Page 22

Chapter 22

Graham

Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of haunted things. I'm not afraid of it. I just think it's dumb and I don’t understand why people want to mess with that whole situation, but all of my friends wanted to go. And yeah, yeah, would I jump off a cliff, but this is not that. Hopefully.

We pull up to an old warehouse on the edge of town. The parking lot is half gravel, half pothole, and wholly filled with teenagers, college kids, and young professionals. Throughout the crowd, workers dressed as killer clowns, vampires, werewolves, and other nondescript monsters are handing out waivers to be signed before we are allowed to go inside. Nathan, freshly dressed as a doctor—why he had a pair of scrubs just sitting around is beyond me—waves them all off and pulls a stack of signed papers from his back pocket. We follow him toward the front door and ticket counter, and Julia slides her hand into mine. I give her a half smile.

“Will you protect me?” Julia teases.

“Absolutely.” I let go of her hand and take a half step back so I can wrap my arms around her. I give her a small kiss on the cheek just in time for Nathan to turn and crinkle his nose in disgust. He doesn’t like the PDA, but I know he is happy for us. I can see it in his eyes.

“Whoa, if you’re protecting Julia, who is going to protect me?” Nathan asks.

“I have two hands, bro.” I hold out my free hand, and Nathan swats it away.

“I was talking about Julia,” he laughs.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend. I get it. You miss me. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Julia, and you need your best friend back.” I stretch out my arms, walking toward him. Everyone starts laughing, and Nathan ducks under my arm, reaching out for Julia. He grabs her hand and threads it through his arm, pulling her towards the first room.

“Guess that’s what you get when you date a twin,” Josie says, standing next to me. I chuckle, and we all start toward the twins. Since paintballing, Josie has let up on the flirting and is a pretty cool girl. I narrow my eyes, thinking about who I could set her up with. Double dates. I am not ashamed to be one of those people, happily paired up and wanting everyone around me to be as lucky.

We make our way through absolutely disgusting rooms, all inspired by classic horror films. I see a bunch of friends from school and say hi to them. A few girls touch my arm, and I try to pull away without embarrassing anyone. No need to make enemies, but also, hands to yourself. Over the next thirty minutes, I get stopped by so many people that I end up a little behind the rest of the group. I enter a room with an appropriate amount of smoke to make it spooky and a little tense. Before I can look around and identify which movie this is from, I hear a loud clank and smoke starts billowing out of the machine in the corner. Pretty soon we can’t see more than maybe a foot in front of our faces, and the fire sprinklers start spraying everywhere. An alarm starts blaring, and the workers try to funnel people toward exits, which is hard because it's a literal maze. The water helps clear the smoke enough that I can locate Nathan, Julia, and the rest of our friends. They see me and wave me over. I’m almost to them when I hear a coed complaining to her boyfriend. “Why didn’t you tell me to bring an umbrella? Now I have to completely redo my hair. You need to take me home…” Her voice trails off as she keeps going toward the door, dragging some poor sap behind her. Umbrella. That word triggers something in my mind. Number fourteen: Kiss me in the rain. Not exactly what she meant but I think it’ll work. Plus, I want to kiss her. Wins all around. I grab Julia’s wrist, pulling her to a stop. She looks over her shoulder at me.

“Did you forget something?” Julia asks.

“No, but Nate, you’re gonna want to cover your eyes.” I grab her waist and pull her tight to my chest. I stroke her cheek for half a second, watching the fire start burning in her eyes. I let myself smile a small smile before leaning down and pressing my lips to hers. She wraps her arms around my neck and starts to play with my hair. I move both arms to her waist and lean back, picking her up off the ground. The water sprays all around us, and I can feel it dripping down both of our faces. I pull back after not as long as I’d like (but still probably longer than I should’ve in public) and give her a smile. She looks at me, a slightly dazed look in her eye as a smile lifts her lips.

“Are they done?” Nathan says, his voice muffled. I glance toward him and see him actually covering his eyes. I grab Julia’s hand and walk towards Nathan, lean down and kiss his cheek.

“Dude. Wrong twin.” Nathan wipes at his cheek before stalking toward the entrance.

“What’s his deal?” Julia asks, glancing around.

“If I had to guess…” Chloe points towards Josie flirting with a guy wearing a Sun Hills High shirt. “That.”

“Wait. Is this a thing everyone knows?” I ask.

“Let’s discuss it outside, out of the ‘rain.’” Julia tugs me towards the door. I am pretty distracted, thinking about Nathan and Josie. Are they talking? Dating? Friends with benefits? I hate to admit that I have no idea what is going on with my best friend. I glance over my shoulder to see if Josie is coming out and bump into someone. She falls backward and I let go of Julia’s hand to catch her.

***

Julia

I stop walking when Graham lets go of my hand, and I look back to see an attractive college-aged girl in his arms. She is dressed as some kind of animal. I know this because she has a headband with ears, but there are no other hints. She looks gorgeous, really, and I glance down at my costume. Before she was in Graham’s arms, I was feeling pretty good about how I looked.

“J. Stop it. I know that look. You are rocking this witch look, and Graham has spent just as much time staring at you as he has looking at anything else,” Chloe says quietly. I shake my head, getting rid of those pesky comparison thoughts. Graham likes me. He has spent so much time doing The List. He kissed me like he was going off to war. That’s just a random girl, and he’s a good guy, helping her out.

“I’m so sorry for bumping into you. I get distracted when I’m around good looking girls.” Graham looks at me and winks. Animal Ears’ mouth turns up in an indulgent grin and she wobbles on her feet. I think Graham was talking about me, but Animal Ears certainly doesn’t know that. Graham tightens his grasp, and she takes the opportunity to put her hand on his chest and gently stroke it. Weird.

