by Sarah Sutton
Donnie’s response came immediately. “This is a bad, bad idea. This is what happens in scary movies when people split up. Going off by yourself ensures your gruesome demise by murderous scarecrows.”
“You’re super dramatic, you know that?” I turned around and smiled as I moved down the branch of the maze. Both boys watched me go, but I forced myself to focus on Donnie. “You should’ve taken theater.”
The sky had darkened considerably since we’d gotten to the maze, but for almost seven-thirty at night, it made sense. A chunk of a moon hung in the sky, not quite full, but it did have a haze over it, the misty rain like a shrugged-on coat.
Corn stalks shuffled loudly in the wind, and I wrapped my arms around myself, keeping my eyes ahead. Murderous scarecrows. Donnie needed to lay off the horror flicks. Dead Baby Killer had totally left his brain cells fried. There was no way a scarecrow was going to come off its post and eat us. They had straw for arms—there’s no strength in straw.
Great. Now I was thinking about it.
I stomped further down the vacant path, flinching as a rain droplet fell onto my lashes. We should’ve gone on the hayride. I’d never been on a hayride before. It would’ve been fun, right?
Then again, the three of us probably would’ve been silent the whole time too, only trapped on a trailer.
Would’ve been better than this, going through a corn maze on my own, picturing my death by a freaking scarecrow.
Being away from Lucas helped clear my mind a little, but it also made me feel emptier, as silly as that sounded. I didn’t need a guy to make me whole. But was it bad that I craved his presence? Because now, even though we had been silent and the air had been tense, I just wished he was here walking with me.
A fat droplet of rain landed on my cheek, much more substantial than the mist that coated me, and the fear of the sky suddenly cracking open became more of a reality. The sides of the corn seemed to be pressing in, and for a split second, I entertained the idea of cutting through them. Surely the maze would intersect somewhere.
Something snapped behind me, sounding exactly like the breaking of a bone. When I whirled around, a scream already lodging in my throat, I saw it wasn’t a scarecrow.
It was Lucas, his black sneaker on top of a turned-over cornstalk. He froze. “Hey.”
“Why are you following me?” I demanded, pulling my arms closer around myself. “Did Donnie send you?”
“More or less. We were both worried about you getting—”
“I’m not going to get eaten by a scarecrow!” I cut him off so loudly that my voice echoed.
Lucas’s eyes widened. “I was going to say getting lost, but all right.”
My cheeks turned hot. Okay, fine, getting lost might’ve been a more appropriate fear. Especially when I was over here thinking about cutting through the thick cornfield to find a different path.
“Well, let’s keep going,” I said, turning away from him. Now it was my turn to have stiff shoulders, since I could practically feel his gaze on my back. “I think Donnie was wrong. I don’t think we’ve been down here. This curve looks different to me—I don’t remember rounding it.”
“It’s corn in the dark. How can you tell it’s different?”
I couldn’t; I’d only tried to make conversation. No idea why. Maybe because I hated the tension between us, like a thick second skin. I kicked a fallen piece of corn and walked further, not answering.
For some reason, this moment made me recall our first and only fight as a couple. It hadn’t been a fight so much as a disagreement, over something I couldn’t even remember. But our mutual cold shoulders had lasted for a whole day, even through school.
However, just because we’d disagreed over something, things between us hadn’t been that different. Lucas had still stopped by the apartment to drive me to school, still swung through Crushed Beanz and picked us up coffee, still walked me to my first period class. And I’d still bought him an extra cookie at lunch, hung out by his locker during the break between fourth and fifth period, still let him steal a piece of gum at the end of the day.
We’d done all those things silently, but not out of habit. Not because we had to. But because we hadn’t wanted to not do it. I hadn’t wanted to not buy him his cookie, and he hadn’t wanted to not walk me to homeroom. Even though we’d been fighting, we’d still cared.
Right now, it didn’t feel like that at all.
After another minute of walking the curving path, I pulled up short as a firm wall of corn met me. Dead end. “Dang it,” I muttered. “Donnie was right.” Now I wasn’t going to hear the end of it.
