29 costume crisis
Nola's dorm room looks like a fabric store exploded.
There are clothes everywhere.
Sequins hanging off the desk chair.
Three different pairs of boots kicked into the corner.
A fake angel halo somehow tangled around Peyton's water bottle.
And in the middle of all of it, Nola is sitting cross-legged on the floor staring at her phone like it personally insulted her.
"I can't do this," she announces dramatically.
Peyton doesn't even glance up from where she's painting her nails on the bed. "You say that every six minutes."
"This is different."
"That's also something you say every six minutes."
Nola ignores her completely and turns the phone toward me instead. "What if she secretly hates me?"
I squint at the screen.
I look back up slowly. "Yeah. Brutal rejection."
Nola flops backward onto the carpet with a groan.
"She used a smiley face."
"That's generally considered positive."
"But was it a friendly smiley face or a flirty smiley face?"
Peyton snorts loudly. "Lesbians are exhausting."
"I'm literally fighting for my life right now."
"You got her number three days ago."
"Exactly. We're basically married."
I laugh before I can stop myself.
It feels nice, honestly.
Easy.
Warm.
The room smells like coffee and vanilla candles and whatever sugar overload Peyton brought back from the student center twenty minutes ago. Outside the window, rain taps softly against the glass while music plays quietly from somebody's speaker down the hall.
For the first time in days, my chest doesn't feel quite so heavy.
"Okay," Peyton says, pointing her nail polish brush at us. "Focus. Halloween costumes."
Nola immediately sits back up. "Yasmine said she'd be willing to do matching costumes."
Peyton gasps. "You're moving fast."
"She brought it up first."
"Sure she did."
"She DID."
I smile into my coffee cup while they start arguing.
Nola grabs her phone again. "We could do Coraline and Wybie."
"Absolutely not," Peyton says immediately.
"Why?"
"Because you'd make Yasmine wear the ugly hat and relationships shouldn't start with oppression."
Nola throws a pillow at her.
Peyton catches it without effort.
"Fine," Nola says. "Then what are you guys doing?"
"I refuse to participate in anything involving cat ears," Peyton says.
"That's weirdly specific."
"I have standards."
My attention drifts while they keep talking.
Not intentionally.
It just happens.
One second I'm listening to Nola passionately explain why couples costumes are romantic, and the next my brain's somewhere else entirely.
Back in the dorm.
Jackson standing in the doorway after practice looking like he wanted to say something and couldn't.
The text he sent afterward.
Coleman...
Like one word was somehow gonna fix everything.
"You're doing the sad lesbian stare again," Peyton says.
I blink. "The what?"
"The sad lesbian stare."
"I'm not even a lesbian."
Peyton points at me lazily. "The stare transcends sexuality."
Nola snorts into her coffee.
"I wasn't staring," I argue weakly.
"You were fully dissociating."
"I was thinking."
"Dangerous activity."
I roll my eyes, but they're both smiling at me now in that annoyingly perceptive way best friends do when they know exactly what you're not saying.
Nola softens slightly. "You okay?"
The question lands gentler than Logan's did.
Maybe because she already knows the answer.
I shrug one shoulder. "I'm fine."
"Lie," Peyton says immediately.
"Massive lie," Nola agrees.
I throw a balled-up receipt at both of them.
Peyton dodges it dramatically. "Violence. Interesting coping mechanism."
"You're both incredibly annoying."
"And yet you love us."
Unfortunately true.
Nola reaches over suddenly and squeezes my knee once before going back to her phone.
A tiny gesture.
But enough to make my throat tighten unexpectedly.
So I immediately stand up and start digging through the costume pile beside the desk instead.
"What about this?" I ask, holding up a sparkly black dress.
Peyton looks horrified. "You look like a divorced magician."
Nola gasps. "Wait, she's right."
"Traitors."
Twenty minutes later, the room somehow gets messier.
Peyton vetoes approximately every costume idea in existence.
Nola keeps smiling down at her phone whenever Yasmine texts her.
And despite myself, I keep laughing.
Actually laughing.
Not fake polite laughing.
Not forcing it.
Real laughing.
Eventually we settle on costumes after way too much arguing and exactly one near friendship-ending debate over fake leather pants.
Rain still taps softly against the windows by the time I grab my hoodie to leave.
Nola looks up immediately. "You're still coming to the party, right?"
The question hangs there for a second.
A week ago, I would've said yes automatically.
Now I hesitate.
Because Jackson will be there.
Because everything with Jackson feels complicated and messy and unfinished.
Because part of me still wants to avoid him entirely.
But another part-
The worse part-
Still wants to see him.
Peyton notices the hesitation instantly. "Oh my God. You're deciding based on football boy."
"I am not."
"You absolutely are."
Nola points at me. "Don't let a man ruin Halloween. That's deeply embarrassing behavior."
I laugh quietly, then sigh.
"Maybe," I admit. "Maybe I'll still go."
Both of them cheer like I just announced an engagement.
And somehow, for the first time all week-
The idea doesn't sound entirely awful anymore.