Page 64 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
“How many cards are in a deck?” I asked, lacking the will to scratch the surface of whatever else simmered beneath her words.
“Seventy-eight,” Dove murmured without hesitation.
I blinked in surprise. “That’s a lot of cards.”
“Yeah,” Dove said with a soft laugh, crossing her legs on the seat. “I’ve created, like, nine of them. I have ideas... the detail just takes time.”
A long beat of music passed, drifting into something softer, a little dreamier.
“What else do you draw?” I asked tightly, the words slipping out before I could stop them. I gripped the steering wheel like it was the only thing tethering me to earth, wondering why I was asking real questions.
Dove was staring at me again, and for some inane reason, my skin felt hot. My heart hammered. I felt like I was back in that stupid café with the cute girl in overalls.
“All sorts of stuff,” Dove said finally, glancing down at her iPad. “People, mostly women. Moments, I guess. I don’t know,really. I just see something in my mind and draw it. I used to make a lot of fan art growing up, comic strips sometimes.”
“Naked wood nymphs,” I found myself saying, then immediately wondered why the hell I had.
“Yeah,” Dove said, the smile evident in her voice. “I dunno, I’ve just always liked drawing. Sometimes I suck at getting out how I feel with words... or explaining things, if that makes sense. But when I put pen to paper, or in this case, stylus to screen, things make sense.”
“Did you ever go to school? Study it, I mean, design or anything?”
Dove smiled grimly and shook her head. “No,” she murmured with a shrug. “Moreschool after high school felt like a death trap to me. Plus, I draw well, like, really well. I won’t even be humble about it. I don’t need to pay thousands of dollars for someone to squash that and make it unenjoyable, you know? I was never good with classrooms.” She tucked a strand of hair behind one of her buns. “I mean, my mom wishes I’d gone. But I had the shop waiting for me, and all I wanted was to run it and draw. Margaret gave me that.”
“Most people tremble at the idea of inheriting a family business,” I said, not hearing a trace of regret in her voice.
“Margaret’s store... the cards, the crystals, it all feltrightto me,” Dove said, her voice filled with a confident ease I couldn’t help but envy. She was so sure of herself... so certain. “I mean, no one thinks I can do it,” she added with a tense laugh. “My uncle, my mom, they think I’ll tank the place within a year. I’m too impulsive or too disorganized. Always—always toosomething.”
Well, I thought, she was impulsive—that much was obvious, given yesterday’s scattering out of nowhere.
Silence settled over us for a moment before Dove turned in her seat to face Liv.
“Okay, ghost girl,” she said, raising a brow. “What’s got you so quiet today?”
Liv peeled her head away from the glass, her expression blank, free of her usual snark and sass. “Just the knowledge that everything ends,” she said, her expression tight.
I made a face as dread crept in. “There it is,” I muttered. “Thanks for the existential reminder.”
“You’re welcome, oh Emotionally Constipated One,” Liv said coolly.
Dove stifled a laugh, and I bristled, already regretting ever engaging with her. I refocused on the road and loosened my grip on the wheel. We were roughly thirty minutes out from St. Louis.
Dove had gone back to drawing, and the music settled into the silence once more. I bit the inside of my lip as I thought, trying to remember the last time I’d created something just for myself, something that wasn’t calculated or brand-controlled like my social media content.
I’d spent so long playing Ellis the Miracle that it had become like a second skin. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d made something outside of that persona.
Then it hit me, like a bucket of ice-cold water.
A short film. Back in high school. With Alexis.
It had been a media assignment. We’d been told to capture a moment or document a day in the life. A lot of our classmates had made videos about morning routines or filmed shaky iPhone montages set to the backdrop of a sad indie song, like they were deeply repressed and needed the world to know.
There had been a lot of crying, black mascara, and close-ups of watery eyes.
“I don’t want to do crap like that,”Alexis had said as we lay in her room, my head in her lap while she ran her fingers through my hair.“I want something cool, but it still has to make people feel something.”
I’d nodded eagerly, the way I always did when Alexis suggested something. Cool, cute, confident Alexis. I’d felt honored to be in her orbit, still in disbelief that someone so beautiful, probably the most popular girl in our grade, had turned her attention to me and kept it there.
It had been cute.
