Page 125 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
Ellis let out a soft laugh and shook her head at Liv.
“Existing is just breathing,” I said to Ellis now. “But living is risk, and I think it’s what we’re all meant to do here. To risk feeling everything.”
Ellis made a face. “Well, I’m not sure I’m brave enough to feel it all, that’s for sure.”
“You already are,” I told her with a grin. “You’ve made it this far, and you’ve had some pretty big feelings along the way.”
She flushed.
“So maybe the point isn’t to find meaning,” Liv said softly, looping her ankles together. “Maybe it’s just to make it.”
“So the meaning of life is whatever the hell we decide it is,” I said to them both, grinning almost wildly.
“Maybe it’s justthis,” Ellis murmured, gesturing to the fire pit and us, a small smile of contentment on her face.
“What?” Liv asked with wide eyes. “Ghosts, fire pits, and unresolved queer tension?”
I barked a laugh and met Ellis’s eyes. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
The world had finally stilled,so many hours later, as Ellis and I lay in the tent, the thin walls fluttering in the gentle breeze. Nomore crunching footsteps as people trudged to the communal bathroom, no lingering sounds of active campfires. All I could hear was the hush of evening and the soft hum of Liv’s voice drifting from the roof of the Mustang, where she’d decided to sleep tonight, the stars her ceiling.
It was slightly colder than I’d expected, and the cheap sleeping bags crinkled with every small shift. I’d added an extra layer of clothes, and so had Ellis, but I could still feel her warmth beside me—pressed side by side, shoulder to shoulder—as we stared into the pitch-black silence.
“What doyouthink happens when we die?” Ellis asked softly beside me, breaking the stillness like popping a balloon with a pin.
Her words sat heavily between us, and I let out a low breath.
“I think it’s different for everyone,” I murmured. “Everyone has their own idea of life after death—heaven, hell, nothing, reincarnation. All of it’s kind of cute, honestly. It helps explain things. Makes life easier to get through, I guess. But I like the soul contract theory.”
Ellis shifted, and I felt her roll to face me. “The what?”
“Soul contracts,” I said, my voice soft. “The idea is, before we’re born—or before we’re attached to a body—our souls agree to certain things. People we’ll meet. Pains we’ll face. The love we’ll lose and find. We pick our story based on how we want to grow. Lessons our souls want to learn. So when we die, we can take those lessons back with us. To evolve.”
“Hm,” Ellis hummed, thoughtful.
“I don’t think we disappear when we die,” I continued. “I think we go back to wherever we came from. We review our lives, see how we did. Reunite with other souls we met along the way. And we wait. Wait until we’re ready to come back again. Until we have something else to learn.”
Ellis sniffed—barely perceptible—and I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or something else.
“Do you think we come back as the same people?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
I rolled to face her too, feeling the gentle warmth of her breath on my face.
“No,” I said honestly, shaking my head. “I think we come back different. But we find the same souls we met before. People whose soul contracts lock with ours. Whether it’s for a long time or a short time. Different bodies. Different names. But the same souls, deep down.”
She was quiet for the longest moment. Beneath the blanket, her hand—just a breath away from mine—twitched.
“Do you think we knew each other… before?” she asked, a nervous tremor in her voice.
My throat tightened. “I think I’ve known you in maybe a thousand different ways. And you’re still as new and familiar to me every time we meet.”
In the darkness, I could barely make out her face—the soft bridge of her nose, the blinking of her eyes. My words had clearly stunned her into silence, and maybe that was a good thing. The dark gave me the courage to be braver than I’d ever been. And honestly, I was tired of saying so much and doing so little.
My hand slid from under the blanket, and I caught a tendril of her soft, coppery hair between my fingers, twirling it gently. I noted the soft intake of her breath as I tucked it behind her ear. My fingers ghosted over her earlobe before tracing down her cheek, brushing along her jaw, and gliding over her lower lip. Then, tentatively, I took her chin in my hand and leaned in.
The moment our lips met, it wasn’t fireworks I felt.
It was gravity.
