Barbie World (Baby Doll Series) Read online

  Barbie World

  A Baby Doll Novel

  Heidi Acosta

  Book two

  Copyright © 2013 by Heidi Acosta

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, localities, or persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of various products mentioned in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  For more information:

  http://Authorheidiacosta.blogspot.com

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  http://www.maeidesign.com

  This book is dedicated to any girl who has ever felt like she did not matter. You are more important then you realize.

  June

  I am happy…Right?

  Chapter 1.

  Barbie

  Whoever invented wood paneling is a complete fuck tart. They have absolutely no fashion sense or any sense for that matter. This is what I am thinking about as I stare at the dark wood paneling behind the man who is probably related to that same fuck tart. His name is Daniel Monty and he blends into the wall with his brown overcoat and tan colored dress shirt. His pants sit high up on his waist cinched together with a braided brown leather belt, making him look like a giant pear.

  From the safety of his desk he peers over at me with brown beady eyes that dart nervously back and forth. Coward. He dabs at the sweat that beads on his forehead with a stained handkerchief. I smile at him wickedly as he squirms from side to side in his chair. To him I am a wild animal that he cannot control. He is right; I am ready to pounce at the first sign of weakness. He should be afraid. “Is there anything you would like to talk about today?” It is the first question he starts with every week. God, he makes me want to punch myself in the face.

  Maybe he didn’t get it the last twenty times, but I am not about to share shit with this guy. “No,” I say sharply as I glance at my chipping nail polish and then at the clock on the wall. “Is there anything you would like to talk about?” I ask him sarcastically. There is a long pause before he answers. “This time is meant for you, Barbie. We can use the hour however you wish to use it.” He gives me a text book answer. Typical.

  I sigh, and tilt my head back resting it against the back of the chair. This is part of my “treatment,” the state is trying to cover their tracks for letting Everett and I slip through the cracks for so long. Now they make sure to cross their t’s and dot their i’s, weekly visits from the social worker and all that jazz. They really have their work cut out with me, or so I am told. After I cussed out the last social worker, I have had three, I am being punished, and I have to suffer through an hour a week with this toast dry man. I am sure they are counting down the days until my eighteenth birthday when they will no longer have to deal with me.

  He takes a deep breath and offers me a weak smile. Leaning his fat elbows on the desk. “Therapy can help you work through any confusion you might be feeling towards your mother.” He offers me a sympathetic smile, hoping that this time I will give him more to fill his little notebook with other than a few sarcastic remarks or pure silence.

  Confusion about my mother? Well, that is new. No. I feel a lot of things towards my mother, but confusion is not one of them. I know exactly who she is. She is a woman who never gave a shit about us. She chose drugs and drinking over her kids. She always put whatever random man she happened to be screwing first. It didn’t matter if he drank, stole her money, beat the shit out of her or us. No, there is no confusion about my mother.

  I hate Daniel Monty so much at this very moment, I want to rip him open and watch him bleed out on the yellowing floor. “What about your mother, Danny-boy? I bet you have some mommy issues,” I snarl. I lean forward, pushing my chest together with my forearms, making sure that he has a perfect view of my cleavage. I eat guys like him for breakfast. He no longer wears the look of sympathy on his fat ugly face. Instead, he blinks rapidly, in shock that I had the nerve to ask such a personal question, one that is most likely the truth. He looks like a guy with mother issues. He probably goes home and gets off to a picture of her.

  I smile at myself because I have him right where I want him. Hopefully when I am done with him, today will be the last I will ever see of Danny-boy. I can see the papers signed already, ‘Reformed’. Needs no further treatment.’

  “Maybe your mother didn’t love you enough; maybe she didn’t show you enough attention.” I stick out my bottom lip, giving him a mock pout. He squirms uncomfortably and I continue, “Or maybe she showed you too much.” I scoot closer to him in my chair. “Maybe she didn’t touch you enough?” I open my legs and knock my knees together; open, close, open, close. I expose my new black panties, playing a game of peak-a-boo with him. He glances down at my legs and blanches, turning white as a ghost. This is probably the first time he has ever had the privilege of seeing a real, live girl’s panties.

  He quickly looks at a pile of papers on his desk. I smile at him slyly and cross my arms, leaning back in the chair with a triumphant smile on my face. “Are we done yet?” I ask.

  “Y-Y-Y-Yes,” he stammers. “Perhaps we should reschedule this meeting for another time,” he says to his desk.

  “What?” I say, shocked. I cannot believe it; my plan has been agonizingly derailed. Perv. He probably wants to see me again and hopefully get a glimpse of my little girl panties.

  “Yes. Well, we obviously are not going to get much accomplished today,” he says nervously. He quickly stands up and shows me to the door as he holds it open.

  I stand up, letting my skirt stay risen up on my thighs as I walk towards the door. I stop in front of him, put my hand on his chest, lick my lips and breathe heavily. “I cannot wait for our next meeting.” I walk out the door and I can feel the sigh of relief coming from him as the door shuts firmly behind me. If he knows what is good for him, he will sign those papers now. Good bye, Danny boy.

