Where’s Molly

Present
2022

When I was a kid, my grandma once convinced me that my mother came out of the womb talking.

I’m still convinced of it.

“So, I told her, ‘Ma’am, if you’re going to keep talkin’ all that shit, at least carry some toilet paper with you to wipe your damn mouth.’”

Molly cups a hand over her smiling lips, green eyes glittering with mirth as she shakes her head at my mom.

She used to embarrass the absolute shit out of me and Olivia. But once we lost my sister, I found a new appreciation for her eccentric personality. She’s all I have in this world, and despite her utter heartbreak over her daughter’s death, she always showed up for me. Never let me down, despite how hard the world tried to kick her to the ground.

“I don’t like bullies. What do you kids call ’em these days? Karens? Well, she was one of them. Except I just called her what she really is, which is a defective sperm that grew too much of a mouth instead of a brain.”

“You’re such a poet, Ma,” I comment dryly.

The tiger lilies I had just bought Mom are arranged in the crystal vase she’s had for decades at the center of the dinner table, our empty plates and wineglasses in front of us.

I pull out my pack of nicotine gum and shove one in my mouth. I’m tempted to eat the whole sleeve of them now that we’ve finished dinner. Mom already served the peach cobbler, which I skipped. I’m not much of a sweets person.

Unless, of course, it’s Molly’s pussy.

“Am I? Next time, I’ll charge ya just to listen to me speak then,” she retorts. “All this time, and I coulda been getting rich just from yelling at you.”

I chuckle, glancing at Molly and finding her biting back a smile. One of these days, I’ll teach her how to set them free.

“Have some more to drink,” Mom encourages, pouring more red wine into Molly’s glass. “With as stiff as you are, I fear my son will be marrying a wooden puppet. He’ll be picking splinters out of his—”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I groan. “Quit talking.”

“I’ll make sure to buy him a magnifying glass then,” Molly says, one corner of her lips curled upward.

“For the splinters or his penis?”

“Ma.”

A laugh bursts from Molly’s throat, and instantly, I forgive my mother for being so crass. I’m used to her making jokes at my expense, but I’m confident Molly has never met anyone like my mother, and her personality definitely isn’t a one-size-fits-all. There’s been a few girlfriends in the past that she’s scared off, which instantly told me they weren’t worth it anyway.

“I’m not gonna scare ya off, am I?” Mom asks her, as if reading my mind.

She shakes her head. “I don’t scare that easily. Not anymore, at least.”

“See? She’s tough,” Mom tells me, then focuses on Molly, a sly grin on her face. She’s going to say something terrible, except I don’t have time to stop her. “How viable is your uterus? Eggs haven’t shriveled yet, right? I’ve been waiting for grandkids.”

“I’m sorry about her,” I apologize, leading Molly into my childhood room. “Believe it or not, she doesn’t ask about every woman’s uterus that I’ve brought around.”

She gives me a guarded look. “How many women have you brought around?”

My expression is serious as I say, “Two. And they were hopeless attempts at trying to make myself feel what I felt with you.”

She turns away, choosing not to answer.

“My mom really likes you,” I tell her, refusing to let her run away, even if it’s in her own mind.

“She hardly knows me,” Molly argues softly, running her fingers over a high school soccer trophy.

“She knows all that she needs to,” I say, shrugging a shoulder.

She raises a brow. “What have you told her?”

I grin. “Only the important parts. That you’re incredibly strong, funny, and the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. I think she can see that already.”

“What if she’s wrong? We’re not even dating.”

My muscles tighten, and my teeth clench. I’m overcome with the urge to show her just how wrong she is. She’s mine, as explicitly as the heart in my chest.

I’m advancing on her before she can slide her fingers across another trophy. Her breath halts as I crowd into her, my chest molding against her back. She shivers as I lean in closely, feathering my lips across the shell of her ear.

Those little tremors are not nearly enough.

I want her to fucking convulse like she’s being possessed, and it’ll be my cock inside her while she does.

“You think I need an anniversary date to put my baby inside you?”

I don’t recognize my own voice anymore, but I do find that little gasp familiar.

“You wouldn’t,” she breathes. “We hardly know each other.”

“No,” I agree. “Not yet, at least.” I place a kiss below her ear. “But I would. I absolutely—” Kiss. “—fucking—” Kiss. “—would.”

She whips around, those fiery eyes pinned to mine as she snaps, “I wouldn’t let you. What if I find you to be absolutely insufferable? You could leave food crusted on your dishes instead of rinsing them off. Or have dirty clothes all over the floor and soggy towels on the bed.” She pauses and glances nervously to the side. “You could find my nightmares intolerable.”

“You don’t think I have them?” I question, enjoying the feeling of her heart beating against my chest. “I’ve suffered in life, too, baby. Just in different ways.”

“You have nightmares?” she questions curiously.

In response, I grab her hand and pull her after me.

“Where…?

