Page 19 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
I bit my lip.
I wasn’tactuallydating, I reminded myself. Not seriously. I wouldn’t allow it. The idea was laughable. Who in their right mind would choose to date someone with my history? Who would willingly sign up for a relationship that would drain them the way one with me inevitably would?
Dr. Mason wanted me to engage with the world outside my family. Fine.
Did this also count as the “research anything other than death” component of her homework?
I grinned and opened Google.
Best LGBTQ dating apps.
My fingers typed deftly, and I hit enter before I could overthink it.
Immediately, a list popped up, and my eyes skimmed past the generic ones, skipping anything that lookedtoostraight. I needed low stakes and low pressure.
One link caught my eye.
Femme– A dating app for LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people.
My finger clicked.
Find love today! Create your profile now!
I grimaced but hit the sign-up button anyway, fully aware I wasn’t looking for love. I was looking for a coffee date. It would be just enough to get Dr. Mason off my back so I could return topracticalassignments instead of whatever this was.
This was ridiculous.
But I was already in too deep.
Once sign-up was complete and I agreed to the terms and conditions I hadn’t bothered to read, I stared at the blank profile page.
Name, age, location.
Easy.
About Me.
I paused.
“Ellis, love, did you want to go out for some dinner tonight?” my mother’s voice called through my open door.
I slammed the laptop shut as she entered, spinning around in my chair like a guilty teenager caught watching something they definitely shouldn’t have been.
Her steps slowed at my flurry of movement, her brows raised as she nodded toward the laptop.
“Do I want to know what that was?”
“It was nothing,” I said quickly, my voice pitched higher than normal. I cleared my throat. “Just... nothing.”
She folded her arms and gave me thelook, the one that used to terrify me as a child but now mostly just made me feel like an idiot.
“Ellis.”
I groaned and dragged a hand down my face. “It’s just a stupid assignment from Dr. Mason.”
Her eyes flicked to the closed laptop, then back to me, curiosity sparking in her expression. “A therapy assignment?”
“Yes,” I admitted after a moment’s hesitation.
