Page 76 of Everdoll

“Don’t get fooled by his looks. I bet he’s got a different girl everyday. You know how Loxton guys treat women.”

“I know, right! Everyone says he’s a total jerk, but who knows? Should we head to Lesse tomorrow?”

“My mom won’t let me go there. She thinks it’s dangerous.”

“Oh, come on… what if I ask her?”

As the voices faded away, I turned my indifferent eyes back to the Bernova corner.

How the hell am I so calm? I didn’t understand myself. It had been like this ever since Eli died. I couldn’t react to anything anymore.

My feelings seemed irrelevant to this world. I had fallen into the wrong place. A few years ago, if this had happened, I would have gone crazy. I would have screamed at Remi, no, at Raymond, and done even more cruel things than before.

But since I found out, it was like nothing mattered to me. I just felt a flicker of happiness, knowing that I wasn’t the one bringing destruction. That fool boy had gone on live television and shattered the ‘girl in love with the robot’ persona I had spent months meticulously crafting.

And now, it was the time act like as if it never happened. Such a ridiculous thing could never have happened anyway.

Finally, I stopped looking at the photos of Bernova’s. My steps were slow when I stepped out into the schoolyard, my eyes fixed on the pavement. The whispering around me grew louder and louder. Unwillingly, I raised my gaze. There it was: the nightmare I had tried to shut out, now filling my vision in all its horror.

The tall figure stood in front of the black limousine. A stranger. I didn’t recognize him. I must have been in a dream since I was fourteen. A nightmare, perhaps. I had finally woken up, and the person named Remi should have been just a bittersweet figure belonging to the dreamland.

Then why was he standing at the school gate, staring directly at me?

I walked past the stranger and out onto the street, ignoring him, but he still followed me.

“Mina… can we talk? Can you listen to me? Just a few minutes, I promise I won’t bother you again. Please, give me a chance.”

You ruined everything. Why should I trust you now? I kept walking indifferently. When my wrist started to itch, I couldn’t resist and scratched it lightly. I acted like I was okay, not affected by all of this, but since that day, I had brought the stupid knife to my wrist again.

Unfortunately, it felt really good. It felt good to have something I could still control.

I had been deceived and abandoned so many times. Everything happened without my ‘free will’. No one asked me how I felt. No one hesitated to deceive me. Just a doll to play with it. My own emotions had become unreachable. Even the sense of being alive slipped away. It felt as though puppet strings were guiding my shoulders, making me doubt every step I took.

Everything about me is a deception, I’m nothing but a stupid theater actress.

Well, I adapted to everything with ease; I was the sweet, devoted girl who cast aside her doubts to love her guardian robot. Truly. I’d been doing well for months. But no matter how much I polished my masks, it still wasn’t enough. Things were still going wrong.

So I had no other choice. Watching the blood flowing through my veins drip onto the bathroom floor at my own will soothed me. Ever since Eli died, I would occasionally cut my wrist to understand the pain my friend was going through, but Remi always stopped me. Now that we were out of the dreamland, I could freely experience Eli’s pain. I was in control again.

“It’s him, isn’t it? Oh my God, why is he here?”

“You took a photo, right? No, not like this, let me!”

I quickened my pace, but that damn stranger wouldn’t leave me alone. Finally, I stopped. Then glanced over my shoulder.

“Get lost.”

I tried to sound as harsh as possible. I pressed my trembling hands into my palms and kept walking. I believed if I ignored it enough, it would truly disappear.

I still didn’t know how to face reality.

When I got home, I found a letter in the mailbox. The sender was an anonymous source from Lesse. It was written my father was at Yunna’s casino.

Confusion gripped me. My dad had left the house a few weeks after Eli died. The house no longer reeked of alcohol, but apart from that, it was nothing but another disaster for me. I was even more convinced I lived in a terrible universe where everyone had abandoned me. Now, to receive news from him…

Why wasn’t my heart filled with peace? The old Mina would’ve been overjoyed. She would’ve been so happy, so hopeful. The old Mina was so… what?

Who was she? Where was she?