  Roxie is waiting for me outside; I climb into her new white Civic that she got for her birthday. “I don’t think I have ever seen someone so happy leaving a shrink’s office, and I should know I have been to my fair share of them.” She smirks as she peels out of the parking spot, leaving me scrambling to find my seat belt. I quickly secure it across my lap just in time.

  “I think I’ve been changed; we really had a breakthrough,” I tell her. Roxie has apparently forgotten about the common courtesy of using her turning signals and flips the bird to a scary looking guy she just cut off.

  “Yeah, did you find out why you are so screwed up in the head? Or why you slept with the entire football team?” She smirks again. I hold onto the door handle for dear life as Roxie merges onto the highway and cuts across three lanes of traffic. She should try out for NASCAR.

  “No, but we did figure out why I slept with the basketball team.” I grit my teeth, trying to hold down my lunch. She laughs, oblivious to the other cars around us. “Do you think you can look at the road and not me?” I gulp as she nearly clips a semi-truck who blasts his horn at us.

  “You worry too
much, you know that?” She laughs and cuts back across the highway. A few moments later she takes a sharp right, turning into the driveway without tapping on the brakes and slams the car into park. Dust and gravel roll past our windows. “See I got you back to the Walton’s safe and sound.” I do not move, still petrified from that little trip back to the Knights.

  “Speaking of the Walton’s, there is John-Boy now and the queen of all B’s. What is she doing here anyway? Doesn’t she have a meeting to conduct for the skinny-uptight B” I shoot Roxie a look, cutting her off. She holds her hands up surrendering, but still wears an evil grin on her face.

  “She is his girlfriend; of course she is going to be here. Besides, I am over him.” She is always here. I get it—they are in-love, he is over me. The thought stings a little.

  Roxie points to where Katie and Dylan stand, gaping at us. “Look at them. What is their problem? They act like they haven’t ever seen a hot girl driving before.” She honks her horn at them and waves. Roxie turns to me and winks. “Look at her,” she snarls. “It’s a Honda Civic!” Roxie shouts out of her window. Katie shoots us a look of death, her lip is curled over her teeth and her eyes are narrowed into tiny slits.

  I turn to Roxie, ignoring them. “Yeah, it is the car they are staring at and not the girl who was driving like a maniac,” I say, keeping my eyes deliberately on her face, resisting the urge to look over at them.

  “Gross, I think Katie is trying to swallow your man.” She makes a face like she is going to be sick.

  “He is not my man.” Unable to hold back anymore I glance over at them. Dylan is leaning lazily up against Katie’s car. He is not wearing a shirt; his skin is slick with sweat and glistens in the hot Alabama sun. Katie’s body is pressed against him, her arms wrapped around his neck.

  A sharp pain stabs me in the chest at the sight of them, an invisible knife that digs deeper and deeper until I cannot breathe. He glances in my direction, but Katie quickly pulls him into a battle of who has the most saliva. She is showing me who he belongs to and it is not me. At the end of the school year I made the mistake of kissing Dylan in front of the whole cafeteria. I should have never done that. Now, Dylan is acting even weirder around me and Katie has to shove her tongue down his throat whenever I am around them. It also made me realize that maybe I am not over Dylan like I thought I was.

  “That is just gross. I can actually see her tongue trying to poke its way out through his cheek. I think I just threw up in my mouth.” Roxie pretends to gag. I laugh. She helps to make the pain not so bad.

  “Come on; let’s go inside before I puke, too.” I grab her hand and pull her out of the car before I look one more time over my shoulder to torture myself. Maybe I really am messed up in the head and I do need counseling because I get something sick and twisted from subjecting myself to pain. I don’t want anything more from him, but this delicious feeling of hurt I taste whenever I’m around him, it keeps me closer to the truth, a reminder of who I am.

  “He doesn’t seem to even be enjoying himself,” Roxie says next to me. How long have I been staring at them? Dylan is slouched and is just sort of awkwardly standing there while Katie, who is fully aware we are watching them, grinds on him. “Get a room. Some of us are trying to keep our lunch down,” Roxie calls.

  Katie smoothly breaks the kiss, sucking in Dylan’s bottom lip before she says, “Funny, that’s what I was thinking when I saw your ugly face.”

  Roxie bristles. “Oh no, you did not just go there. Maybe I am ugly on the outside, but unlike you, I am not made of ice on the inside.” She puts her hands on her hips, ready for a fight. I begin to pull Roxie inside before things can get any nastier,

  Katie, on the other hand, is looking for a fight. “That bitch,” she says as the door shuts behind us.

  “What?” Roxie asks innocently, batting her eyes at me.

  “You did antagonize it.” I shrug.

  “Oh no, you don’t. Do not go sticking up for that up-tight bee-och after she started the rumor that you tried to kill yourself to get Dylan back. Just no.” I don’t care. It was just another rumor spread by people who had nothing better to do except talk about others to make themselves feel better and, after all, I did kiss her boyfriend.

  “Come on, I need your help with something,” I say, leading her up to the guest bathroom.

  “Do you think this is a good idea?” Roxie holds up the bottle of peroxide in her hand as she reads the small print on the label.

