Page 111 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
Then, a tiny, shaking breath on the other side of the wall, and I ripped my eyes open.
“Ellis?” I murmured nervously. “You okay?”
“I—I feel so stupid,” she whispered, her voice cracked and raw, tear-filled. “And I know I’m selfish. I know—I know that I’m lucky. But being given this heart… I feel like I was given something I just don’t deserve, and if I get sick again—if I fail again—it’s like s-some big waste. A waste of a good heart that could have gone to someone else.”
I once more ran my finger down the pillow wall, aching to remove it and look at her.
“Ellis, you know they don’t just hand hearts out to whoever,” I murmured, listening to her small cries. “They have extensive lists and rules for recipients. You would have been the most viable candidate to receive Liv’s heart, and yes, I did Google this.”
She sniffed and hiccuped a laugh. “Why did you Google it?”
I put on my big-girl pants and told the truth.
“I wanted to understand you better,” I said, keeping my voice as plain as possible, and her sniffles softened. “You clearly have some deep trauma you’re working through, and maybe you’ll always be working through it… but I wanted to understand more of thewhy.”
She was quieter now, and I wondered if I had stunned her into silence.
“Ellis…” I said again, my palms sweating. “You can’t spend your life living in the ‘what if.’ And maybe you’ve been told this a million times, and it’s easier said than done, but you can’t hide from life. Ithappensto you anyway. You can’t hide from love or from joy just because you’re afraid of losing it. You can’t close yourself off. All you’re doing is keeping yourself in a cage.”
My fingers twitched against the pillow.
“You have Liv’s heart,” I whispered hoarsely, hearing her sniffle once more. “No returns. No refunds. You’re here, and you get to be here. No one’s telling you to bungee jump or go skydiving, but we’re telling you tolive—however living looks to you—and that doesn’t include hiding.”
A heavy feeling rested across us, and I felt as if I were being held underwater for a moment, a lone thought passing through my mind.
There’s something she can’t let go of.
I frowned.
“What are you holding onto, Ellis?” I asked her. “What is holding you back?”
A shaky breath left her, and it suddenly felt as if she were working herself up to something big, to utter a truth she didn’t share with anyone, every second of her silence thick with the weight of so many words and feelings unspoken.
“There was a girl,” she whispered, pained. “Alexis.”
Alexis, I thought, remembering her scream on the bridge the day Liv had jumped.
It felt like a long time had passed since then.
“She was… we were… we were in school,” she continued, her voice thick with emotion. “She was super popular and… and just gorgeous, you know? I was healthy and living life normally again. No more signs of cancer or anything else horrible. And one day we just looked at each other… and we were together.”
The blankets shifted, and it felt tighter on her side, as if she had bunched them up under her chin or something.
“She was my first everything,” Ellis said softly. “First crush, first kiss. First love. She was wild and full of life. Super popular, and she made me feel so alive and important, and just, everything I thought I was missing for my age faded away, you know? We both got along so well. We never fought. No teenage drama bullshit. Just… just ease.”
A car backfired outside, and I jumped slightly, but Ellis hardly even flinched, as if she were entranced by her own story, or so deep in her memories she hadn’t even heard it.
“When we turned sixteen, it kind of all went to shit,” Ellis mumbled. “Right after her sweet sixteenth, her parents sat her down and told her they were getting a divorce. Then her dad decided to move to London for work, so not only was her family falling apart, but her dad was now leaving.” Ellis sniffed again and sighed. “She just became a bit of a mess, you know? She was acting out, starting arguments with teachers or our friends.”
My chest tightened.
“Then… one day… I collapsed at school,” Ellis muttered, a tone of embarrassment in her voice that made me curious. “I had been feeling off for a while, but I had ignored it. I couldn’t bear the thought of being sick again, you know? But I fainted. Completely wiped out in front of everyone. I wet myself. Someone filmed it and shared the video… it was just cruel. Anyway, while I was in the hospital, Alexis found out who filmed the video and basically… well, she beat the shit out of them, smashed their phone. It was a whole thing. She ended up getting suspended for a few days.”
Ellis paused for a moment, and I found myself holding my breath, knowing deep in my stomach that the next part was not going to be pretty.
“When I got diagnosed with the heart issue… when I told her what was happening and all the potential outcomes… she just—she snapped. She became so dark and so angry. She got kicked off her team for bad behavior, was researching my health issue more than I was… forcing her tarot cards and stones on me. Like, it had been funny when we did it for fun, but she was acting like these cards were the final answer to my fate. She made me believe I was truly dying, and like, look, Iwas, but there had still been hope back then, during the early days. I wasn’t in full heart failure.”
Ellis sighed loudly and then sucked in a breath, as if trying to keep her emotions in check.
