Dolls were the ideal companions for her.
"Who wants tea?" the little girl asked, tin cups rattling on the tray as she carried it towards the table. Rag dolls and plush animals sat limply in small wooden chairs. The stitches all over their cloth bodies showed they'd once been broken, wretched things, abandoned like pieces of trash until she'd taken then home and sewn them up. "Ah!" She tripped over her feet, and the tray flew from her hands. Toy cups went rolling across the table and floor. "I'm sorry everyone!" she cried, crawling around on her hands and knees to gather everything up. She cringed, imagining what the people at school would have said.
"Bad luck Miranda! Bad luck Miranda! Unlucky, ugly, useless Miranda!" they would chant. She could almost see their pitiless smirks, and felt her face heat up with shame. At least the dolls weren't like that. They didn't make fun of her. They didn't exclude her or call her names. Her clumsiness didn't annoy them. The dolls accepted her no matter what, and they were the only ones she could be helpful towards.
With trembling hands, Miranda placed the tea tray on the table and picked up the nearest doll. Its head flopped backwards, and it stared up at her with its one button eye. Its body was a patchwork of crudely-stitched pieces of fabric, coming apart at the seams and letting stuffing peek through. Clumps of its yellow wool hair were missing. Its mouth was a red felt crescent, a smile that Miranda liked to imagine was one of gratitude for the sewing job, no matter how botched it had been.
"Thank you, Elise," she said, tears welling up in her eyes as she hugged the doll. "Thank you for being my friend even though I can't do anything right."
Some of the stitches gave way, and the old doll fell apart in her arms.
"Oh, Elise..." Miranda sobbed, the tears spilling over and coursing down her cheeks, a lump forming in her throat. She dropped to her knees and scooped up what was left of the doll, but she could tell that it was beyond repair this time. The fabric was too worn and full of holes for her to do anything with. "I'm sorry... I'm so s-sorry I c-couldn't do more for you." She choked the words out. That feeling of emptiness and loneliness spread through her once more like an old wound opening up. She could fix the dolls for a while, but she couldn't keep the damage repaired forever.
She always failed everyone, even her dolls.