staircase to nowhere - 1 / 2
Ava shrugs, a movement filled with faux innocence, and Beatrice watches the rise and fall of her shoulders like it’s something fascinating. “You look like a girl who’d sit in that diner with her back to the world, drinking some awful black coffee and thinking about a novel she once read that was set on a street just like that one.”
Beatrice laughs, both startled and a little irritated to be read so devastatingly accurately by a perfect stranger. “Are you insulting me?”
“Oh God, no.” Ava’s eyes widen as if she is genuinely horrified by the thought, “I’m trying to flirt with you.”
















