Page 91 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
“Awesome. All washed,” she said too quickly, as she slid off the bench. “We’ll throw them in the dryer then.”
I nodded once, tightly, and watched her scoop up the clothes and hurry to the dryer. I pulled out my phone to busy myself, glancing toward the far corner where the magazine woman had been sitting, only to find she was no longer there.
Jesus. How spaced out had I been?
My heart still wouldn’t settle. It kept tripping over itself, as if it had forgotten its usual rhythm—and maybe, for the first time, its erratic beating wasn’t because it used to belong to someone else.
From the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of pink.
I looked toward the vending machine, past where Dove was bent halfway into the dryer, putting in the clothes. Liv leaned casually against the glass pane, a small grin on her face, arms crossed. She wiggled her brows and shot me a wink.
Dove slammed the dryer door closed, and the moment shattered for good.
There wasn’ta whole lot of talking once we left the laundromat.
By the time we made it back to the motel and put away our now-clean clothes, we only had time for quick showers and a stop at a diner for a rushed dinner—so I could take my pills—before heading off to the drive-in for gate opening. Dove was insistent on getting a good spot, and Liv was practically giddy by the time we arrived.
Once we’d parked, we were roped into more photos and content creation. Now, I sat in the back seat of the Mustang—having pulled the two front seats down for comfort. Dove had snuck out two motel-room pillows and some blankets to build a cozy nest, and she was currently in line at the concession stand, trying to decide on snacks.
The screen stood like a white monolith in front of the growing rows of cars, headlights blinking off one by one as dusk settled like a blanket. I’d never admit it out loud, but this was kind of cool.
Liv was stretched out on the roof of the Mustang, clearly satisfied with her pit stop.
I opened the bottle of water I’d picked up earlier from Chick-fil-A and took a long drink. My mouth was dry. I ignored my phone completely—having already messaged my mom with a trip update and, foolishly, told her about the drive-in.
“Don’t worry,” Liv said from above, tapping the roof with confidence in her voice. “I’ll keep an eye out for masked murderers.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not worried.”
“You should be,” she replied seriously. “But I’m here.”
A moment later, the back passenger-side door opened and Dove climbed in, balancing a precariously stacked assortment of snacks in her arms. She dropped them between us with a satisfied grin.
“All right,” she said, setting down two sodas. “We have popcorn, M&M’s, and Twizzlers. You’re welcome.”
“I haven’t had Twizzlers in forever,” I said, diving on them with shining eyes.
She didn’t sit right away. Instead, she focused on arranging everything neatly in the space between us. I couldn’t tell if she was building a dividing wall on purpose or simply organizing the snacks. Her eyes flicked to mine for a beat—curious, cautious—before she finally settled into her seat just as the previews began to roll.
I grabbed a handful of popcorn.
“This is kind of awesome,” Dove said softly, reaching for some popcorn herself, her eyes shining. “I’ve never been to a drive-in before.”
“Me either,” I said. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and the words slipped out before I could stop them. “This isn’t the worst off-schedule pit stop.”
“Thanks,” Liv called out loudly from the roof.
I rolled my eyes and looked at Dove, who was grinning.
“I mean, the last off-schedule stop was the Gemini Giant, and look what happened there.”
Dove stifled a laugh. “Fair point.”
The movie pulled me in quickly, and I found myself anxiously eating as I got sucked into it. It had just moved into a shaky pan of a suburban street, the camera zooming slowly toward a two-story house, when Liv spoke up from the roof.
“Man, Jamie Lee Curtis was hot and all,” she said, “but she makes a lot of bad decisions in this movie.”
I didn’t respond—just kept chewing on Twizzlers like they were some kind of self-soothing anxiety tool—as Liv’s voice floated down from the roof like static on a radio.
