Chapter 23 Ellis #2
Dove shifted beside me, her hand leaving my lap as she pulled the cap from her face. I slowed and pulled off the road, dust curling around us in plumes, settling like ash.
I tasted it.
I turned off the ignition and looked at Dove, who seemed bleary-eyed, her brows pinched together as she licked her dry lips.
I turned the stereo down—The Greatest by Billie Eilish softening to a quiet murmur in the background—and unclipped my seatbelt, twisting around to face Liv.
She sat with her arms folded, her sequined top glittering like fish scales in the sun.
The silence stretched into something almost unbearable.
Then she let out a breath both crippling and resigned, all at once.
“I lied,” she told us, looking up from her lap and meeting my eyes first, then flicking to Dove. “I lied to both of you.”
Dove and I shared a look, and I could feel trickles of anxiety begin to tingle down my spine as my fingers curled a little into the leather seats, bracing myself for whatever came out of her mouth next.
“I do remember how I died.”
It felt like the air had been knocked out of me—at least inwardly. Outwardly, I held it together, and Dove appeared to do the same. She regarded Liv with a look of such genuine patience, I wondered if she’d been waiting for this.
“I’m embarrassed by it,” Liv continued, her voice thick as she stared down at her hands, her fingers absently thumbing the sequins on the hem of her shirt.
“But I think I need to… I need to tell you both. Before we get there and you find out anyway. Find out… last night”—her eyes cut to Dove—“the reading… it, it was everything. It all… it was all accurate. And I got scared. Then I got mad, because I had to face it. And I didn’t want to. ”
A car flew by, stirring up more desert dust and a violent sound in the silence that had settled around us, save Liv’s voice.
“It was a Tuesday night,” Liv said, her eyes distant as she let the memory claim her—embracing what it was she’d been hiding from.
“I was going out with my friend Bri, Jedd—my boyfriend,” she added, glancing at Dove.
The fireworks guy. “And our other friends, Kyle and Ryan. We were going to a club called Nia’s—it was our favorite in West Hollywood, and we’d been getting in thanks to Ryan.
He performed there. Drag. Nia was his sister.
” She let out a puff of air—something like a laugh, though not quite. “His stage name was Dee Dee Liteful.”
Dove smiled at that—an encouraging one, even though Liv wouldn’t meet our eyes.
“God, he’d been practicing for weeks and making us all watch it over and over again.
” Liv ran a hand through her pink hair. “He was going to do ‘Heartbreaker’ by Pat Benatar. He was so dramatic about it, but so damn good. I was looking forward to seeing it done on stage, under the lights, in full costume.”
Liv’s smile faded, and her brows knit together.
“Mom didn’t want me to go out. She said she had a bad feeling about it—but Jesus, she always had bad feelings.
” Liv’s head snapped up, her eyes imploring.
“Like, seriously, I grew up with this shit. It was her thing—something was always going to go wrong. Something was always going to happen. Dad killing himself didn’t help that shit either. ”
My mouth went dry.
“He woke up one morning and said nothing, just packed his lunch like he always did and left. As soon as he shut the door, she said, ‘The world will take him today.’ And then he died. Well—the world didn’t take him.
He took himself.” Liv let out a breathy, disbelieving laugh, shaking her head.
“She just kept going with this shit—worse than ever after that. You know, every time I left the house, it was, ‘Something’s going to happen,’ and then bad shit would happen!
” Her voice rose, trembling with fury. “She manifested bad shit.”
I shifted uncomfortably.
And I swear I could feel the scar on my chest pulsing.
“I was leaving,” Liv said firmly. “I was done. I was done with her shit and her controlling behavior, and using that crap to keep me tied to her. Bri and I had planned the drive across the 66, and we’d planned new lives together.
She begged me not to go, cried every day, told me I’d regret it.
The lead-up was… it was intense. And the night I was going out…
Bri and I were getting ready together. Mom came home early from work. ”
Liv went silent for a moment, and a gust of wind rushed past us. Even under the warmth of the sun, I shivered.
“She was a nightmare,” Liv finally said.
“Pleading with me not to go out. Saying it would end badly. That it all felt wrong and that we should stay with her instead of going out, invite our friends back to the house. I was over it. I was so fucking over it by then. We fought. I said some horrible shit to her—stuff I don’t think a well-worded apology could ever fix. ”
She glanced up at us, as if trying to gauge whether we were judging her or not. I wasn’t judging her, I was just more terrified of where this story was headed.
