Chapter 9 Ellis #2
The eggs were decent, not spectacular, not terrible. Just warm and salty enough that my body felt like it might finally forgive me for everything I’d put it through in the last twenty-four hours. I chased them with a sip of water and pulled out the AM tablets I needed to take.
I didn’t look across the table at Dove as I took them. I just tossed them back and followed with water, another wave of relief settling in as I mentally ticked off another item on my to-do list, right on time.
When I finally glanced up, Dove was chewing her way through a massive stack of pancakes, scrolling on her phone.
She just… minded her business.
She didn’t throw pitying glances across the table. Didn’t ask me any questions. These pills were usually a conversation starter, a chance for people to pry, to ask what each one did and why I had to take them. That was usually followed by soft eyes and a gushed, “You’re so brave.”
Dove gave me none of that. No looks. No questions. No softening.
I blinked, swallowing hard as that unnervingly unfamiliar feeling swept through me.
I felt eyes on me and turned to find Liv sitting beside Dove, arms crossed, looking right at me. A smirk tugged at her lips as she raised her brows.
I looked away.
“So,” Dove said, taking a sip of her orange juice, setting her phone down, and fixing me with an expectant gaze, “what’s the plan today?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Well, you spent so much time roasting the travel dossier yesterday, I would’ve thought you at least read it.”
“Ha!” Dove scoffed, as if the mere suggestion were ludicrous.
I huffed and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.
“We need gas first. Then we’re about two hours out from St. Louis with no breaks.
If we can avoid traffic, even better. We’re going to stop off at Chain of Rocks Bridge, then head to Ted Drewes, it’s a custard place. A Route 66 staple, according to Liv.”
“It is,” Liv said matter-of-factly. “My best friend, Bri, that was her pick. She loved custard.”
That stricken feeling hit me again. That chilling reminder that Liv was once a real person. A person with family and friends... a friend who had planned a deeply detailed cross-country trip and never got to take it.
Instead, I was here. Alive. And doing it.
At Liv’s expense.
I swallowed uncomfortably.
“Can’t wait,” Dove said with a grin at Liv. “I love custard. Also, these pancakes are putting me in such a good mood. Seriously, I’d come here again. They’re so fluffy, like a cloud of joy and sweetness. You should try some, Ellis.”
She made to scoop a bite toward me, and I hurriedly held up a hand in horror. “No—no. No, I’m good. Thank you.”
“What?” Dove asked, wide-eyed. “You have something against pancakes?”
“I don’t do sugar,” I said with a shrug, ignoring the last sad piece of rye toast on my plate.
“How does someone not do sugar?” Dove frowned. “That’s like saying, ‘I don’t enjoy life.’”
“She doesn’t do that either,” Liv muttered before perking up, ignoring the glare I threw her.
Sympathy = gone.
“Well, I think every road trip should start with a breakfast that sticks to your soul, not just your stomach,” Liv said, nudging Dove with her elbow. Then her expression turned serious, and she leaned in conspiratorially. “Also, never trust gas station sushi, okay? Just don’t.”
She shivered, as if reliving something traumatic, lips curled, nose wrinkled. Dove nodded solemnly.
I rubbed my face.
Today was going to be a long day.
It was too calm, I decided, an hour into driving.
It felt... unnatural at this point, given the baptism by fire I’d experienced yesterday at the hands of Dove’s detour and Liv’s outrageous behavior at the Gemini Giant.
Not to mention the fact that I had been covered in Margaret’s ashes yesterday, but I decided to wipe that experience completely from my memory.
We had gotten gas without any issues, Dove paying this time while I logged it into the trip expense sheet, organized by initials and payment method, of course.
Liv had stayed in the car the entire time, quiet.
And when Dove returned and we were back on the road ahead of schedule, I felt. .. suspicious.
No bad jokes or sarcastic remarks came from the back seat, where Liv currently sat as the Mustang rumbled beneath us.
She sat with her arms crossed, head pressed against the glass.
I knew I should have been grateful, but every now and then I found myself glancing at her in the rearview mirror, waiting for spontaneous combustion, or for her to announce that we’d taken a wrong turn into hell.
Dove had taken it upon herself to transform into an aggressively cheerful DJ.
She scrolled through her phone like she held the keys to our salvation, her voice reverent as she called out artists she’d been adding to the road trip playlist. I hadn’t even known we had one. Her face was lit with excitement.
“So. We have some rules,” she declared, looking at me.
“No skipping bangers, and keep your judgy opinions to yourself. Anything by Dehd = amazing. We’ve got Chappell Roan, obviously.
G Flip, some RAGEFLOWER, oh, love me some Gracie Abrams..
. Troye Sivan, Kim Petras, Rebecca Black—yes, I saw that eye roll—some girl in red. ..”
“I didn’t roll my eyes,” I said, keeping mine fixed firmly on the road.
I had, in fact, rolled my eyes.
“Good,” Dove said, hitting play. “’Cause it’s far too early in the trip for music snobbery.”
She tapped her phone, and the car filled with the pulsing beat of Chappell Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova.” The half-open window next to her let in the rushing wind, and strands of hair that had fallen from her space buns whipped around her face.
She tucked one behind her ear, then opened her iPad on her lap and pulled out her pencil.
I kept one eye on the road and the other discreetly on her, noticing she was drawing. She’d been sketching last night, too, when I came out of the bathroom. Her lines moved easily under her hand, her brow furrowed in quiet concentration.
I glanced a little more carefully at the screen, the design naggingly familiar... and then it clicked.
I looked back at the road.
“Is that a tarot card?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
She glanced up, and I could feel her eyes on the side of my face as I kept mine forward. Watching the road seemed like a good excuse.
“Yeah,” she finally said, tapping the screen with her stylus. “I’m actually, um, sketching an entire deck. Creating my own. I—I want to get them printed and sell them. In the shop.”
There was a strange tone in her voice when she said it, like she didn’t quite believe she could.
“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.
“More school 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 felt right to 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 too something. ”
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.
Her hands brushing a windowpane. Our feet dancing together on a cracked sidewalk. Close-ups of us eating ice cream. Her laugh in slow motion.
I’d done most of the filming and editing. She’d storyboarded the scenes.
It had been fun. I’d loved creating it.
My throat tightened as the memory veered toward what happened afterward, and I banished it just as quickly as it came.
Curation was better, I decided, as I hit the gas a little harder, like I could outrun the past. Curation meant I didn’t have to feel.
And I was just fine with that.