Kailey turned to pick up the costume. Her back was facing me so I could not see what it was, but Justin was on the other side of her so he had his eyes on it. His eyes went wide before he burst into laughter. He wiped tears from his eyes dramatically as he nodded.
"Yeah," he managed between laughter. "That's the one."
I didn't like his tone, but I was biased because I never liked his tone. The way he was laughing made it seem like the costume was horrid. However, I trusted Bella and Kailey.
Ricky walked around to see it. "Show me it.”
Kailey presented it to him and he had little to no reaction. The only thing I caught was the flare of his nostrils, which gave no indications to what the costume was whatsoever. Then, his lips curled into a smile. "If you like it, I love it."
My arms hit my sides. "Okay, what is it?"
"I want you to know that I think you'd look so hot in it, but it could also be an acquired taste, alright?" Bella disclaimed. “And I will totally buy it for you.”
I impatiently nodded. "Yeah, yeah, show me it."
Kailey spun on her heels with the costume in her hands. When I finally caught a glimpse of the tiny picture of thecostume on the front of the package it was in, my nose scrunched up. I had no idea how to feel about it.
Seventeen
Eli
Ihad never been to a haunted house before. I knew that just like in horror movies, the 'monsters' were just actors in costume and makeup. Since I knew that there was no threat I had nothing to fear. The whole point of a haunted house was to be scared but since I didn’t believe that I would be, I never had any desire to go to one.
However, a haunted house had recently opened in our town and tonight it was doing a discount for school students. They probably thought since it was a school night that most parents would not let their child go despite the discount. What parent sends their kids to go be scared all night when they have school in the morning? Apparently a lot of parents because it looked as if every student in town had shown up. The line to get into the building was out of the door and deep into the parking lot. Nonetheless, my friend group insisted that we wait for the estimated time of two hours.
We had been standing in line for almost an hour and a half and I was tired of it. I, as well as many other people, sat on the ground while we waited. I found a small patch of dirt and was occupying myself by drawing in it with my finger.
Bella and Ricky were arguing about which had a better scare factor: ghosts or vampires.
"How could you possibly tell me with a straight face that vampires are scary?" Bella said in utter disbelief. "Are you okay in the head?"
"Areyouokay in the head?" Ricky tapped his finger against his temple aggressively. "Vampires have fangs and suck your blood. That automatically puts them above all monsters."
"Ghosts can possess you, Ricky. I think that's worse. Are you saying that if you saw a ghost right now you wouldn't be terrified?"
"Not as scared as I would be if I saw a vampire.” Ricky then turned to his girlfriend. “Kailey, you agree with me, right?"
Kailey was watching me draw figures in the dirt as she sat next to me. She sighed heavily, clearly over this conversation because Bella and Ricky had been debating for over ten minutes. "You won't like my answer."
Ricky’s jaw dropped. "You think ghosts are scarier than vampires?"
"I think vampires are hot."
Bella and Ricky paused in a moment of confusion. They glanced at each other, then at Kailey. A few seconds later they both broke into laughter. Kailey pressed her lips together before she started laughing herself, and I couldn’t help but laugh too.
"You watch too many vampire shows and movies," Bella said between laughs. "Eli, what do you think?"
I had just finished drawing a horse in the dirt. Well, it looked more like a deformed cow than a horse. I wasn't an artist in the slightest, but I was proud of my horse-cow.
"The only monster that could come close to scaring me is clowns," I said. Some would argue that clowns aren’t monsters, but I fully disagreed. Clowns appear in horror movies just likezombies appear in horror movies. They wouldn’t show up in the movies if they weren’t monsters.
"So you scare yourself?" asked Justin.
Justin had just arrived because he wanted to meet us at the haunted house rather than to go there with us. We didn't know the reason why, which was fine because I couldn't care less. I was hoping that he was going to skip out on us.
"There's only one scary-looking person here and it's you," I said, my tone dull.
Justin laughed condescendingly. "I'm surprised you're even here. I figured that out of everyone in the group you'd be the one to chicken out."