“Anyway, Kyle and Ryan arrived,” Liv continued, blinking.
“Jedd was in the back. Mom followed us both outside, grabbing at me, trying to pull me back into the house. It was a shitshow. Jedd and Ryan got out of the car—they were confused as fuck. Eventually, they got her off me and into the car.” Liv’s voice wobbled.
“She was pounding on the windows, screaming bloody murder. The neighbors came out. It was—it was a whole thing.”
I swallowed the lump rising in my throat, holding on to the back of the chair like it was the only thing keeping me grounded. The growing unease in my stomach made me feel sick.
Liv’s voice picked up again, as if, now that she’d opened the gates, there was no stopping the truth.
“We got to the club, and Ryan had to go backstage right away to finish getting ready. The scene at my mom’s house almost made us late for his set.
The rest of us went and got drinks—it was so busy in there.
Drag night always pops off. We knew a few regulars, and we were on a first-name basis with the bartender, Mila.
She used to put umbrellas in all my drinks. ”
A smile tugged at her lips before it dimmed again, like a happy memory drowned beneath whatever darkness was rising inside her.
I felt like I could feel it too.
“The owner, Nia—she was hovering around the bar, looking really… just off. She never really came down to the floor. She was always upstairs in the office. Sometimes the queens could drag her down, but it was rare. Mila was talking to her, patting her back. It was just—the look on her face. On both their faces. It was wrong. It felt wrong… inside me.”
Dove shifted beside me. Her hand was in her lap, gripping her leg, but her face remained blank, showing nothing. No emotion that might scare Liv off.
I hoped my own features were just as schooled.
“Ryan came out right before his show,” Liv continued, and she smiled again.
“He looked so good. He had this ginger wig for Dee Dee and the most beautiful, over-the-top makeup that I swear only he could pull off. His expression was off, though. When I asked what was wrong, he said the club had been getting hate messages on Facebook, and Nia was starting to get them sent directly to her phone and her house.”
Liv’s eyes dropped, and her voice went low as pure turmoil churned in my stomach.
“He said it was bad. That someone was basically saying we all needed cleansing. That the club was a disgrace. Apparently, the cops weren’t taking her seriously.
She’d hired more security… but… ” Liv shrugged and sucked in a heavy breath.
“It was strange. It was like a coiling down my spine—like something had just clicked into place. It—I—I don’t know how to explain it, really, but it just suddenly felt like my fate was decided in that moment. ”
The wind shifted, and she blinked, eyes glossy as she looked back at us.
“I looked around at everyone, and I saw it suddenly. How scared the staff looked. How tense Ryan looked under all his makeup. Kyle’s lips were thin, and I—I had seen them like that before.
At venues where they wouldn’t so much as stand next to each other.
When they walked past certain people and wouldn’t hold hands.
I never… I never understood it. I mean, I know hateful people are out there—that there are people who hate the community—but I never really understood it.
I’m straight. I’ve never been afraid to kiss Jedd in public or hold his hand.
I never had to think about who was watching or whether it was a safe place to do it. ”
She met our eyes then, her voice cracking.
“That night, I got it. That fear? This wasn’t… this wasn’t new for them. For me, it was just a Tuesday night at the club, watching my friend perform drag, and I—I felt so fucking privileged. Like I’d been walking around with a blindfold on my whole life, and it suddenly got ripped off.”
She rubbed her temple and looked past us, out into the expanse of desert, crossing her arms tightly across her chest.
“Mom’s words just began to ring in my head, ‘Don’t go out tonight, Liv.
Something’s wrong. Please stay home.’” Liv’s voice sounded faraway, and I watched as she tightened her grip on her upper arms. “I just took the shot Kyle offered me and downed it. I convinced myself Mom had gotten into my head. Assholes existed and said horrible shit.”
Her voice wavered, her gaze locked on the desert, as if she couldn’t bear to look at us.
“I see you guys, you know,” Liv murmured. “Now that you finally got over whatever little dance you were doing. You’re still… still careful about how you interact in public. You look everywhere. You—you’re making sure, all the time. I notice. I don’t think you two even realize you’re doing it.”
Dove and I shared a look, one filled with a level of understanding only we would get.