Nikki was the young girl my father had killed when he was in his early 30s and I was in my early teens. She was selling cupcakes and lemonade from a stand when he accidentally backed onto her lawn and crushed her chest. Her lungs collapsed. Both arms broken. She survived for a few minutes, but died in the ambulance.
I still had the newspaper clippings from the accident in my bedroom drawer. To remind myself that I shouldn’t become him. That I should cut back on the drinking.
(How’s that working out for you?)
On that drive home, I swore I had it all figured out. The little girl must have been the ghost of the girl my father had killed. She wanted revenge. My father had passed away earlier in the year, so she targeted me instead.
Or maybe… Maybe she didn’t want me to become like him either. I’d only seen her on the nights I drank. It made sense. Maybe she was a warning. A reminder.
When I got home, I shuffled through the papers in my drawers, and found the ancient newspaper clipping to test my theory. Except, I didn’t see a pale girl with blonde hair. I saw a dark-skinned, big-boned, brunette girl.
So she wasn’t the kid my father had killed. She wasn’t a ghost.
Then what the hell was she?
Maybe she was real. Maybe she was just a sneaky little kid that wanted to prank me. Or maybe she was some type of projection from the future. The image of the girl I was going to kill if I didn’t take it easy. If I didn’t stop drinking.
It sounded like sci-fi nonsense, like a badly written nightmare, but it convinced me to stop.
No beer. No wine. No shots. Not even any weed.
My sober streak lasted for three straight weeks. And then there was a party.
I didn’t intend on drinking. But I didn’t intend on seeing my ex, either. As soon as we locked eyes, I headed for the fridge. Grabbed a cherry wine cooler. And then followed it up with several jell-o shots of the same flavor.
When it was time to leave, I checked my entire car to be safe. Looked in the trunk. Looked on top of the hood. Looked underneath the wheels.
And saw a tuft of hair.
(fuckfuckfuck)
I dropped to the ground and crawled under as deeply as I could. Grabbed the yellow strands. And pulled out an oversized doll.
It had Xs over the eyes, drawn in purple chalk. Half of its body was covered in a tight black dress, similar to the one I was wearing. And there was a star drawn on the ankle in black Sharpie. It kind of looked like my tattoo.
The little girl must have done this. It must’ve been her. I couldn’t see her, but I could picture her laughing at me. Sitting behind the wheel, watching me from the backup camera.
And I could picture her next moves. Shifting the gear from neutral into reverse. Slamming on the pedal. Running me over and watching my chest burst.
And that’s when I realized. She wasn’t the girl my father had killed. She wasn’t the girl that I was going to kill.
She was the girl that was going to kill me.