She trails off as I lead her out of my old room, down the hall, and to the last door on the right.

She doesn’t speak as she takes in the pale yellow walls, blue-and-yellow duvet, and the pictures pinned to the corkboard hanging above her white desk. Pictures of a blonde-haired girl sticking her tongue out next to friends or holding up the peace sign and pursing her lips.

She was beautiful.

“Her name was Olivia. She was murdered when she was sixteen, and I was twelve. It ultimately led me to get into the business I’m in. She and her friend were caught trying to get into a nightclub with a fake ID. Her killer was a cop who came to pick them up, and she never came home.”

“I’m sorry,” Molly whispers, slowly walking up to the photos and studying them closely. “Not many people come home.”

“You did, though, didn’t you?”

Slowly, she turns her head just enough to peer at me over her shoulder.

“If anyone deserved to be the one to escape, it would’ve been her.” She turns away, but not before I see the sadness polluting her eyes. “Turns out, I wasn’t important enough to deserve it. I thought Layla needed me, but I think I only delayed her happiness. My father was being investigated, and eventually, CPS would’ve found him unfit anyway. I was convinced she’d just go to another unfit home, but what if she didn’t? What if she found a good home, rather than me taking her away to live four miserable years with me? No stability. Being hungry all the time—” Her voice cracks, and she cuts herself off abruptly.

“You’re wrong, ya know,” I tell her, fire building in my chest. “Or, at least, there’s a good chance you are. She would’ve gone into the system, and there’s no guarantee she would’ve ended up with a good family. She could’ve gone from one abuser to the next.”

Molly nods, the movement choppy, but she doesn’t appear convinced.

I’m furious that she could think so little of herself. Even more furious at the people who made her feel as though she’s not a goddamn goddess walking this earth that we don’t deserve.

“You are the most important person I’ve ever met, Molly,” I whisper. “And while I will always be devastated that my sister didn’t survive, I’m so fucking happy that you did.”

Though her back is facing me, I hear a soft sniffle. She doesn’t respond. Instead, she stares at Olivia, that smile on her face forever frozen in time.

“For years, I couldn’t step foot in this room. Anytime I saw those pictures with her smiling face, it would slowly morph into a dramatic frown, her mouth opening on a wail. It looked fucking demonic, and I had all but convinced myself that was the real expression frozen on her face when she died. Her cries of terror outlived her heartbeat.”

“Do you want to talk about her?” Molly asks quietly, voice clogged with tears. “I’d like to get to know her.”

My chest tightens, and I can’t tell if I want to wrap her in my arms because she cares, or because I need something to hold on to while I tell her about my sister.

“She loved 80s music. ‘Sunglasses at Night’ by Corey Hart was her favorite song, and she insisted on constantly wearing these neon pink sunglasses for three months after she heard it for the first time. Mom thought she was the cutest thing, and I made it a point to tell her how ridiculous she looked.”

Molly’s head swivels to find the picture of Olivia wearing them, a bright smile pasted on her face as she sits beside me in our mom’s car, my face slackened in a dry, unamused expression. She’d just gotten her driver’s license that day and, of course, blasted that Corey Hart song all the way home.

“She wore pink lipstick every day, even when she was sick. She always said the version of her without it was her evil alter ego. She hated tomatoes but put ketchup on everything, even her mashed potatoes. Which I still find very fucking gross, by the way.”

“I would have to agree with that,” Molly chuckles softly.

Her stare slides to a picture of Olivia sitting beside a bald little boy in a hospital bed, with birthday hats atop their heads.

“When she turned sixteen, she spent her birthday at the children’s hospital in the cancer unit because she felt guilty that they may never see that age.”

My heart aches, and for a moment, it feels impossible to continue.

“She never knew she wouldn’t see past that age, either.”

Molly turns to me, sadness swirling in her gaze.

“She sounds like she was an incredible kid,” she whispers. “Amazing, really.”

I nod, working to swallow past the rock in my throat.

Almost shyly, she grabs my hand and walks me over to Olivia’s bed. I’m not sure what she intends, but my head is too fuzzy to ask.

With a slight smile on her face, she lies down on one side of the bed and pats the empty spot next to her. Confused, I follow suit, the both of us staring up at the ceiling silently. Right as I begin to ask her what she’s doing, a burst of music fills the room.

My eyes flick to where she holds her phone up, “Sunglasses at Night” playing from the speakers.

“Mol—”

“Shh,” she hushes, laying her hand over mine. “Don’t be rude. Olivia might be trying to listen, too.”

I can’t breathe.

A fire explodes in my chest, burning a path down to our entwined hands.

I hope to God that it burns her, too.

I want the flames to melt our hands together so she can never let go.

If she wanted me to fall in love with her, she only needed to tell me. Now, she has no choice in the matter.

Though, I suppose she never really did.

Turning my head, I stare at her until she meets my eyes. “I will chase away all your nightmares until they grow wary of returning. They will fear me, my little ghost. But you never will.”