“You’re so hot,” she mumbles under her breath.

“Well, thank you. Always a good day when someone tells me I’m hot.” Graham lets out his most charming smile. “You good? Are you here with someone?”

He just gave me that amazing rain kiss, and now he’s flirting with a drunk coed? Seriously. Okay, to be fair, she might not be drunk, and maybe he isn’t really flirting. Benefit of the doubt, Julia. You want this to work.

“I don’t have to be here with someone if you don’t want me to.” She reaches up to touch his face, and an uncomfortable look crosses Graham’s face before he gently steps back from her, letting go of her waist.

“Nice of you to offer but I don’t think my girlfriend would like that very much.” He winks. Again. “Where are your friends?”

“Maybe he has a twitch?” Chloe says after the second wink.

I snort out a laugh, and Graham turns to see what I’m laughing about. He smiles a little, clearly confused, and then winks at me. Chloe and I start to laugh almost uncontrollably. Graham keeps looking between us and Animal Ears, clearly wanting to be in on the joke.

Another girl, dressed as some kind of animal, runs up to Graham, basically in tears. “Kyla! I am so glad I found you!” She wraps her arms around Animal Ears, or Kyla, I guess, and starts to pull her toward the parking lot.

“Wait! Hot pirate!” Kyla reaches her arms toward Graham. Graham looks terrified for a second before masking his expression.

“Ky. That’s a kid. Gross. Walk away,” her friend says, literally dragging her around the waist.

Graham chuckles, rubbing his neck and walks towards us. “Well, that was awkward.”

“I don’t know; you seemed to enjoy it.” I gesture toward the car. “Come on, Chlo. Let’s wait in the car. There are some creepers around here.”

“Wait! Julia, what’s up?” Graham grabs my hand, stopping me from walking away.

“Don’t worry about it.” I yank my hand free and pull Chloe towards the parking lot. “See you at the car. Maybe go find Nate?”

“J. Way too tight. Let go. I can walk. Man alive.” Chloe shakes her hand, trying to get some blood flow back. “Also, harsh. Instead of getting mad at Graham and pouting, why not try talking to him?”

“And say what? Graham, I hate when you flirt with other girls?”

“Uh, yes. What’s wrong with that? It’s called communicating. It’s all the rage. Well, in real life. In books and movies, it's pretty popular to do what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know how to. We aren’t dating.” Chloe snorts and shakes her head. “What? We aren’t!” I practically yell.

“Sure. You go out all the time. He holds your hand, kisses you during an evacuation, buys out a drugstore for you, writes you love notes—don’t think I haven't noticed you aren’t reading those, by the way, I saw them in that box in your closet—brings you an insane amount of lollipops and takes you on the cutest dates. Definitely not dating, I misunderstood the situation. My bad.” Her sarcasm is so thick, it coats me like slime from head to toe. But my stubbornness and fear are stronger than my shame.

“I’m not talking about this. Thank you for your insight.” Chloe rolls her eyes so hard I think her neck is going to break. “I… I just can’t. Okay? I don’t want to be bothered, but I don’t know what to say, what to think, what to do. I know you are literally telling me but I…” I shrug helplessly and Chloe gives me a side hug.

“Okay.” Chloe shakes her head at me before resting it on my shoulder.

We reach the car and she leans against the hood, waiting on Josie, Nathan, and Graham. Paige and Greg pull out of the spot next to us and wave bye. I was planning on inviting everyone over to watch a movie and raid the Halloween candy my mom hid in the pantry behind the canned vegetables, but I missed my chance.

“Chloe. Do you want to come watch a movie tonight?” I ask hesitantly.

“Yes. I’m not mad at you so stop with the tone and the face. I think you’re being dumb, but I still love you.” The rest of the group walk up when she is wrapping her arms around me.

“Group hug!” Graham yells, putting one arm around my waist, pulling Nathan in with the other. Nathan grabs Josie’s hand, and pretty soon I’m in the middle of a very tight group hug, trying to catch my breath.

“Too tight!” I gasp, and they quickly let go. I jump into the front seat of the car and throw the key to Nathan. “You drive.”

“I’ll drive!” Graham is quick to volunteer.

“No. Nathan.” I wrap my arms around my waist and look away from him. I really am more embarrassed than angry because I don’t know what to do. I mean, I know I should talk to him but I don’t have any claim on him. I’ve refused to let him claim me, so it’s hardly fair for me to expect to be able to act like I own him. And even if I did, who wants to date the girl that lets her jealousy and doubt overrule good sense? I know I am being stupid, but I’m in too deep. Nathan climbs into the driver's seat to start the car and waits for a minute while Josie, Chloe and Graham try to squeeze into the back seat.

“Graham, you are too big to sit three to the back. Julia, switch please?” Chloe complains.

“I’ll switch!” Josie scrambles over Graham not very gracefully and waits by my door. I glance at Nathan and the hope on his face is too much for me to ignore. I heave a pretty serious sigh and climb over the seat into the back. I sit in the middle, leaning into Chloe as much as I can but it doesn’t do much good.

“This didn’t really solve the problem, but okay, whatever.” Chloe pulls out her phone and starts typing.

“Julia,” Graham whispers. “Are you okay? Talk to me. I don’t get what I did.”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now. Give me time, k? I promise we’ll talk later.” I see Nathan raise his eyebrow in the rearview mirror at Graham, and Graham leans back in his seat, rubbing his hands over his face before he looks out the window. Good , this is what I wanted.

But if this is really what I want, why am I so bothered that he isn’t fighting to fix what I have broken?