Page 136 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
Ellis’s voice cracked on the word again, and she blinked. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t fill the silence with well-meaning words of understanding. I just waited, because I knew she wasn’t done.
“I’m scared,” she admitted, her eyes filling. “This past week I’ve felt more alive than I ever have. Felt more emotion than I’ve felt in years. So many new and old sensations I’d forgotten about. And now I’m worried I’ll waste it, because I have no idea what to do with that aliveness. And you… you’ve just come out of nowhere, and it’s a lot, Dove. It’s so much—and not enough—all at once.”
I tilted my head, about to open my mouth to say something, when she hit me with her next words—and they nearly knocked the air from my lungs.
“You’ve made me want things I’ve already grieved,” she said softly, blinking away the tears that had been building. “Things I’d long ago given up on, to protect people from what it’s like to be in my world. I grieved it. Gave up on it. And now… I feel so selfish.”
I smiled at her gently, trying to calm my racing heart as I looked at her across the table—her blunt and pure honesty so alarming, and so alluring, all at once.
Ellis didn’t play games. She was honest and raw when she needed to be. It was refreshing to know someone who justlet out what they were feeling, not hiding behind pretense or performance. And it made me feel brave. Brave enough to be just as honest right back.
“Well,” I began gently, tapping my fingers against the glass of water, “I’m giving you full permission to be selfish with me, Ellis Langley. In fact, I think you have the right to be selfish, whether you think so or not. I think you’ve gone so long living in some lifeless void that you deserve everything and anything you want.”
My mouth went dry as my next words balanced on the edge of my tongue. I eyed her smooth skin, full lips, and delicate collarbones.
“I’m more than willing to give it all to you.”
My words earned both a nervous laugh from her and a deep flush to her cheeks. I didn’t miss the subtle swallow, or the way her eyes roamed my face, lingering on my lips, only a small spark of hesitancy flickering in them. She licked her lower lip—likely subconsciously—and took a sip of water.
I let her off the hook.
“People fake things all the time, Ellis,” I said softly. “Especially life. Everyone fakes life, it’s the coping mechanism for both the emotionally stable and unstable. And considering you’re out of practice with living it, you’re pretty much up to speed with everyone else.”
She huffed a laugh. “So we’re all just faking it till we make it, then. If we ever do.”
“Exactly,” I said, smiling at the disbelief in her eyes.
That earned a laugh from her—the sound making my heart ache in this gentle, unbearable way. She flicked a lock of auburn hair over her shoulder, her eyes shining with a lightness that had only seemed to grow these last couple of days. She was here. She was present—faking it or not.
I frowned softly and toyed with the necklace at my throat. “I’ve been faking it too, you know.”
She tilted her head slightly. “Yeah?”
I nodded and glanced at my nearly finished glass of water.
“Yeah. I mean, since Margaret died, I’ve been acting like I know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing, but I have no clue.” I ran a hand through the hair I’d pulled down tonight, out of the usual space buns. “I mean, I know the business side of running the shop, but it feels like there’s this expectation for me to just slide into the lineage Margaret left me. Like I’ve put on a robe that’s too big. Not meant for me.”
“You don’t want the shop?” Ellis asked softly, her eyes searching when I met them.
“I don’t want the pressure,” I admitted with a sad sigh. “And I’m starting to realize it comes with the territory. My mom doesn’t believe I can run the shop—that I’m too disorganized, that I don’t have the drive. My uncle thinks I’ll burn the place to the ground and rob him of money he thinks is his. And, you know, some days I believe them.”
My eyes burned.
“I’m not Margaret. I don’t feel powerful. I don’t have her aura, her charisma.”
Ellis’s eyes held mine firmly as she studied me with such softness that I nearly looked away. But I couldn’t. I was too pulled in by those green orbs that saw straight through me.
“I didn’t know Margaret,” Ellis said slowly, biting her lip. “But she knew you. She basically raised you, from what you’ve told me. And I don’t think she would’ve left her life’s work and legacy to someone she didn’t trust—someone she didn’t believe in.”
The words hit me harder than I expected, and my throat tightened. I couldn’t speak.
Ellis leaned forward then, reaching across the table to rest her warm palm over my hand.
“Maybe it’s not about the performance, Dove,” she whispered, her eyes flicking between mine. “Maybe it’s in the presence. The same as life.”
Her hand tightened on mine, and I gripped it back, her words floating over me as I looked at her—the way her copper hair caught the glimmering light, the tenderness in her eyes so barely contained it made me hold my breath. Something shifted in me in that moment—quiet and seismic—a rigidity buried deep in my chest finally beginning to soften.
We sat like that in silence for a while, just looking at each other—seeing each other in a way that other people couldn’t, and maybe never would.
