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Without saying a single word, I pulled out my phone, opened the crisp screenshot of her party flyer, and slid the screen directly in front of her face.

“What the fuck is this?”

Willow’s eyes dropped to the screen. Then, slowly, her gaze darted toward the hallway staircase as if looking for an emergency exit.

I folded my arms tightly across my chest. “Don’t look around for help. I’m talking directly to you.”

She returned her attention to the invitation, clearing her throat. “Oh.”

“‘Oh?’” I repeated, my voice dripping with venom.

A nervous, guilty smile appeared on her face. “So… I can explain.”

I pulled out the stool beside me with my foot. “Wonderful. I’m sitting right here waiting.”

She inhaled deeply, smoothing her hands over her leggings. “Okay. Before you get mad—”

“Too late… way too late!”

She sighed, throwing her hands up slightly. “Okay! I just wanted to do something fun!”

I studied her face, completely unimpressed. “Something fun? Like throw a massive mansion party in a house that does not belong to you?”

Her eyes dipped back toward the flyer. “Technically—”

I lifted one sharp warning finger. “Do not say technically.”

Her mouth snapped closed instantly.

I leaned forward across the island. “Did you run this by me, Willow?”

She hesitated, shifting her weight. “No.”

“Exactly.”

“Lakelyn, listen—”

“No, you listen to me! You could have planned a party anywhere in this damn town: a club downtown, a lounge… a damn hotel ballroom. But out of all the places in Hallowridge, you chose here?”

She rubbed her forehead, looking genuinely stressed. “I know how it looks.”

I turned back around to face Willow, my eyes burning. “Do you really?! Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you woke up one morning and decided to invite a bunch of random people into the house without having the basic decency to ask me first! Of all the nights on the calendar you could have picked, you chose the one night I don’t even like thinking about.” I shook my head, my voice dropping as the anger gave way to deep, raw pain. “You know how I feel about Halloween, Willow.”

Willow opened her mouth to argue, but then she abruptly stopped.

I turned slightly away from her, staring out the arched kitchen window at the vast, empty backyard.

Halloween.

The one holiday I had spent six long years desperately avoiding.

Every October thirty-first, while the rest of the world partied, I found some excuse to bury myself in work—picking up twelve-hour hospital shifts, volunteering for holiday coverage, doing anything that kept me too busy to think. Because while everybody else dressed up, drank, danced, passed out candy, and treated Halloween like one big celebration, all I remembered was the night Caspian never showed up to pick me up. And every Halloween after that became another reminder that another year had passed without him.

Even after I had Kaidence, I never really celebrated. When he was a toddler, it was easy enough to avoid. He didn’t know Halloween from any other day, so I could put him in some cute little outfit for daycare, buy him candy once he was old enough to eat it, and call that enough. I never took him trick-or-treating myself. If somebody asked, I always had an excuse ready—he was too young, it was too cold, I had work, he wouldn’t remember it anyway.

That worked until the year before.

By then, Kaidence was old enough to notice the decorations going up, old enough to hear other kids talking about costumes and candy, and definitely old enough to realize his mama kept acting weird every time Halloween came around. He had asked me why everybody else got to go trick-or-treating and he didn’t, and there hadn’t been a single excuse left that didn’t sound exactly like what it was—me making my grief his problem. So I took him.