I turned around to start back when I smacked into Lucas, who’d stepped directly behind me. His jacket felt cold when I put my hands out, the smooth black material chilled in the night air.
We hadn’t been this close since the night before our breakup, with our chests nearly touching now. It felt like it’d been forever since we shared the same breath. Forever since our body heat had mixed together, thawing some of the frost in my core. The heady warmth did something strange to my lungs now, my world turning and spinning beneath my feet.
I swallowed hard. “Why were you standing so close?”
“You’re the one who stopped.”
“You could’ve backed up.” Or pulled away, which he still hadn’t done. But then again, I hadn’t moved away, either.
Lucas didn’t say anything, and I didn’t look up to see the expression on his face.
My hands on his jacket sleeves, what originally had been a grip to steady myself now turned into me not letting go. And I needed to let go. But I couldn’t pry my ten fingers apart.
The night of our breakup had been so final. Except standing here with our chests almost touching and our breath mixing, it didn’t seem final at all.
One of Lucas’s fingertips brushed the curve of my cheek, an icy touch against my blushing skin. That whisper of contact alone made me shiver harder than the October air made me, and I fought it back, not wanting him to see.
“Your skin is cold,” he murmured, that low voice cascading through me.
My eyes focused on the silver zipper of his jacket, the metal looking like crooked teeth. “I wonder why.”
“So much snark.” He shook his head, his finger trailing lower, along my jaw. “But you can’t fool me.”
Couldn’t I? Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I was fooling myself. I wanted two completely opposite things—I wanted him closer, and I wanted him away.
He had all the warmth with him, and I wanted it. I craved to dive deep into it. If his arms wrapped around me in a way they hadn’t in a while, I wouldn’t have fought it. His jacket would crinkle in my ear, and I’d tip my head up to look at him, into those beautiful blue eyes—
With a sharp inhale, I pulled back, dropping my arms and stepping away from his outstretched hand. Heat swamped my skin, no doubt turning my face tomato-red. No way would I look at him. “Come on, we should find Donnie before he gets too far ahead.”
Donnie would separate this tension. Donnie would clear my foggy thoughts. He’d say something silly about murderous scarecrows, and we’d laugh and never speak of this again.
I’d only taken a few steps back down the way we came until I realized Lucas hadn’t followed me; there were no trailing footsteps.
“Hailey asked me to the Halloween Bash.”
Everything in me tensed as dread punched its way through my stomach. I whirled around to find Lucas not even two feet from me. A part of me hoped he’d only said what he had to get me to face him, but he looked dead serious. “W-What?”
“She texted me yesterday asking if I’d go with her to the Halloween store to pick out her outfits for this week.” He took a step closer; only a foot of distance lingered between us now. “That’s when we planned our mermaid costume. While we were at the store, she asked me.”
My lips parted, ever so slightly, but no words came out. Raindrops fell harder now, pasting my hair to my skin. Distantly, I could
hear faint laughing, chattering conversations that sounded nothing like this one. It felt as if I was breathing underwater. “What did you tell her?”
His lips were pressed into a tight line, but his eyes glowed with emotion. Angry, sad, or tired—what is he feeling?
“No, don’t tell me.” I lifted my hand as if to cover his mouth, but I hovered an inch away. “You should go with her. I mean, she matched her bra with yours. Totes romantic.”
“Your sarcasm is noted,” Lucas replied carefully, annoyance crossing his gaze, “but—”
Now I did put my hand over his mouth. “No buts. Seriously. Go with her. You two were really cute together—now that you’re single again, I say go for it.”
I hate, hate, hated myself in that moment, because in my effort to be biting, I also became completely transparent.
Lucas reached up and pulled my hand away, fingers warm against my skin. The wind tugged at the dark, damp wisps cutting across his forehead. No divot dented his bottom lip now, no indent above the corner of his mouth. No trace of a smile in sight. “Maybe I will, Blaire.”
