Page 93 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
Those were the last words she said to me, right before everything went to hell and her mother pulled her out of school. I was forbidden from contacting her.
I swallowed hard.
And here I was now, sitting next to another girl with glitter in her voice and something sharp and intuitive in her eyes, and I felt like I was doing it again. Pulling someone into a life they didn’t deserve to be dragged into.
I peeked again.
She was watching the movie, mouth slightly open, eyes wide, fingers loosely curled around a Twizzler.
She was beautiful.
She was beautiful in that way that made your stomach tighten and your ribs ache. Beautiful in the way fleeting things were—things you didn’t get to keep.
I bit the inside of my cheek.
“I need the bathroom,” I muttered, briskly opening the door. “I’ll be back.”
I didn’t wait for her to respond.
I fled.
By the time I reached the toilet block, I leaned against the cool brick wall, the evening air wrapping around me as I let out a pained sigh and rubbed my eyes.
This was not supposed to happen.
“You need to figure this out before I haunt you into kissing her.”
Liv’s voice made me jump, and I clapped a hand over my mouth as I stared at her.
“Jeez, Liv!” I groaned, clutching my heart.Herheart. “Can we not do this?”
“I am so serious,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s like I can see the tension in the car, just like I did in the laundromat. It’s like watching the slowest, most painful gay rom-com of the century.‘Oh, will they, won’t they?’”
“Liv,” I said through gritted teeth, a warning laced in my voice.
“Look, I’m just saying, the two of you are acting like touching elbows is a felony,” she continued, then eyed me more directly. “You’re not, like, scared, are you? ’Cause, like,gay is in, Ellis. You’re all good.”
“Oh, shut up, Liv,” I groaned.
“Listen, I probably won’t even be able to pass over if you two aren’t doing some serious saliva swapping.”
I gaped at her in horror.
“I joke,” Liv said with a heavy sigh, tugging at a sequin on her skirt. “I probably will. I mean, who knows. I don’t even know if I can. But seriously, Dove is cute, she’s single, and she is clearly into you—”
“She’snotinto me,” I said firmly, my cheeks heating.
Liv rolled her eyes. “Modesty is cute until it isn’t, Ellis. But since you’re clearly fishing for compliments, fine. I’ll take the bait. You’re cute, you’re very successful with your online content, and the two of you are super compatible. Yeah, I’ve seen yourbirth chart. It’s practically a clear runway for some lesbian U-Haul shit at this point.”
“Liv, seriously—”
“What’s scaring you?” Liv asked, cutting me off with a glint in her eyes. “Is it the sex thing?”
“Liv.”
“What?” she said with a pout. “I literally spent so much time over the last year watching you write in your diary. I know you haven’t done anything more than polite kissing.”
My cheeks flamed, and I rubbed the back of my neck.