  “It couldn’t be a better one.” I say with conviction as I lean my head over the bathroom sink.

  “I need to do this.” When I had first left the therapist’s office, I felt pretty damn good with myself for making Daniel Monty feel so uncomfortable. I bet he is questioning his choice of becoming a therapist. He should have tried to be a Sci-fi writer like he’d wanted to.

  Maybe it was a feeling of justice that I felt towards his comment about me being confused with my mother. I am not confused. He is confused if he thinks I will ever say a word to him about her. I am pissed off, thanks to him. Now I have a new swirl of confusion that makes me question everything, makes me question myself. Maybe I am confused, not about my mother, but confused at who I am pretending to be. I am pretending to be someone I am not. Someone I don’t recognize. Then… Thank you, Daniel Monty, for the guilt that has now set in; filling my bones and every thought I have. I am sick of feeling this guilt. I have been harboring this guilt for way too long. It is time I set it free, but can I? It is like a childhood blanket, constricting me, wrapping me up in its familiar warmth. In the past, anytime reality and guilt would start to set in, I would numb it away. The ache in my chest makes it almost impossible not to search for that numbing agent. The bleach smell helps to make my head feel a little fuzzy against the crashing sea in my mind. A wave of guilt rolls through my stomach. I push it down, ignoring it. I cannot continue to pretend anymore. I thought pretending would keep Evie safe, but the ever present danger of him is always there. It doesn’t matter what my hair color is or what I wear.

  I was trying to make Mrs. Knight happy by playing dress up and pretending to be someone I am not. All in the hopes that she would continue to feel that she was doing the right thing by becoming our caregivers. We have been living with the Knights for six weeks now and it is perfectly clear that the Knights love Everett. Who wouldn’t? He is a sweet and quiet boy. I know that she doesn’t feel the same way about me, though, and who could blame her?

  I have given her nothing to prove to her what type of person I am. She only has the rumors about me to go on. I try not to worry about it too much, but it is so hard for me to let go and stop worrying. For so long, it was just Everett and me.

  I was the only one who was there to protect him. We were living in a consistent mode of fight or flight and now I have to share him; I don’t have to fight or flee with him anymore. I take in a deep breath and try to relax. For now, he is safe. We are safe.

  As long as he is with the Knights, I do not have to worry about him the way I used to. He will always have food in his belly and a roof over his head with them. When I look at Everett, I sometimes forget this and have to repeat it to myself; he is safe, he is safe… I am safe.

  “Well, if your hair falls out, don’t go blaming it on me,” Roxie quips. She sits down on the toilet, putting her black wedged shoes on the cabinet across from her. I clip up my hair and sit down on the tub in front of her. Her short, black hair is gelled out in spiky layers around her head, and her skin is a pale shade of white that takes on an almost ghostly appearance under the florescent lights.

  “So, do you want to talk about Third?”

  She shoots me a dirty look. “Do you want to talk about boy wonder?” That answers my question.

  “How about we talk about our plans on getting summer jobs,” I say. She smiles, “safe. I was thinking we can hit up every store, restaurant, and boutique downtown. Someone is bound to give two lovely, charming teenage girls like us a job.” Now it is my turn to roll
my eyes. “I can’t believe your moms are making you get a job,” I exclaim. Roxie’s mothers give her everything under the sun from a brand new convertible Bug to a kick ass in-home movie theatre. One would think that having everything handed to her on a silver platter that she would act like a spoiled brat, but she is the complete opposite. Actually, Roxie’s life is a complete contradiction. If I had not seen it for myself, I would never have believed it. Roxie, with her black lipstick and dark clothes, looks like she should be biting the heads off small birds and scaring the daylights out of little children, but she loves anything pink, frilly and girly, she idolizes Taylor Swift, and swoons over Boy Bands.

  “Yeah, something about learning responsibility.” She sticks her finger in her mouth and makes a gagging noise and I laugh. “I tried to tell them that they were being unreasonable, that this is my last summer to be a teen, so getting a job and trying to be responsible is the last thing I want to do.”

  I get up and look in the mirror at the bleach stripping the color from my hair. I wish it could strip the torment that is constantly swirling inside of me as well.

  ###

  “It looks… lovely… but I would have taken you to a salon to get it done if you had asked me.” Mrs. Knight purses her lips as she fingers a piece of my newly bleached hair. That pang of guilt is back, plucking away at my insides.

  “It’s okay. I used to do it myself all the time.” I smile at her as I pour a large glass of Coke with ice.

  Mrs. Knight made me her personal doll when I came to live with them. She dressed me up, did my hair, and changed my clothes. She thought that she might be able to change the reputation I have with a new outfit, but she was wrong. I know she was warned about me from other shocked mothers that called up when they found out she was taking in the little, druggie tramp and her poor, damaged brother. This town is too small and the ladies too southern for gossip not to get to her. After a few of those calls, she took me down to the local Create and Cuts as well as for a trip to the Gap. I appreciate what she was trying to do for me, but I cannot walk around anymore feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. Pretending I am someone I am not. It’s too confusing.