Page 153 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
My stomach twisted, and I bit down a sob.
“Dee Dee—Ryan,” Liv rasped, her hands covering her face as if she could press the memory out of her mind. Will it to disappear. “He was on the floor of the stage. I—I don’t know if he was ducking for cover or if he had been—” Liv choked, unable to get the word out. “I couldn’t see Bri. We got separated as soon aspeople began running. And Jedd and Kyle had been at the bar. I couldn’t see them. I was just being swept up in this—this tidal wave of bodies…”
Her hands fell from her face, her eyes near glazed, as if she were back inside that moment. Back inside the club.
“I could feel people under my feet,” she said, weeping tearlessly. “Being crushed. I didn’t know if they’d been shot or had just fallen in the stampede. I moved with it. Fighting against it wasn’t an option. Something—something primal in my brain took over. I kept moving. Kept pushing.”
Her hands shook, and she looked down at them.
“I just became—became this animal that was trying to survive. There was this red door that led to a fire escape. It’s where the crowd was headed, and I ran with it. There was so much screaming. The floor was slippery… not sticky like—like a club should’ve been.”
Something strangled sounded in my throat, and Dove gripped my hand tighter. Her face had gone ashen, her eyes filled with tears, her other hand covering her mouth.
“I heard… I heard a familiar scream,” Liv gasped, gripping her thighs with a look of anguish. “Bri. Bri was screaming. My name, over and over. I paused in the rush. Something—I remember something sharp hitting my leg. But I just remember Bri’s name ringing in my mind, over and over.”
She blinked hard, and her jaw tightened as she looked at both of us. “Then I woke up and saw myself on an operating table and my organs being put into coolers.” Her eyes met mine. “Then I was with Ellis.”
I couldn’t breathe right, and a cry tore from my lips—raw, involuntary, awful. Dove’s own stifled sobs echoed beside me. The panic—it was as if I could feel it. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my link to Liv, if it was her panic and terror pouringinto me, or if it was mine. The pure, blinding terror those people must have felt.
The sick… sick realization that someone had decided the people in that club didn’t have lives worth living, just because of who they loved. Because of who they were.
Liv looked directly at me, her eyes hollow and empty.
“I ran,” she whimpered weakly. “I left my friends. I saved myself—yet I didn’t. I still ended up dead. But I ran. In the defining moment of my life, I ran.”
My lips parted, but no words came. I couldn’t soothe her. Couldn’t offer empty comforts likeThat’s not trueoryou didn’t have a choice. Couldn’t say Fight or flight kicked in. You’re only human.
I couldn’t say a word, because the weight of her revelation pressed down on my chest, and every phrase I thought I could offer just felt too small.
So I sat with it.
Sat with the aching despair that filled the car as Liv aired her truth, and the silence held us in an icy embrace I felt deep in my bones.
DOVE
Tip #24: The side of the highway is as holy as any church if someone tells the truth there.
My knees had begun to ache from how long I’d been sitting with my legs tucked under me in the passenger seat, facing Liv as we all sat there in silence.
I still didn’t move. No one did.
Ellis looked pale, as if all the color had drained from her face, eyes far away. She was probably stuck back in Liv’s story, her mind likely a war of screams and smoke and the fire exit Liv either had or hadn’t made it through.
Liv couldn’t cry—not properly. There were no tears or snot-filled sniffs, but she made soft, guttural noises, as if her soul was trying to.
Eventually, I cleared my throat, sniffling. My voice came out scratchy, hoarse now.
“You’re not a coward, Liv.”
She didn’t meet my eyes. She just continued to stare toward the horizon with a look so distant, I wondered if she could even hear me.
“You ran,” I said softly. “So what? That’s a normal human reaction. But you said you stopped.”
“Probably because I got shot or something,” she muttered, her voice flat.
Silence again. Then Ellis spoke, her voice soft.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry that you—that you died like that. I mean, I’m sorry you died at all, but dying like that… and then seeing yourself… seeing your organs… and then me.Me.”
