Page 191 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
“She got to do the route?” Rachel asked, clutching her pendant once more. “She—she and Bri, they were… they were so excited. I mean, I was devastated. I didn’t want Liv to move halfway across the country, but I knew she had to spread her wings. I get it. Oh, that trip. I watched them spend months planning it, penciling out every single stop. You helped her do it.”
“We did,” I murmured, glancing at Liv. “It’s probably been one of the best experiences of my life.”
“You’re welcome,” Liv said with a smirk before she looked back down at her mother, staying behind the chair as if she were too afraid to face her head-on.
“Bri,” Rachel whispered thickly, wiping her eyes. “Poor girl hasn’t been the same since that night. She came and saw me before she left. She was a mess. Told me everything that happened that night and what Liv had done.” Rachel choked and cleared her throat, and Liv closed her eyes.
“Tell her I did exactly what she had taught me growing up,” Liv murmured. “Tell her I put myself between danger and someone I loved.”
Dove nodded, her palm sweaty against mine. “Liv said she did exactly what you taught her. That she put herself between danger and someone she loved.”
My eyes burned in that oh-so-familiar way I was becoming painfully used to. I watched as Rachel’s hands moved to her mouth, her eyes closing as if nodding in acceptance, sniffing loudly before flashing open again.
“I couldn’t be mad at you for how it happened,” Rachel whispered weakly. “So I clung to the anger that you didn’t listento me that night instead. That you went out even though I told you not to. It was easier for me to be angry at her for going out than to accept the fact she—” Rachel broke off, and tears freefell down her face.
She shook her head and yanked another Kleenex.
“I’m not a religious person,” Rachel said on a heavy exhale. “But this one scripture always stuck out in my mind—pure poetry, if you ask me.John 15:13: Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. It hurts my heart, and my soul aches that it came to that, but I couldn’t be more proud of you, Liv—for what you did. I’ll be forever thankful that Bri’s mother will never experience the agony of losing a child. That she’ll never have to feel what I feel every morning I open my eyes and face another day without you living and breathing on this planet.”
Liv’s face crumpled, and she buried her face in her hands. My chest ached as I watched her, as if I could feel her grief and pain flooding my heart. Dove hastily wiped her eyes beside me and cracked her neck.
“Tell her I’m sorry I was such an asshole to her,” Liv whispered. “Tell her I’m sorry I was so angry. That I get what she means about choosing anger over sadness, because it hurts less—and that I could redirect my pain of losing Dad at her instead of the obvious truth. Tell her I’m sorry that I threw herfeelingsin her face. That they didn’t save him, and it was her fault. Tell her I’m sorry I expected her to hold back the ocean with her hands.”
Dove’s voice shook as she relayed the words to Rachel, echoing Liv each time she finished a sentence, uttering them word for word, as if getting it exactly right was important. And it was. This moment was important for both Rachel and Liv, and Dove spoke clearly around the ache I knew she felt in the pit of her stomach. I was in awe of her once more.
Rachel’s mouth pulled downward as she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh but not a sob either, just something raw that sat between the two. She shook her head.
“I knew,” she rasped. “I knew you blamed me. I would have taken every drop of that if it meant you didn’t have to feel it. I was willing to take the anger if it meant you didn’t have to face the blistering agony of it.”
Liv shook her head and came around the chair, resting on her knees in front of her mother, her hands on the arm of the chair. “Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I’m so goddamn sorry that I made her carry my anger on top of everything else.”
Rachel’s shoulders shook as Dove spoke, and she shook her head vehemently. “There’s nothing to forgive.” Her voice was urgent. “I’m your mother, Liv. I’m here to protect you and shield you, and if that meant taking that horrific moment in our lives from you and carrying it, then I would. There’s nothing to forgive.”
We sat in the hum of the room for a moment as the old grief finally aired its wounds while the newer grief listened and bathed the sores. My chest felt scraped clean by it all, and I stared around at the well-put-together room, its seemingly normal state, and thought of my own mother and how her brittle hope and fear paraded through the house dressed as practicality, and of all the conversations we’d never had.
Dove slid her thumb along my knuckles, a small anchor as we all stood poised on this teetering ledge of unbound emotion. She didn’t say anything, didn’t try to prompt or fill the silence—just held the air open for all of us.
And then Rachel drew in a heavy breath and let it out.
“I knew I sounded like a broken record that night,” she murmured, her eyes slightly unfocused as she stared down at her hands. “I sounded crazy, as usual, and I knew how much youhated it when I said I had afeeling. I hated it too, truly. I hated beingthatmother. But I had woken up from my nap with the taste of blood in my mouth and pain in my back, and I just… this all-consuming dread filled me, and I was so afraid for you.”
Rachel pressed her lips into a thin line.
“It was the same feeling I had when I woke the morning your father killed himself. I woke with a lurch, as if I had been falling, and I knew. I justknew.”
Liv rested her head on the arm of the chair, her shoulders hunched.
“She’s right next to you,” Dove murmured, pointing to where Liv crouched. Rachel blinked at the spot, raising a shaky hand and resting it on what I’m sure she thought was the arm of the couch but was really the back of Liv’s head.
Liv let out a small, weeping sound in the back of her throat.
“I’m sorry that I made my fear your storm,” Rachel whispered hoarsely. “I’m sorry that I could never tell the difference between protecting you and holding you close for my own selfish gain. I’m sorry that I couldn’t work out what was superstition and what was real.” She shook her head and swallowed thickly. “But I’ll never be sorry for loving you loudly, and I’m not sorry for knowing when the air around you changed. It was never meant to be about control, Liv. My family—your father and you—were always my compass, and when I lost your father… you were my only true north left.”
Liv lifted her head, and I watched as Rachel’s hand remained on the arm of the sofa while Liv gazed up at her mother.
“Tell her I get it now,” she whispered. “And tell her I know she’s more than just my mother. That she’s also just a woman going through life like all of us. Tell her I think she’s inspiring. Tell her she needs to find like-minded people and really understand the gift she has. Because it is agift. I’d still be alive if I had listened to her.”
Dove repeated the words, and Rachel softly began to shake her head.
