We do the house. Cobwebs in the corners. Pumpkin lights across the kitchen archway. A black tablecloth on the dining room table. Gianna is the project manager. She barks orders from the counter. She makes me redo the pumpkin lights twice because they’re uneven. The first time, I redo them without arguing. The second time, Benson speaks up from the dining room without looking at her.
“Gianna. They’re fine.”
“They’re crooked.”
“Gianna.”
“Benson.”
They stare at each other across the kitchen. Lucy is at the island silently watching, biting down on a smile.
I redo the lights.
Gianna says in a sweet, sarcastic tone, “Thank you, Blue.”
Benson rolls his eyes at me. I shrug at him. He rolls his eyes again.
Lucy puts on a playlist around eleven. The kitchen smells like Percy’s cranberries and the cinnamon Rowan has in the oven for something he’s making. Gianna sings along to a song I don’t know. Percy stirs his punch.
I stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room with my coffee in my hand, and I look at the room.
This is my family.
I didn’t have one before this house. Not like this.
Around noon, the house is done.
The five of us — me, Benson, Stanley, Rowan, Percy — stand in the kitchen doorway and look at it.
There is almost something black or orange in every direction of the house. There’s a sign that reads,all tricks, no treats.The girls carved pumpkins and have them on display. Rowan’s vegetable tray on the dining room table. Percy’s two pitchers are chilling in the fridge. Stanley’s string lights, against all his protests, are working.
Benson is beside me with his arms crossed with a small, satisfied look. He elbows me. “Get ready for tonight, Blue.”
I look down at the pumpkin. “I need to buy a mask.”
He looks over at Stanley. “Stan said he needed to run out, too.”
“Ermington,” I call out. “You and me at Spirit Halloween in five.”
He nods. “Yeah, boy. Let’s do it. Wanna match?”
I chuckle. “Hell yeah, let’s go.”
Chapter 7
Melly
IthoughtIwasgoing to feel better.
It’s been four days, and there’s a stabbing feeling right under my rib every time I think about Chase. It isn’t heartbreak. I know what heartbreak feels like — I lived inside it for three solid years of my life — and this isn’t that.
And every time I think about the Hawthorne House Halloween party, I panic.
I can’t tell which of those two things is making the other worse.
Mila has been my rock. She’s slept over twice. I’ve slept on her dorm floor once, in the little space between her bed and her roommate’s bed, on a folded comforter she pulled out of her closet. She’s bought me a milkshake I didn’t ask for. She’s brought me a sandwich I didn’t eat. Last night, sitting cross-legged on my living room floor with a pan of brownies betweenus, she made me promise her — twice, both times with her pinky out like we were fifteen again — that I would pull myself together for Halloween.
There’s only so many Halloweens to spend at Camden,she said.
