Chapter Six #2
Once a year we let him essentially have full control over what we do and how we dress.
Darren gets so excited he can’t help but go all out and usually he shops for everything and we don’t find out what we’re dressing up as until the last possible second.
Only one time did he not truly think about our costumes before buying them.
Caliana can’t stand anything too scary. Darren bought us all the scariest costumes he could find in the huge Halloween store.
To say she had nightmares for a few weeks after Halloween would be an understatement.
Kreed and I took turns sleeping next to her bed because she wanted nothing to do with Darren.
He was upset and hasn’t done the same thing since then.
“I thought we’d go as football players and Cali can be our cheerleader.
It’s not like she doesn’t attend every single one of our home games and is the loudest cheerleader we have.
It’s not scary and we already have everythin’ but the cheerleaders uniform.
I’m workin’ on gettin’ one from the cheer coach right now.
She’s just lookin’ for one in Cali’s size since she’s so damn small.
You all good with that?” Darren asks us as we all turn to face Cali where she stands between the three of us.
I watch as her face turns redder than a fire truck and she tilts her head down toward the ground.
The color slowly creeps up her neck to her face and doesn’t even stop until her ears are red.
Her eyelids have lowered so she’s squinting and Cali’s nose is scrunched up.
This is exactly what happens when she is nervous and shy about something.
The last thing Cali is gonna want to wear is a skimpy as hell cheerleader's uniform. She hates showing a ton of skin and our cheerleading uniforms are truly skimpy and show more than they cover. If Darren truly knew her, he wouldn’t have thought of us dressing this way.
Though I suppose it’s better than the scary shit.
“Are you okay with wearin’ that?” I ask Cali as Darren steps up to her and wraps an arm around her shoulders.
“Sure,” she whispers and I know it’s the last thing she wants to do as she wrings her hands together and starts to visibly shake in Darren’s arms.
“That’s not what she wants, Darren,” Kreed speaks up since things are so weird between Darren and me.
Cali and him just started going out and it’s broken something in me.
I was waiting to give her the time she needed to be ready for a relationship with me.
Instead, he swooped in and took her from me without hesitation.
I thought Darren was a friend, one of my best friends, but now I question every aspect of our friendship.
A true friend wouldn’t go behind my back and ask Caliana to be his girl knowing how much I like her.
Honestly, I think him being with her has more to do with his fierce need to compete in every aspect of his life.
“Cali, if you don’t want to be a cheerleader, you don’t have to.
We can choose somethin’ else,” Darren says, his voice showing he really doesn’t want to change anything about our costumes as he finally picks up on the clues his girlfriend is giving him without words.
His excitement dims to almost nothing and his expression sours like I’ve never seen before.
“I think you’d look hot as fuck in a uniform though. ”
Darren doesn’t let anything take away his excitement about Halloween.
This simple conversation has managed to do that though.
He looks at Cali and nothing else as she tries to figure out some way to get him back on track and not thinking about the situation she finds herself in.
I don’t have to hear her words to know exactly what Cali’s thinking or feeling.
Every emotion is written all over her face and I’ve learned to read her like her favorite book.
Cali can’t hide a damn thing from me and Kreed.
Darren is the only one who hasn’t learned to pick up on even the subtlest of cues from the girl he claims to be falling for. It makes no damn sense.
“It’s fine. I’m not gonna change everything this close to Halloween.
I’ll figure something out so I’m not showing everything the rest of the girls do.
How about you show us the haunted house,” Cali says, changing the topic because she’s uncomfortable and doesn’t want to make a big deal out of things.
Darren becomes excited all over again. He leads us to the haunted house he’s spent weeks preparing.
While the three of us head inside so Darren can point out even the smallest of details he’s thought of, Cali waits outside.
She won’t step foot inside even during the daylight when there’s nothing scary and no one to jump out at her.
On Halloween night, the haunted house will be full of kids from school who dress up in the various scenes throughout the place.
They love to come to Darren’s place because they know it will be better than any party they could attend that night.
They love dressing up and scaring the hell out of everyone who dares to enter anything Darren cooks up.
The only rule they have is they can’t scare any little kids.
That’s a hard rule and no one ever breaks it because they won’t be invited back again.
As we walk through the house, I take in the various details Darren has been thinking about since the previous Halloween.
He literally will wake up the day after his favorite holiday and begin planning what he wants to do the next year.
Darren draws out plans, writes down every single detail he wants to incorporate, and asks us a million and one questions to make the next event better than the last. He also never does the same thing twice in a row.
This year is a haunted house so next year will be something different.
I’m not sure what, but he’ll make it epic.
Shaking my head, I clear the thoughts of the best haunted house I ever walked through.
Darren didn’t skimp on anything. Especially the fake blood everyone used to cover themselves and various props they used for their character.
It’s a good thing Cali chose not to walk through that year’s haunted house because she probably wouldn’t have slept for a year.
Kreed and I would have been sleeping on her floor and waking up every hour from the nightmares she was having.
Cali tends to have them without anything scary filling her mind.
Closing the door, I make my way to the driver’s side and climb in the truck.
It doesn’t take me long to navigate our way from the diner to the haunted house.
I can see Manic, Master, Chaos, and Bean are here working on things.
I’m glad Master is here because I haven’t had the chance to talk to him since he started pulling up the footage from the hospital security system.
We have church tomorrow since it’s been a few weeks.
Our priority has been Cali and the kids and everything else can wait.
If there’s a problem with any of the businesses or anything, Count can come talk to me and he knows this.
When I pull up to the haunted house, Manic rushes over with Master.
They ignore me and get the kids out of their seats with Manic taking Rory in his arms. She snuggles against his chest as Bryce holds Master’s hand and they walk toward the haunted house.
This is in the middle of town where several booths and other things will be set up for Halloween.
It’s more of a large town party instead of the kids going trick or treating door to door.
Half the town will be here handing out candy, candied apples, cider, donuts, and everything else you can think of.
“Unca Caleb, can I go in?” Bryce asks me without letting go of Master’s hand.
“Yeah. Master, don’t let him see anythin’ too graphic or scary. This is his first haunted house and we don’t know how he’ll react. He’s either gonna be like Darren and love the hell outta it or like Cali and be scared shitless,” I answer, looking at Master instead of Bryce.
“We got this,” Master returns as I stand with Manic.
“She’s so damn adorable. Cali sure does make some good lookin’ kids,” Manic comments as he gazes off toward the small movie theater on the edge of the town square.
“She definitely does. Rory’s gonna look just like her.
I hope she gets some of her height from Darren though.
Cali’s so damn short. Kreed’s with her right now.
She’s strugglin’ with takin’ the pain medicine because she doesn’t want to be all doped up and shit constantly.
Kreed keeps tryin’ to get her to take them on time like she should,” I inform Manic as he nods his head absently while keeping his eyes locked on the movie theater.
Knowing Manic won’t let anything happen to Rory, I follow Master and Bryce into the haunted house.
I remember this exact one Darren did because it’s from our junior year.
The shit is scary as hell and Bryce doesn’t need to see everything inside.
Plus, this will be the first time I’m seeing things since it really got started.
We used Darren’s notes and plans for this and I’ve put my trust in the guys to follow what he did.
Thankfully we have more than enough members and Prospects to take care of all the various parts inside.
This is going to hurt in more ways than one.
It’s going to flood me with the memories of our past and make me remember Darren even more.
I don’t want to think about him because it’s all I seem to do when it’s not something about the kids and Cali.