Chapter 17 Ellis
ELLIS
The room was still, muted in the strange sort of hush that only exists when the world itself hadn’t quite woken up yet, and all I could hear was the distant rush of passing traffic or the muffled sound of car and motel room doors slamming shut in the morning air.
Small slivers of golden sunlight slipped through the cracks in the curtain, painting soft stripes across the ceiling.
I blinked at the dull white ceiling, my mind oddly silent—surprising, given the revelations shared in the darkness of this room only hours ago. The now partially collapsed pillow wall was the only barrier between myself, Dove, and the truth.
I let my head roll to the side, noting one or two pillows still standing in limp attention, so dented now they hardly did anything. Through the breach in the pillows, my eyes landed on Dove.
She was still asleep, on her side and facing me. Her cheek rested against the pillow in a way that made her lips pout slightly, her hand curled under her chin. Lashes lay soft against her cheekbones, and her usually spiraled brown hair was splayed like dark silk across the white pillow.
She was so painfully beautiful.
Her breaths were slow and even, and I watched the way her chest rose and fell, her presence still so warm and sincere, even in sleep.
My chest fluttered.
I swallowed.
The night before replayed in my mind as if in slow motion, revealing some kind of confession I hadn’t thought myself ready to hear, even though I’d known. I blinked at the memory of telling her about Alexis, admitting my deepest secret of shame, the terror of damaging someone so badly.
She hadn’t run. She hadn’t even ladled on the pity. All she had done was give me truth, and that scared me more than anything else she could have done.
Things were changing. I could feel it.
“I feel it too.”
Her words echoed in my ears, and I breathed deeply, rolling onto my side and bunching the blankets under my chin as I continued to stare at the enigma beside me.
I was getting in too deep here. I knew it. I was willingly walking down the pathway to heartbreak and ruin, and I didn’t want to stop myself.
I didn’t want to give up whatever spark of life Dove was igniting inside me.
Was it selfish? Yes.
I closed my eyes, as if taking myself into the blackness would silence the swelling thoughts in my mind, as if it would quell the growing panic and excitement deep within my stomach.
I blinked them open.
Dove’s eyes blinked back at me, tired and heavy with sleep, her expression unreadable as she seemed to focus on me.
“Hey,” she croaked in a whisper, her voice thick with sleep.
“Morning,” I whispered back on a hitched breath.
I clutched the blankets tighter under my chin.
A long pause stretched between us, thick with things unsaid and crackling with the same pulsing electricity I’d felt last night. The moment she told me she felt it too.
So what did it all mean?
What now?
Then, slowly, Dove reached forward—and my brain went to static. Her fingertips brushed my cheek, featherlight, as if she wasn’t sure she was allowed to touch me but couldn’t help herself.
My eyes closed for a second as warmth bloomed across my skin. Something soft and content settled low in my stomach, her thumb gently tracing along my cheekbone.
My breath caught in my throat as I absorbed her quiet touch, reveling in the stillness of the room, the unspoken everythings that hung between us like giant question marks.
And then—
“Wakey wakey, my little gaybies!”
Liv’s voice shattered the moment like my shoe had shattered the mirror in our first motel stay. I jumped. Dove’s hand vanished as if burned, and I rolled onto my back aggressively just as Liv materialized through the ceiling with her flashing sequins, smug grin, her hands on hips.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said sweetly. “You know, like emotional growth or repressed feelings.”
“Liv,” Dove groaned, dragging a hand down her face, exasperation thick in her voice.
“Come on?” Liv huffed. “I leave two lesbians alone in one bed for eight hours and nothing happens? You two are letting down your own people.” She pouted and shook her head. “Disappointing.”
“Liv,” I said sharply, feeling any trace of emotional peace slipping away as I sat upright.
“Okay,” she said, holding up her hands. “I can smell the tension from here, but listen—savor that energy, okay? Because we’re camping tonight, and you two need your wits about you.”
“We’re doing what now?” I asked, unease sliding down my brain zeroed in on the word, my mind flashing back to the itinerary. “We didn’t have camping mentioned anywhere.”
“It was on the original itinerary,” Liv said airily. “Like, the actual original. The very first copy, which you never saw. It never made it into the Google Drive.”
