Barbie World (Baby Doll Series) by Heidi Acosta

are in. She can feel it, too, because she shuts her eyes against it. Slightly tilting her head towards me, I take her face in my hand, caressing her chin with my thumb. She nestles against my touch and I know she needs me to touch her and it’s all I want to do; to touch her, to reassure her.
    I trace the soft petals of her lips with my fingers, she opens her mouth slightly and I let my finger linger on her bottom lip. She barely kisses the tip of my finger and I want to fall to the ground with her here in this magical world we created, to go places we have yet to explore together.
    I step closer to her, placing one of my hands on her hip and the other on her neck, pulling her close to me so I can drink her in. She puts her hands on the back of my neck, playing with the curls that form at the base. She is driving me crazy. I can no longer let this scene play out. I need to have her mouth on mine. I need to taste her again. I want to remember what she tastes like. She wouldn’t let me kiss her last night; a mistake I will not allow to happen again. I lean in and she pulls up closer to me, the heat of our breaths dancing together.
    “HONK. HONK. HONK.” Mrs. Berry’s white Lincoln Town Car pulls up behind us. Barbie jerks away from me, turning towards the car. Slipping out of my grasp, she runs over to the car and says something to Mrs. Berry before looking back at me. “You never had me to lose.”
    She opens the door and gets in the car. I watch them drive off. Mrs. Berry giving me the death stare, shaking her head at me as they pass. She is wrong. I do have everything to lose in this game we are playing because I gave her my heart and it is hers to do with as she likes.
    ###
    I pull into Katie’s circular driveway, but keep the engine running. I should turn around and go find Barbie. Too late, Katie’s mother spots me and gives me a wave. Her mother is following around the gardener, pointing out where to plant the impatiens. She wears a pair of pressed Khaki slacks and a white button up shirt with a black cardigan tied over her shoulders even though the thermometer reads ninety-eight degrees. Just looking at her makes me feel hot and constricted. She looks like an older, harder version of Katie. She would be almost pretty if she would smile, but her face is paralyzed from too much Botox and years of showing no emotion.
    “Dylan.” She walks over to me and places her cold, thin hand on my shoulder and kisses me on the check. Friendly, but still informal. A chill runs through me. I am starting to get used to it. I kiss her cheek back because that is what she expects. It is like kissing cold, hard plastic.
    “Hi, Mrs. Bloom. Is Katie here?” I know the answer. I just spoke to her a few moments ago on the phone and I have her car so where could she go? However, Mrs. Bloom approves of only a proper southern boy.
    “I believe she is upstairs in her room,” she says.
    “Okay, thanks.” I pull from her cold grasp and jog to the front door.
    This is how things are between her mother and father. Mrs. Bloom greets me with a cold kiss and Mr. Bloom with a pat on the back and the same questions that follow every time. What did I think of last night’s game? How is my mother? And how are those poor orphan children that my good natured parents took in? I don’t know. I don’t watch football. My mother is stressed to the max and snapping at me every time my foot passes Barbie’s bedroom door, like I am going to go in there with my raging teenage hormones and do it with her while my mother frets outside the door. Oh, and the girl I love is torturously close to the point that I can smell her sweetly sugared skin, yet she barely looks at me. So I answer with, the game was great, my mother is great, and the poor orphans are great. This answer appeases everyone and I get to continue to pretend to have a relationship with their spoiled rotten selfish—
    “Dylan is that you?” Katie calls from somewhere up stairs.
    I walk