. Some other people come out to watch them practice sometime. Truth is I still wasn't talking to my dad. I didn't know how I was getting home and the events from earlier had shaken me to my core.

"It was all my fault," I state, "I told Micah that Marisol swallowed. I lied. I was just trying to...fit in..."

Thorn looks over at me. He isn't even surprised when I say what I say. He sits next to me on the bleachers. The outdoor court is different from the indoor court. The guys on the team are playing with no shirts. They are all sweating as the heat beats on top of them. It's weird I came here to find solace. Truthfully I feel bad for confronting Adonis in the way I did. He's running around the court now playing with the other guys on his team.

"When they make the rules, it's people like us who had to follow them. We had to fit in," he states.

"It's weird you saying people like us. As though you aren't beautiful."

I look over at Thorn. He would fit right in with the Dollhouse. I could see him playing on the basketball team. I could see him being best friends with Adonis. I could see him getting a bunch of girls numbers with Micah. I could see him bullying kids like me with Braden. I could see him dating Serena.

But he did date Serena.

"They carried her out on a stretcher," he states, "She isn't dead."

"Oh thank God. She survived?"

Marisol tried to cut herself. I couldn't stick around to see her carried out of the bathroom. I was scared she was dead. I was scared someone would have died because of me. I was scared someone would have died because of a lie I told trying to fit in and to get Adonis and my cousin to accept me.

"That's not survival," he states, shaking his head, "She won't die. But she won't survive. A world like the one we live in will chew up a weak bitch like her and spit her out."

"Don't say that about her, you don't even know her."

"Oh please," he states, "I saw the cuts on her wrists in passing before. She was already cutting. She was already trying to find a way out. In this world, only the strong survive. Truly survive. You understand? As for the others...they just go on, not dying yet."

It was a harsh thing to say. I look down the court. Adonis was so good at basketball. They said he was going to get a full ride to almost any university he wanted because he was such a good ball player. I watch as he drives past some sucker throwing him to the ground. He dunks over the guy.

"See that guy that just fell?" Thorn asks, "What's his name?"

"I think its...oh damn...I don't know."

"Exactly. But you know Adonis don't you?" Thorn asks, "That guy's name is Kordell Kwando. He loves basketball. Two weeks ago the coach told him not to show up Adonis. Because it's important the scouts like Adonis. The coach says that he had to make Adonis look good."

"Why the fuck would he agree to that?"

"The rules of survival. If he pisses the coach off he'll be off the team or benched. So when Adonis drives the ball on him, he falls on purpose now. When he gets the ball in a game, he passes it to Adonis even though he could do a layup just as well. But Adonis has that look. He has that star look to him. He's a star."