Page 175 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
Jedd dragged his hands down his face as I finished repeating Liv’s words. “Jesus, Liv…”
A sad smile tugged at her lips as she spoke again. “I loved you. In every way someone like me could love someone, Jedd. You—you were my safe space for so long.”
I cleared my throat as tears blurred my vision, Ellis’s hand pressing gently against my back, rubbing in slow circles—an anchor of comfort, her soft scent wrapping around me.
Another sob escaped him, and he turned, truly looking at the space beside his chair, as if he could really see her. “I love you too,” he choked. “God, I love you, Liv. You were—you are—so much to me. I can’t let you go.”
My chest ached as Liv got to her knees and crawled to sit before him, her hands resting lightly on his knees. The sound that left her throat was akin to a sob and yet not.
“She’s in front of you now,” Ellis whispered weakly.
Jedd looked ahead, his eyes searching, and his hands dropped to his knees, resting where Liv’s would have been. He trembled slightly.
“I never wanted to leave you like that,” Liv whispered. “But I need you tolive, Jedd. Really live. For both of us.”
The words were fragile as they left my mouth, and I hurriedly wiped away the stray tear that slipped from my eye. Jedd sniffed deeply as her message was conveyed.
“You were home for me, always. Don’t ever forget that, Jedd. But—but you can be a home for someone else too.” Her eyes wandered around the room, snagging on her photos and herpink jacket, her lips tugging into a sad smile. “Let me go. Don’t hold on to me forever.”
The silence that followed my words to Jedd was almost suffocating—holy—and something I would never forget as long as I lived.
He blinked at Liv, as if truly seeing her, his shoulders shaking as he bowed his head. My heart bled for both of them in that moment. Ellis pressed her hand into my lower back, as if holding us both in place, and I turned to look at her.
Her green eyes held mine, filled with so much emotion I could hardly breathe. She gave me a small smile that said so much all at once, and nothing more was spoken as we allowed the silence to settle over us.
“So, fireworks over the Pacific?”Jedd asked as we all stood in the kitchen hours later, pulling out plates, the wafting smell of pizza rising from the cardboard box on the counter.
The tears had long since subsided, morphing into laughter, as either Ellis or I translated for Liv whenever she spoke. Jedd had relaxed, his face and posture carrying far less tension, and the conversation had shifted to the other reason we were here.
The fireworks.
“Yep,” I said as I gathered the plates, watching Jedd grab the pizza while Ellis carried cans of soda. “Margaret wanted one last adventure before she died, and it didn’t happen. So I took her ashes on the trip and have been scattering them along the way. The final destination is the Pacific Ocean—she always wanted to be blasted out of fireworks into it. It’s also where we scattered her partner.”
“Nice,” Jedd said, approval coloring his voice. “Well, I can see why Liv thought of me for it. I’ve done this once before. Plus, you know, I have a boat.”
“Yes, I hadn’t thought about the boat part. I’ve not exactly been going about this the socially acceptable way, after all.”
Ellis snorted. “Yeah, from the moment we broke into her uncle’s house and stole the ashes, replacing them with vacuum dust—”
“What?” Jedd laughed as we all sat down.
“He was holding them hostage,” I countered. “Plus he’s an asshole. Liv caused some serious havoc when we were there, but she bought us time to escape too. He came home with his mistress while we were halfway through the transfer.”
Jedd snorted as Liv kicked her legs off the side of the sofa. “I can only imagine the shit she pulled.”
“So you can make the fireworks thing happen?” I asked, feeling hopeful as I took a bite of pizza.
“Yeah,” Jedd said with a shrug. “It’s easy. I can work on them tomorrow during the day, then we can take the boat out at dusk and let it go. You have fireworks, right?”
I nodded quickly. “Yeah, we got some when we were on the road.”
Jedd nodded, then frowned. “Where are the ashes?”
“In the car,” I said.
Jedd raised a brow. “You left your grandmother in the car?”
“Technically she’s in the trunk,” Ellis murmured, hiding her mouth behind her soda can.