“Good. There’s absolutely no reason to tell her no.” I curled my hand into a fist, trying to ignore the ghost pressure of his mouth against my palm. “We should go find Donnie.”
More words lingered on the tip of my tongue, but I turned on my heel and practically ran away. The world weighed heavier and heavier with each step I took, because I was lying through my teeth, like a coward.
There was a reason to tell Hailey no, not that I could ever say that to him. I’d made my bed in this situation, and now it was time for a long, long sleep.
“I think I’m going to be a princess instead of an old person.” Delia twirled in front of the floor-length mirror, the excess fabric of the dress belling out with the movement. She wore one of Gram’s extra princess costumes, an old one of mine that I’d outgrown. It was still big on her, way too long, but she’d wanted to try it on so badly. “Can I be a princess, Blaire?”
I sat on the floor on the opposite side of the wall, a book from English class open in my lap. For the longest time, Delia had sorted through the entire closet and the costume trunk, talking to herself, so I’d pulled out some homework to distract myself with.
With my thumb, I bookmarked the page. “You can be whatever you want, Delia. But I thought you and your friend were going as old people.”
“Maybe he can be a prince instead. Or a frog.”
“Definitely a frog. You don’t need a prince.” Talking about princes made me think back to last night at the corn maze. After finding Donnie, we’d pretended like our whole almost-kissing/Halloween Bash conversation had never even happened.
On the drive home, Lucas had mentioned that Delia had been asking when she could come over to the apartment to pick out a costume. It made me smile to think she really wanted to come, so after clearing it with Mrs. Avery—which had taken me forever to gather the courage to make the phone call—I’d swung by Delia’s classroom after school, and we’d walked home together.
Delia now twirled again in front of the mirror, pulling at the sides of the dress. “It’s a little big on me.”
I set my book down on the ground and edged toward her. “Come here, I’ll show you a trade secret.”
The dress had been made for someone older, with hips and curves, so it swamped her. The top fit Delia all right—a little baggy in the front, but the width of her shoulders held the straps well. Only the length needed help. I reached under the tulle and grabbed a good amount of excess in my hands, folding it the way Gram taught me.
“You’re not going to cut it, are you?” she asked worriedly, watching my movements.
“Nope. Folding it like this underneath the dress shortens the hemline a little bit,” I told her, and once I was sure I had the fabric entirely in my one hand, I reached toward Gram’s desk. “All we have to do is pin it in place.”
When Costume Catering had first started, we hadn’t had much in the way of costumes. Gram had a thing against going to stores and buying something from a package. “Anyone can do that,” she’d said. “I want us to be unique. I want to piece these costumes together myself.”
So we’d gone to vintage thrift stores, but most of the pieces had been so worn or so ordinary that none of them had worked. The first piece of clothing Gram had found was this princess gown. It’d needed a massive workover, though. The fabric now was a pale lilac color, but before, it’d been a dirty sort of red. Gram had completely sewn together new fabric, added more tulle, altered the bodice. A total makeover for this one gown.
Our collection of costumes had quickly grown from there—we’d gone to antique shows, costume events, things like that—and so had our catering career.
Delia gasped a little as she looked in the mirror. “It doesn’t even look like you pinned it!”
“Since I pinned it underneath the top layer, it kind of hides it,” I told her, fluffing up the tulle and sitting back on my heels. “You’re going to blow all those other princesses out of the water.”
Delia’s lips curved into a smile at that as she twisted and turned in front of the mirror, tipping her head back and forth. “I’ve missed this.”
“Missed what?”
Those blue eyes met mine in the reflection. “Hanging out with you. I’ve missed you.”
My heart constricted tightly in my chest.
I looked at her in the mirror, at the darkness of her hair tumbling over the dress, trapped in a moment in time. In the memory of a time where I could still fit into this dress, of how it had looked to have my hair falling down the back of it. This dress was worse than the blue one because it was the first time I’d had to settle into the role of a princess. I’d felt like I was trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Trying to be a princess, beautiful and perfect, when I wasn’t—not by a long shot.
