‘I would like to talk about Jane Austen and I would like to talk about Josipina Turnograjska. They are both women who wrote at a time women were not expected – or encouraged – to write. They both died young. They lived not so far apart from each other in time. I think there is a lot to talk about.’
‘It was a joke gift, cause I’d got her an astrology book because she wants to study astronomy and it’s a running… thing. So she got me this weird book and then… I actually liked it. Took me like six months to read and I think I read every paragraph five times and I still don’t really get it, but it… it made me think about things I didn’t know were… even… things, y’know? I was kind of hooked after that.’
‘What’s your plan for Saturday, Mae?’ I repeated.
‘You know how in movies when people sneak out they have, like, another friend who sneaks out with them, and they’re each other’s alibi?’ Mae said coaxingly, her eyes becoming, if possible, wider and more puppy-like.
‘When the sides of your thighs touched in the back of that dark, dark car, did you see fireworks?’ she whispered.
‘I’m going to kill you in real life,’ I whispered back.
When I grudgingly confirmed that there were, possibly, plans to sneak out again, Elizabeta sent a series of skull emojis followed by a single dancing woman emoji.
I think she meant for the skulls to convey that she’d died from excitement (I wasn’t sure what to do with the dancing emoji), but every time I opened the chat the sight of them only contributed to my sense of foreboding.