Orphic

FIVE // HALLOWEEN PARTY

Once again, I'd like to thank y'all. But we still haven't gotten the goal! For this week, let's try to get to 1.55K (1550) reads by Wednesday. If we do, I'll upload it that same day it is accomplished. So share with friends and tell people! I hope you guys all had a great Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate and are enjoying your break if you were given one.

QOTW: Theories?

------

"Therapy? You're kidding, right?" asks Dylan. The class we sit in smells weirdly like fake strawberry syrup. Mrs. Sincolm had hung up halloween decorations all around the room. Above each table was a hanging "monster": spiders, zombies, skeletons, etc. It felt like we were back to elementary school. It was Friday, and tomorrow was halloween. Me and Dylan still didn't have halloween costumes.

"Nope. And get this: he asked me, and when I denied, he told me he had signed up anyway." I snarl. "I can't believe it. I'm not crazy!"

Dylan cringes.

"Oh, don't tell me you think I'm crazy, too." He doesn't respond. "I'm not! I just... okay. Elvin and my family, they're quite real, I'm not going to deny it. But they're still just dreams. And yes, I speak of them like they're real people, but I know they're not."

"You talk about Elvin like he's your friend."

"He's not my friend, he's my best friend!"

"So now I've been replaced by a dream figure?"

I roll my eyes. "Okay, obviously you're my best friend. But he's... I feel like I know him so well."

"He's a figment of your imagination. He's literally a dream, Delphine. I'm sorry, but you're making it really difficult for me to believe that you're not crazy," Dylan says.

"I'm not crazy. I'm just... a bit special." Dylan snickers at that. "Whatever. Let's talk about something else. Halloween costumes? What's the plan for that?"

After some discussion, Dylan and I decide on meeting at my house tomorrow to make the halloween costumes. I would have the cardboard and he would bring paint. We also changed our plans from generic ghost to cardboard ghost. Cardboard would make it seem a bit more flat, like the pixelated Pac-Man ghosts. At my house, we would construct the costumes. We would then finish early and go upstairs to my room to binge on Tic Tacs (which he would be bringing) and wait until Grandpa leaves before going downstairs, making popcorn, and watching The Office on Netflix (not some Halloween movie because... well... me and Dylan had zero Halloween spirit). And after that? We'll go to Brittany's house, where she and Calla were going to get ready, and we would pick them up and take them to the party, where we will ditch them.

"Sounds like a plan?"

"Sounds like a plan."

Grandpa wakes me up at a late 9:00 in the morning. He's opened the curtains so the illuminating light can shine through the smudged windows. Through the window, I see a cloudless day shining through a butterfly-blue sky. It smells like fogged-up lillies.

"Your boyfriends here," says Grandpa. It takes me a few seconds to register what he's saying through my grogginess.

"Who?" I ask, before realizing who. "Oh, Dylan? He's not my boyfriend."

Grandpa snickers. "Of course I know that. It's just fun to tease you. Anyway, he's right outside."

I blink a few times and then sit up. "Right now?"

Grandpa nods. "I'd head downstairs. He's waiting for you."

"I have to get dressed first," I say, looking down at my clothing. I'm wearing cotton shorts that I've had since the seventh grade; they're so small they might as well be underwear. And on top of that I'm wearing a souvenir t-shirt I got in sixth grade when I went to Disneyworld.