Page 113 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
Tip #17: Excitement is just fear that put on glitter. Wear it anyway.
The room was still, muted in the strange sort of hush that only exists when the world itself hadn’t quite woken up yet, and all I could hear was the distant rush of passing traffic or the muffled sound of car and motel room doors slamming shut in the morning air. Small slivers of golden sunlight slipped through the cracks in the curtain, painting soft stripes across the ceiling.
I blinked at the dull white ceiling, my mind oddly silent—surprising, given the revelations shared in the darkness of this room only hours ago. The now partially collapsed pillow wall was the only barrier between myself, Dove, and the truth.
I let my head roll to the side, noting one or two pillows still standing in limp attention, so dented now they hardly did anything. Through the breach in the pillows, my eyes landed on Dove.
She was still asleep, on her side and facing me. Her cheek rested against the pillow in a way that made her lips poutslightly, her hand curled under her chin. Lashes lay soft against her cheekbones, and her usually spiraled brown hair was splayed like dark silk across the white pillow.
She was so painfully beautiful.
Her breaths were slow and even, and I watched the way her chest rose and fell, her presence still so warm and sincere, even in sleep.
My chest fluttered.
I swallowed.
The night before replayed in my mind as if in slow motion, revealing some kind of confession I hadn’t thought myself ready to hear, even though I’d known. I blinked at the memory of telling her about Alexis, admitting my deepest secret of shame, the terror of damaging someone so badly.
She hadn’t run. She hadn’t even ladled on the pity. All she had done was give me truth, and that scared me more than anything else she could have done.
Things were changing. I could feel it.
“I feel it too.”
Her words echoed in my ears, and I breathed deeply, rolling onto my side and bunching the blankets under my chin as I continued to stare at the enigma beside me.
I was getting in too deep here. I knew it. I was willingly walking down the pathway to heartbreak and ruin, and I didn’t want to stop myself.
I didn’t want to give up whatever spark of life Dove was igniting inside me.
Was it selfish? Yes.
I closed my eyes, as if taking myself into the blackness would silence the swelling thoughts in my mind, as if it would quell the growing panic and excitement deep within my stomach.
I blinked them open.
Dove’s eyes blinked back at me, tired and heavy with sleep, her expression unreadable as she seemed to focus on me.
“Hey,” she croaked in a whisper, her voice thick with sleep.
“Morning,” I whispered back on a hitched breath.
I clutched the blankets tighter under my chin.
A long pause stretched between us, thick with things unsaid and crackling with the same pulsing electricity I’d felt last night. The moment she told me she felt it too.
So what did it all mean?
What now?
Then, slowly, Dove reached forward—and my brain went to static. Her fingertips brushed my cheek, featherlight, as if she wasn’t sure she was allowed to touch me but couldn’t help herself.
My eyes closed for a second as warmth bloomed across my skin. Something soft and content settled low in my stomach, her thumb gently tracing along my cheekbone.
My breath caught in my throat as I absorbed her quiet touch, reveling in the stillness of the room, the unspoken everythings that hung between us like giant question marks.
And then—
