Page 134 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
A few people jumped. Someone cursed. Ellis let out a startled yelp.
Liv turned with interest toward the girl, then nodded once. She walked to the railing, gripped it with both hands, and threw her head back, letting out her own unheard scream. The sound—at least the shape of it—was so raw and unguarded, a chill settled deep in my bones.
It was the sound of desperation, the kind that can only be masked for so long.
When it broke off, Liv stayed frozen, hands still braced on the railing. Anyone else would’ve been breathing hard, flushed and trembling after a scream like that. But Liv stood as still as the trees, not an inch of her moving.
Ellis didn’t look away.
As the crowd thinned—some heading to the restaurant, others back toward the tram—Ellis stepped up beside Liv and gripped the railing. A breeze stirred her hair as she closed her eyes, then tipped her head back and let out her own rippling yell.
It echoed just like the first girl’s had, ricocheting into the dusk.
It wasn’t as shattering as Liv’s. It didn’t carry the weight of unfinished stories or fractured memories clinging to the dead. Ellis’s scream felt different. It felt free. Liberated.
And I could feel that from her.
I could feel the weight she carried—the weight she wore like a millstone around her neck—loosening more and more with each day we spent on the road.
Each day we spent with Liv.
“You going to give us a scream, Dove?” Liv asked, still facing forward. “It’s oddly cathartic. I feel better.”
I laughed softly and shook my head. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” Liv murmured. “Sometimes I think you’re more tightly wound than we are. You just hide it better.”
Ellis glanced over her shoulder at me, her fingers loosening on the rail. “You surely have things to scream about. How about your uncle—the one who stole Margaret’s ashes?”
“I already stole them back,” I said with a grin.
“What about all the people who think you can’t run your grandmother’s shop?” Liv asked, turning to face me now, a glint in her eye. “Scream for that. Scream for all the people who don’t believe in you. You have things to scream about, Dove.”
I looked at her, my eyes flicking between Ellis and Liv. Then I stepped up to the railing, letting my hands curl around the cool metal as I stared out into the vast sky and the desert stretched far below. My lips pursed. A small frown pulled at my face as I glanced once more at Liv.
And then I screamed.
My voice carried on the air and echoed around us, the sound ripping through the quiet like a storm. I felt the tension I’d grown so used to carrying—so good at hiding—loosen in my chest, as if I were releasing it from my mouth and into the endless sky.
I screamed out Uncle Bill’s cocky face.
My mother’s snide comments.
My own fears about not being the person Margaret thought I was.
I screamed and screamed and screamed.
And when I was done—when my throat was raw and my knuckles had turned white from gripping the railing—I exhaled hard, dragging a shaky breath into my lungs.
Liv let out a low whistle, rocking on those dangerously high heels. “Damn, you needed that.”
Ellis’s feet shuffled, and she came to stand beside me, her pinkie brushing mine on the rail.
Liv didn’t say anything else. She just smacked her lips together and looked back out at the horizon.
None of us had the answers to anything—we’d established that much around the fire last night—and maybe that was okay. Because for now, we had each other. And we would keep taking it all one step at a time.
Until we couldn’t anymore.
