Nine Years Ago

“So, what are you dressing up as for Halloween?” He asked me one day while we were at recess. I managed to tear my gaze away from the grass for a moment to look at him, and he was nearly buzzing with excitement.

It was two weeks until the holiday, so by now all the adults in town had their decorations up and were off collecting candy bags at the store before the ones with the best candy sold out. Meanwhile all us kids had our costumes picked out- aside from the small few of us who seemed unable to choose between two options- like John B., one of my classmates who couldn’t decide between being a superhero or a different equally boring looking superhero. He just kept bringing it up in class, like every single day on and on about these two guys nobody cared about, and he sat at my table so I never heard the end of it. I just told him to flip a coin.

“My mom wants me to dress up as a princess.” I stated, looking back down and tugging another strand of grass out of the ground, roots and all.

“Ooh, that sounds neat.” He said with a sweet smile, but I rolled my eyes. He didn’t get it, clearly. 

“No, not neat. I wanted to dress up as a zombie but she said it’s ’not lady-like.’” I scoffed. 

Why did I have to be lady-like? I was a girl, wasn’t that lady enough? If I dressed up like a zombie, wouldn’t that make me a girl zombie? So…wouldn’t that make me ‘like a lady’? A lady zombie? 

Who was in charge of deciding what’s lady-like anyway? I swear, when I find them I’m gonna have a long conversation with them about changing the rules so I can wear whatever I want. Besides, it’s Halloween! Why can’t I dress up as something scary! Princesses aren’t scary, unless they’re like, executing someone. Then maybe a little scary. Maybe I should be a princess who’s executing someone. 

“Oh! Zombie sounds even cooler. My dad was watching a movie with zombies in it the other day, but when I tried to watch it with him he turned it off because it ‘wasn’t for kids.’” Sebastian said, busying himself with a white flower he found in the grass amongst the clover. I was surprised he’d found any flowers in the grass, it was probably one of the last ones left alive considering the weather was so cold as it made way for Winter. 

“Cool.” I sighed. “I wish my mom would let me choose what to wear for myself.” 

“Does she not usually?” He frowned, and I looked up at him.

“No. She doesn’t want me to dress like a boy so she chooses all my clothes. Why do you think I’m in dresses all the time?" I scoffed, looking down at the green plaid dress my mom had put me in that day. Every morning before school she got me up, combed my hair and put it in some silly hairdo that fell apart five minutes into me being at school, then threw me in her favorite dresses and called me her little perfect princess, telling me how sweet and ‘darling’ I looked. Maybe that’s why she wanted me to dress as one, just to drive home her point. 

Meanwhile every day I hoped that by the time I got home my dress was so muddied she’d have to throw it away.

Maybe if I ruined every single dress my mom ever put me in, she’d finally stop buying them.

“Well, I think your dresses look nice. They’re pretty colors and they’re all flowy and comfy.” Sebastian smiled, tugging up some clovers. 

“Yeah, I guess.” I sighed, looking down. 

Maybe I was being mean. I mean…Sebastian was right, the colors were kinda pretty. They were just clothes I guess. I just didn’t like not being able to decide for myself. I was eight years old for Pete’s sake, that was more than old enough to pick out my own shirts! 

“So, what are you dressing up as?” I asked, hoping to change the subject away from me, and he immediately broke out into a grin like he’d been waiting ages for me to ask.

“I’m going as a ghost! Dad found an old white sheet in the garage and I asked if I could cut eyeholes in it.” He grinned. “He said yes.”

“That sounds cool. I wish I could be a ghost.” I muttered, smiling at him a bit.

I wished I could be more like him. I wished I had the freedom to be like him, to dress like him, to play like him, no more being ladylike…

We could wear all the same clothes and play the same games and do all the same things and I’d even have the same short hair so I’d never even have to brush it anymore-

Sigh. It would be so cool…

For a moment he was quiet, twisting the stem of one of the clovers around his finger, and then he spoke up. “I mean…it’s a very big sheet, I could ask my dad to cut it in half…or we could like, share if you wanted.”

My eyes went wide. “Wow, really?”

“Mhm. We could be like…one extra long ghost. With four arms!” He grinned, waving his hands. “A monster ghost! We’d have the coolest costume in the whole town, then.”

His excitement was contagious, and as quickly as he presented the idea was my mind flooding with plans of ways to get my parents to agree to let us trick or treat together.

They weren’t the biggest fans of Sebastian, not after the whole…running away from class and trading clothes thing last month, but I was sure they’d warm up to him.

It was only a matter of time.

But…

“That’s really sweet. You don’t have to though, I don’t want you to mess up your costume for me.” I smiled softly, looking down at the ground.

But he just grabbed my hand and shook his head, flipping it over and placing the pretty white flower in my palm. “No way, it won’t be messed up, it’ll be even better! Besides, Halloween’s my favorite holiday either way. It doesn’t matter what costume I have, it’ll be fun. I just want you to have fun too.”

I stared down at the flower in my hand, then looked back up at him.

“…yeah, alright. We can be a long ghost monster then. We’ll be so much cooler than all the regular ghosts out there that we’ll get extra candy, I bet.” I beamed, unable to keep a smile off my face. 

Sebastian’s eyes lit up at my acceptance. “We’re gonna get so much candy, we’re gonna be so sick we end up in the hospital!” He grinned.