“Well, you could be on our costume team, sweetheart!” Aunt Aimee said as she stepped into the doorway, folding her arms. “We might have to hire you.”
That made Delia’s smile reappear. “It was a little long, but Blaire shortened the bottom, so I won’t trip.”
“Oh!” Gram moved into view behind Aunt Aimee, laying a hand on her shoulder. “It looks so beautiful on you, Delia. You must keep it.” She came into the room to peer at the gown further. I almost expected her to re-pin the dress, sure I’d done it wrong, but Gram seemed satisfied by my handiwork. “It doesn’t fit anyone around here anymore.”
Delia bent down and wrapped her arms around my neck, holding me tight. The dress crushed between us. “I’m so glad you’re back, Blaire.”
I sucked in a breath, my forehead crumpling as my brows drew together. Back in her life. Back in the Averys’ lives. Back to being her friend.
But I wasn’t back. In fact, after she left today, I had no idea when the next time I’d see her would be.
“Delia, your Mom’s here,” Aunt Aimee said, cutting into my thoughts. “We’ll have to show her this dress, huh?”
Delia rolled her eyes as she pulled away from me, picking up her backpack from the corner of the room. “Mom’ll probably say I’ve got too many dresses.”
“She won’t be able to say no to this one.”
I climbed to my feet, leaving my book on the ground, but Delia was already heading out of the room. She turned around and waved goodbye before Aunt Aimee steered her in the direction of the stairwell. Before I could follow them, I noticed Gram standing still in the room, twisting her wedding ring around on her finger.
“Are you sure about giving her that dress?” I asked, worried about her fidgeting. “I know it was our first. I’m sure Delia won’t mind. She has so many dresses.”
“Oh, I’m not that sentimental, dear. It looked adorable on her. She can grow into it too. It’s not that.”
I reached out and placed my hand over hers, forcing her fingers to still. “Are you worrying about the Halloween Bash?” Officially four days until Halloween. Too early to do any real preparing for
it, but not too early to begin stressing. Gram had been working with Aunt Aimee and Uncle John for the past few days now, checking and rechecking their ingredient inventory to make sure they’d have enough supplies. “It’ll go great, Gram. I’ll be a princess, Aunt Aimee will wear her totally not-age-appropriate nurse costume, you’ll be…whatever you want to be, and it’ll be great.”
She swatted at me like she normally would, though the spark of wariness didn’t leave her gaze. Gram stood several inches shorter than me—honestly, it was a feat for me to meet anyone who wasn’t shorter than me—causing her to crane her neck to look into my eyes. I could clear as day see my father’s gaze in hers, both of them sharing the same hazel hue. “How have you been lately, Blaire? Donnie’s been saying that you don’t seem like yourself.”
Immediately, my guard flew up. I could definitely see Donnie sitting them down, trying to plan out an intervention. “I’ve been fine. Why?”
“We haven’t talked about your father’s letter.”
I looked over her shoulder to the open closet, where a variety of colors and fabrics were about to spill out. A snippet of black caught my eye. “The one I asked you to throw away and you put it in my backpack?”
Gram was shameless. “That’s the one.”
“Talking about it won’t change my mind,” I told her, my insides starting to hum with frustration. “I’m not opening it. I’m not forgiving him.”
“Opening the letter doesn’t mean you’re automatically forgiving him, Blaire.”
Didn’t it? Opening the letter was admitting defeat. It wasn’t just opening a seal—it was opening a door, one that’d inevitably allow him to walk back into my life again. I knew me. If I let myself read that letter, I’d start to miss him, and that wasn’t a road I could go down.
At least, not if I ever wanted to reverse off of it.
Gram reached out and pushed my hair from my face in a way that surprised me, rendering me still. The action was so Dad, flipping all my hair over my shoulder and reaching a hand up to touch my cheek. Her fingers were a little calloused from all the sewing she’d done over the years, but still gentle. “You’ll do the right thing,” she said softly. “No matter what you decide, I love you.”