Heart Condition

Chapter Eighteen: Invitations

Halloween was on a Sunday.

            I knew it would be weird, but that didn’t keep people from throwing parties. It’d been two weeks since Sasha and I had gone to the game. Joy had finally stopped peppering me with questions, and I’d restricted myself to one text to Sasha strategically placed at 3:30 every day; that was when he finished his math class, as informed by Joy. But now that the lovely event of Halloween was upon us, we’d be funneled to our usual traditions.

            Joy sighed, “Beautiful. Another year, another missed costume party.”

            “Movie night at my place?” Zeda offered, and I nodded. We’d done this for the past three Halloweens; we rented Tim Burton movies and gorged on pizza and popcorn, the usual stuff.

            Opening my locker, a piece of paper was caught between one of my binders. Lifting it out, I saw my name scribbled in red pen on an envelope.

            Carefully tearing the seal, I saw a small green sticky note stuck to a piece of paper that just had the initials AMS on the top. The note read: Ally Stafford’s Halloween party—Go with me? Sasha.

            Hudson spoke up, “What’s that, Bee?”

            I stared, “An invitation.”

            “For?” Zeda reached out, snatching it from my hands “Wait…What?”

            I looked over, “Hudson, does this say anything?”

            He took the paper from my hands, staring “Hold on.” Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a sophisticated looking contraption.

            “What the…” I asked, but Hudson cut me off.

            “Survival kit, travel-sized.” He clicked a button, and looked up “Can I borrow your locker?”

            I nodded, and he pushed me out of the way, sticking his hand inside and turning on his little light.

            “She wrote it in invisible ink?” I laughed, “What is she, twelve?”

            Zeda nudged me “Don’t act like that’s not cool.”

            “It’s like something out of a teen movie.” I laughed, looking over at Joy “I feel like I’m in a secret society.”

            Hudson handed the paper back to me, “It’s in some warehouse on South Beach.”

            “Holy shit.” Joy stared at the invitation, “That’s crazy. How did you do that?”

            He shrugged, “Three years of Scouts keeps me prepared.”

            I folded the paper into my pocket, taking a breath and looking at Zeda. She seemed to know what I was going to ask before I thought it myself.

            “Of course you should go.” She assured, “Is it a costume party? Do I need to do your make-up?”

            I shrugged, looking at Hudson, who seemed to be the expert at decoding hidden messages.

            “I don’t think so.” He said, taking out his binder, “But you might want to talk to Sasha about that. By the way, tell him whoever he asked to do my illustrations is a genius.”

            “He got back to you?” I asked, slamming my locker shut and taking off down the hallway toward physics.

            Hudson kept stride with me, “Yep. He emailed me the sketches, and they’re incredible.”