“Yeah!”

We quickly began to plan out how to get our families together so we could trick-or-treat. I didn’t remember the exact number of my address, nor did I know where his street was so we couldn’t make a plan as to meet at a house, but he told me he lived in the big white house at the end of Seven Pines Road, so to look for that.

I had no idea where that was, but I said okay anyway. I figured I could just use the computer after school and find a map.

When the bell rang for us to go back inside, my mind was swirling with ideas and I was so excited I doubted I’d be able to sleep that night.

That Halloween was probably one of the best ones I’d ever had, though I hadn’t had many.

I still remember it like it was yesterday.

We did get extra candy for our ‘creative costume’ when we managed to drag our parents in the direction of each others houses and convince them to let us trick or treat together.

It was great.

Right before my parents took me home I remember peering out from under the sheet at all the lights and thinking to myself, ‘Wow, I hope this night never ends!’

It was wonderful, though we didn’t end up with stomachaches requiring a hospital visit like Sebastian had said we would.

Though, like all good things, it had to end eventually.

-

‘Eventually’

The next few weeks flew by. I missed one day of school simply because I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but otherwise I just felt regular bad instead of really bad which was a great improvement in my opinion.

I liked to attribute it to the fact that it was no longer summer, so the heat wasn’t making me feel like an old piece of roadkill in a ditch off the highway. Now I just felt like fresh roadkill! Which of course made existing a lot easier.

Sebastian and I met up twice a week, (usually) Wednesdays and Fridays.

I usually wasn’t the first one in the library.

When I walked in late a second time- this time because I had been talking to one of the counselors about my gym class- I spotted him checking out another book.

I recognized this one as well from the pile I had on the desk a few weeks ago.

Yet another cheesy high school appropriate romance novel.

I shrugged it off. He probably just had a peculiar taste in books. Whatever. Everyone could have their own strange tastes in things.

Trying to fight to get my gym class changed was exhausting though, so more often than not I ended up running late for our little tutoring sessions.

Every time I apologized profusely and he just smiled and said it was no trouble.

One time in particular I walked in and found him asleep in the chair, face down on the table, headphones still in.

I sat down beside him but hesitated when I thought of waking him. I mean, the dude looked like he’d gotten maybe two hours of sleep in the entire four years I’d been gone.

So instead I just stayed quiet and wrote down a few notes, copying them down off the notebook he’d left open on the table, brushing his soft hair off of the words I couldn’t see from where it was splayed out over the pages.

He ended up waking up maybe forty or so minutes later, blushing profusely and apologizing.

I just laughed it off, shaking my head and telling him he should try to get some more sleep next time.

He just wrapped his headphone cord around his finger over and over again, shrugging as he told me that he had trouble sleeping sometimes.

And I had to act like I didn’t know from experience, from the years I spent sneaking over to his house to hang out in the middle of the night because he could never sleep and hated being alone in the dark.

It stung.

Once again had he managed to brush over the old wound on my heart and wake it back up. I’d be nursing it for days until the bitter ache went away, and then I’d wind up aching again the next time he tilted his head like that or laughed the same way or…anything at all.

But otherwise things were going well.

My Ds and Cs were now Cs and Bs, and I was even getting close to an A in history- but I’ll admit that was solely because I had a good study partner. It’s easier to understand what’s going on in class when I have someone else there who can explain it to me. One row over, two rows up.

But…that proximity came with its own problems.

Nearly every day after class did Sebastian try and ask me to eat lunch with him, and every time I had to make up some excuse for why I couldn’t. 

‘I have to talk to one of my teachers.’

‘I have a meeting with a counselor.’

‘I forgot my lunch at home.’

‘Ellis Thomas isn’t real, you’re actually hallucinating. I’ve been a ghost this whole time.’

Or, my personal favorite, the ‘I can’t today, maybe next time?’

Every time he just smiled and said it was no problem.

But I could see in his eyes it was breaking his heart a little.

And honestly, watching him walk away alone, knowing the empty table he was likely going to sit at, it broke mine too.

But this was for the best!

At least, that’s what I had to tell myself.

Denial! It’s the better way to cope.

And although I had tried to fight it at first, every day after our little tutoring sessions, we walked home together. 

He’d tell me how excited he was for Halloween- though he refused to tell me what he was dressing up as for some reason- and he’d continually bother me about getting a costume.

Though I always rolled my eyes and shrugged it off in front of him, I couldn’t help but feel warm inside at the whole thing.

And I will admit, I did ask my uncle if he had any old Halloween costumes I could borrow. (He did not. Guess I’d have to improvise.)

I didn’t go back to the river.

I really wanted to, though.

I knew if I did, I’d likely run into him again, and I wasn’t sure my heart could take seeing him at the river yet again. 

Not because I had any sort of interest in him or anything like that, moreso because every time I ran into him I felt kind of like I was halfway to having a heart attack!

…well, that certainly didn’t help my case. I just get nervous around him because we used to be friends, that's all. 

It’s because I need to keep up the facade, not because I like being around him or anything.

We aren’t friends.

Even if I do like to see him…sometimes.

Besides, my heart’s just like that! It doesn’t only skip a beat for him. It just does that all the time! Because I’m broken!