Page 79 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
Like I should’ve waited for her to tell me herself.
Ugh. Why was I feeling like this?
“What are you looking at?”
Ellis’s voice jolted me from my thoughts. I glanced up at her as I rose to my feet, rubbing my palms along the hem of my oversized band tee.
“Suspension,” I said gruffly, clearing my throat.
“Riveting,” Ellis said dryly, and instead of her tone sending prickles of annoyance down my spine, I found myself grinning.
Shit.
I looked around, spotting Liv behind the wheel of yet another antique-looking car, draped across the seat like she was posing for a magazine shoot.
“I did not take her for a car person,” I murmured, tilting my head.
“I think she’s more of an appearances person,” Ellis replied.
Our eyes met just for a second.
She looked relaxed. Her eyes didn’t carry that tight, defensive look. She wasn’t anxious. She wasn’t lashing out. I mean, hell, we were still on schedule, so maybe that helped, but it felt... it felt like I was seeing her through a different lens now.
Something a little more understanding.
I mean, I’d seen her practically undone with that kid at Ted Drewes, and then the way she’d screamed out that name on the bridge when Liv tried to simulate her father’s suicide.
That thought brought me up short, because who the hell was Alexis, and why had that moment triggered Ellis?
“We should go soon,” Ellis said suddenly, clearing her throat and looking away.
I glanced back at Liv, who was duck-facing and pouting into a rearview mirror. I snorted, then bit my lip and nudged Ellis, finally airing the thought that had been circling my mind since the bridge stunt yesterday.
“You think we should, like, maybe ask Liv some actual questions about herself?” I asked, frowning.
Ellis looked over at Liv, her face cautious. “Like what?”
“Like, I don’t know... we have this ghost in our back seat, and all we really know is that she died, donated a bunch of organs, and now she’s stuck here like Casper, but with more eyeliner and way less friendly.” I tugged at a loose thread on the hem of my shirt. “Shouldn’t we know more? Like who she was before? Her friends? Did she have weird hobbies? Biggest regrets? I don’t know.”
Ellis shrugged, an uncomfortable expression crossing her face.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Maybe we shouldn’t dig too deep. Maybe we should just stick to our agreement, get her to her mother, fulfill her road trip, and move on with our lives. No ghost. No eternal haunting. You know?”
“It just doesn’t feel right,” I said with a shrug. “I mean, don’t you want to know more about the person whose heart beats in your chest?”
“Not really,” Ellis said tightly, and I could see her familiar prickles starting to rise. Her entire body shifted into something guarded. Her arms folded. Her spine straightened. A tightness bloomed along her jaw. The armor Ellis Langley had forgotten to put on this morning was now sliding back into place with familiar ease.
I bit the inside of my lip and chose my next words carefully.
“Why not? I’m not saying we turn it into some kind of therapy session or anything, but don’t you think it’s important to know who she was? I mean, aside from the fact that she’s shown up in the afterlife with a bucketload of unfinished business... Ellis, she simulated her dad’s suicide yesterday. If I had someone else’s heart in my chest—”
“But you don’t,” Ellis cut in sharply, her green eyes flashing, a scowl already blooming across her face.
“Okay,” I said slowly, trying not to let my irritation rise. “But if I did, I think I’d want to know. It’s not like it’s weird. It’s natural human curiosity.”
Her lips thinned, and I saw the redness creep into her cheeks and around the tips of her ears.
“Maybe it’s natural for you,” she said coldly, and just like that, I was face-to-face with the Ellis from the reading room again. “But not all of us want to know the intimate details of the person whose life we stole, you know?”
