The ritual never changes: first, we start with a classic slasher likeFriday the 13thorHalloween, and then we wind down with a lighter horror-comedy. It’s usually a toss-up betweenGremlins,Hocus Pocus, andBeetlejuice, thoughBeetlejuicetypically wins. Hayes and I share a long-standing obsession with Lydia Deetz.
I was worried he’d forget this year with everything going on, but he texted me yesterday to confirm, telling me to let myself into his parents’ house and head to the movie room. He’d meet me there after football practice.
Best of all, no Amber.
The fact he’s still showing up for this makes me think maybe we really are okay.
At least… until he leaves town for good.
After my last class of the day ends, I put on my coziest black velour sweatsuit—the one with tiny silver rhinestone skulls embroidered on the cuffs—and drive over to Hayes’s to wait for him. I fire up the popcorn machine, the thick, buttery scent filling the air, andthen curl up in one of the oversized movie room recliners.
Argyros is in full Velcro-dog mode. His massive body is tucked into a warm ball at my feet, pressed up against my legs like he’s trying to fuse us together.
As I flip through the channels, I text Hayes to get an ETA. He doesn’t respond, even though practice let out fifteen minutes ago.
I sigh, sinking deeper into the plush leather and pulling my favorite cashmere blanket up to my chin.
Why can’t Hayes ever be on time for anything?
He knows how important today is.
For one thing, it’s my birthday. I’m officially eighteen. I can vote, get a tattoo, buy tobacco—not that I’d ever want to—and even open a bank account, if I had any money to put in it. I’m an adult in every way one can be.
Except… nothing actually feels different.
I always imagined adulthood would arrive with some kind of magical shift. Like something big would happen the moment I turned eighteen. At least, that’s how it goes in the fairytales.
You come of age, transform from ugly duckling to princess, and your long-lost prince appears to whisk you away to a glittering kingdom where you rule together, happily ever after. Or… something like that.
But nothing’s changed for me.
Well, except that Hayes is leaving. And Argy too. Both of them headed somewhere thousands of miles away, across an entire ocean I can’t cross.
I swallow past the tightness in my throat and scrollthrough the streaming options until I finally land on the originalA Nightmare on Elm Streetmovie. My stomach flips with a familiar thrill. I’ve always had a thing for Wes Craven. As far as I’m concerned, he was the undisputed master of horror.Nightmareis one of his best—second only toScream—and Freddy Krueger, with his burned face and bladed glove, is pure nightmare fuel even all these years later.
Of course, the sequels were trash, except forDream WarriorsandNew Nightmare, obviously. Those still hold up.
The movie starts, and I turn off the lights. The screen’s eerie glow spills across the room, stretching shadows along the walls. I watch eagerly as doomed teens are hunted down and hacked to pieces, punished for a crime their parents committed long ago by killing Freddy. It’s a timeless theme: sins of the parents, visited upon the innocent children and passed down like an inheritance.
Today of all days, the lesson about paying for your parents’ mistakes isn’t lost on me—even if my father’s mistake is more abandonment than murder.
It’s hard not to think about him every now and then, but especially on Halloween. The night he disappeared. The night everything fractured. I still have so many questions about my father, even after all these years.
Where is he now?
Does he ever think about us?
I shift in my seat, tugging the blanket tighter around me.
These are dangerous questions. The kind of thoughts that can drive a person crazy, if you let them.
Crazy—just like my mother.
My throat tightens and I crank the volume higher, trying to drown out the intrusive thoughts with a soundtrack of eerie music and cinematic violence.
How much like my mother am I?
Is my brain a ticking time bomb too, just waiting to explode?