“But we don’t have any camping stuff,” I told her, trying to keep a handle on my growing panic. “We—we need tents and sleeping bags and—”
“There’s this place called the Midpoint, in Adrian,” Liv began, and I frowned, whipping out my phone. “It has a campground—”
“We won’t make Adrian today,” I told her firmly, relief flowing through me. “We’ve got, like, a four-hour drive into Amarillo, and we’ve got some sites to see. We won’t drive out to Adrian until tomorrow.”
Liv’s slowly falling face brightened instantly. “Oh, great,” she said with a clap of her hands. “We camp tomorrow, then. Now we can go get all those little comforts you needed.”
“They’re not comforts,” I bit out as my ire rose, eyeing the pink-haired annoyance. “They’re necessities, for some of us who aren’t dead and actually need shelter.”
“So, camping!” Dove said brightly, clocking the rising tension and glancing between us.
Liv grinned, her eyes shifting to Dove. “Yes, camping. Real stars as far as the eye can see. Bugs—maybe snakes—and a real chance for the two of you to snuggle under a shared sleeping bag.”
“Liv!” Dove and I groaned in unison, our voices clashing while her joyful grin turned into more of a smirk.
“All right,” Liv said firmly. “Let’s get moving. According to the fun police over here,” she jerked her head in my direction, “we have a busy day. I’ll be in the car. Don’t take too long. The ghost of Route 66 waits for no queer girl crisis.”
With a flick of her pink hair, she vanished once more through the ceiling, and I had to ignore the way it made my stomach twist, seeing an almost real-looking human being float through the roof.
A thick silence followed her departure, and it suddenly felt louder in here than it had when Liv was around.
Dove turned to grin at me, her eyes alight, clearly excited at the prospect of camping, which only highlighted how different we really were. Her eyes were still shadowed with sleep, but something else reflected in them now.
Something deeper.
“I meant it,” she said softly. “What I said last night. I do feel it too. Do with that what you will, Ellis Langley,” Dove murmured, a smile curling around my name as she climbed out of bed, leaving me with my racing heart.
“I’ll be here waiting while you spend the next however many hours overthinking it. ”
My brows rose at her words, and I watched as she headed toward the bathroom, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
I fell back into the pillows with a soft thud, staring up at the ceiling once more as if it might give me the answer I was searching for.
The road stretched out before us in a long, winding ribbon of faded asphalt, dusty hills, and open sky as we left the Leaning Tower of Texas behind, a new Polaroid stashed in my bag.
We were well on our way to Amarillo now, Dove behind the wheel as I frantically worked on a budget shopping list for camping essentials, thanks to Liv’s familiar spanner in the works. Yes, it had once again taken us off plan, but I wasn’t totally hating the idea once I’d sat with it.
I glanced at the empty sandwich bag resting in the console under Dove’s phone. She had decided to scatter Margaret as we drove this time. Right before we left Oklahoma, she held the bag out the window and let the ashes fly off into the wind behind us as we crossed the state line.
“End of the World” by Miley Cyrus played through the speakers as Dove drove along, nodding her head while simultaneously rummaging through a bag of sour worms in her lap.
Her hair was twisted up into her usual space buns, with the same stray strands loose and blowing around her face through the open window.
My stomach fluttered with all-too-familiar nerves, and I glanced out my own window, biting the inside of my cheek as I was once again taken back to the memory of last night.
I hadn’t… I hadn’t expected to say so much.
Reveal so much. I just felt like I had to.
I had to make Dove understand why—why… I wasn’t sure what I was trying to make her understand, but she needed context.
Alexis had been locked deep in me all these years, and since I’d told Dove about her, it felt like something had cracked open inside me.
And Dove?
Just knowing she was on the other side of that pillow wall, her voice so soft, so grounding and present… it felt like a safety net I didn’t know I could trust until I was already falling. And now, it felt as if I were hurtling down to earth.
I peeked back at her.
How could she look so calm? Surely the spiral was written all over my face, and I was definitely overthinking everything, just like she said I would. It bothered me how well she knew me… and warmed me all at once. I had no idea what to do with any of this. Surely her mind had to be racing?
I looked back down at my phone and huffed silently, the words on my screen catching my eye.
Camping for Dummies.
Camping in Texas.
Watch Out for the Armadillos.
I grimaced at the subheading on the webpage before saying aloud, “Did you guys know that armadillos can carry leprosy?”