Girl with the Broken Dolls

Chapter 2

                                                             2.

At some point, I did fall asleep. But it wasn’t a nice, healthy sleep. When sound of the alarm woke me up, I felt like I didn’t sleep at all. I stumbled toward the window to let some light in. The second I opened it the cold air began to enter my room, mixing with warm, sweet smell of night time. It was raining. What a great way to start a morning if you add the fact that I had a headache – it felt like my brain was pounding.

I did my morning ritual, including drinking a large amount of coffee, and then joined my mom in her car, while she was yelling that we’d be late. She stopped yelling when I got in.

“Bad night?” she asked, carefully looking at me.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I replied falling back to a soft car seat with my eyes closed.

That’s when I remembered what had kept me awoken the last night. But on daylight in a comfortable, warm place, it was rather funny. I even smiled thinking about how scared I had been. But that’s the little fear we all have, don’t we? Those little dolls who look like they could come alive at any moment.

Soon the car stopped in front of my school. I said goodbye to my mom and rushed to the bench where all my friends were sitting. I recognized the short girl with ginger hair. Olivia. God, I was happy to see her. She had been in Italy for the last two months with some of her cousins, which means that I haven’t seen her since July. I hugged her before she noticed me. She laughed, knowing it’s me.

“How was your trip?” I asked, still hugging her.

“Amazing, I have so much to tell you! I missed you guys.”

“Yeah, right” Barbara rolled her eyes, “I bet you were thinking about us all the time, while having fun and visiting beach parties.”

“I did! I even brought you some presents!” she quickly reached for her bag.

“You better did. I hope you’re not carrying that ugly, huge bag for no reason.” Tina teased her.

Olivia ignored her comment and gave us our presents. I held the box wrapped in decorative paper. I carefully unwrapped it, opened the cartoon box and then almost dropped it. That was not what I expected.

“Porcelain doll?!” I asked in shock.

“Yeah, I got that one in Venice.” Olivia said while helping Barbara to unwrap her present. She looked at me, “You don’t like it?”

“No, I love it!” I lied, “I just didn’t expect it. It’s very… creative. I think I’ll put it in my room.”

Olivia smiled. I will so NOT put it in my room. I won’t even take it home. Okay, I’ll have to, but I’ll put it somewhere in the basement where I won’t be able to see it.

I spent the rest of the day feeling anxious and looking forward to coming home and forgetting about that creepy doll that was stuck in my bag. And that was the first thing I did when I got home. I put the doll in some cartoon box full of dusty glasses and closed it. It popped in my head that one day I will come down here to look for it, but the doll won’t be here. Or maybe it will mysteriously appear somewhere in the house. I forced myself not to think about that and ran upstairs to have lunch with my mom.

The evening was dragging so I decided to go to bed early. I was happy that I will finally leave this weird day behind and get some rest. But I didn’t get it. She came back to me again.