Page 94 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
“Apparently going down on a girl isn’t that hard,” Liv said, ignoring my discomfort, and my stomach dropped at her blunt words. “They say if you just do the letters of the alphabet, it’s a safe bet to get a girl off.”
I blinked at her, my next words spilling out uncontrolled. “Wait… uppercase or lowercase?”
“Mommy?”
A small voice near the restroom entrance caught my attention. I turned to see a little girl—probably no older than six—looking up at her mother, who was watching me warily.
“Why is that lady talking to herself?”
The woman shot me a disapproving look and quickly gripped her daughter’s arm, tugging her away before I could say anything.
I turned back to Liv. She was gone.
My stomach seemed to be dancing anxiously now and I wanted to blame it on the twizzlers, popcorn and m&m’s, but deep down I knew it wasn’t that at all.
God, I was a mess. I didn’t know how to date someone. I didn’t even know if this was that—or if it could be. Would I let it be?
Expiration date.
Pain.
Alexis.
No.
No, I would not let that happen.
DOVE
Tip #14: Just like your feelings, let the polaroid develop before you decide what you’re seeing.
Baxter Springs felt like a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of location, tucked away in the bottom corner of Kansas, but the Route 66 landmark sign was impossible to overlook. Sunflowers curled up on either side of it, the paint chipped in places but still holding strong, like it had a few hundred years left in it yet.
Liv had been prancing around, offering her usual running commentary, her sequin-covered clothes glinting under the morning sunlight as she boldly declared herself queen of the two-lane highway, standing in the middle of the road and playing a game of chicken. Except, of course, the cars went straight through her.
Ellis had shuddered and looked away, determinedly avoiding the sight.
I watched her for a second longer than I should have, something that was becoming a bit of a recurring habit lately.She stood beside me, squinting at her Polaroid camera and muttering something about lighting settings.
Her hair was half up, a few loose strands falling against her cheeks while the rest was twisted into a claw clip, the red tones catching the morning sun. She wore a pair of cute khaki shorts and a fitted black tee, her white sneakers gathering Kansas dust. I wondered if I’d wake tomorrow morning to find them looking untouched again, like the day hadn’t dared to mark her.
Her sunglasses were perched on her nose as she fumbled with the camera. She looked... good. Agoodthat came from being just slightly at ease. Not totally unbothered, because that wasn’t exactly the Ellis Langley MO, but the tension had softened again, just like it had yesterday morning. Then again, it had all fallen to shit just as quickly.
She had even smiled—genuinely—at Liv over breakfast, and the sight of it had nearly knocked the wind out of me.
Things felt... different.
Yesterday had knocked us off whatever course we were on. I wasn’t stupid. Ever since the field, when I watched her scream at the universe like she expected it to scream back, something had shifted. The way she sat beside me afterward, leaning into me so slightly I could’ve imagined it. The laundromat, where she opened up about growing up sick—and, God, that moment when I placed my hand over hers and she looked at me with a fire blazing in her eyes.
Her face had been so raw. As if she hadn’t realized how badly she needed the contact until it happened.
Even at the drive-in, things had changed. The air had been filled with something electric—something I hoped I wasn’t imagining. Sure, Halloween wasn’t exactly a romantic movie, and Jamie Lee Curtis screaming on screen wasn’t the soundtrack to anyone’s idea of a date, but the way Ellis had forgotten herselfin that moment, clutching my arm like it anchored her to this world...
Only to release me like I’d burned her.
Was I imagining something that wasn’t there?
I gazed at Ellis as she began lining up her shot, pure concentration on her face. She’d barely looked at me over breakfast, choosing instead to engage with Liv, an unexpected development, considering her usual steadfast refusal to do so. Was she avoiding me?
