𝖇𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖐𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍 | o.d.

Chapter Twelve

     "THAT'S NOT A very scary costume," Trey said as he picked Mari up from her house, a smile playing on his lips. "You look beautiful, though,"

Mari looked down at her makeshift costume. With Halloween as an excuse, she wore the dress that Abuelita had made her for her birthday - it was gorgeous, and it made her feel gorgeous too. It wasn't every day she had that feeling.

She had paired the dress with a tall silver tiara, a bouquet of plastic roses and a sash (which was actually one of those bride-to-be ones that she had turned inside-out) that she had written MISS UNIVERSE on in black sharpie.

"Why thank you," she said with a curtsy and then looked him up and down. He wore a black and white striped suit with a black button-up, his hair looked like he had stuck his hand in an electrical socket and he had black circles painted messily around his eyes. "You look...sleep-deprived,"

"Oh come on, Beetlejuice is a classic!" He said with so much enthusiasm that Mari almost got excited with him. Almost, but feelings like happiness and excitement and enthusiasm were hard to come by lately.

Her trip to the hospital hadn't helped much. Latisha was great; she was kind and gentle and did everything she could to make Mari feel comfortable, but she still couldn't bring herself to smile.

Trey and Ruben had been there the whole time, so she should have felt supported, yet she had still felt alone.

Jamal had been ecstatic when Mari had bought him home a real hospital gown for his costume, but as much as she forced a smile for him, she still couldn't feel the excitement.

Her blood test results would be back in a few days, and they said they weren't expecting to find anything unusual, still, she was terrified.

But she wouldn't tell anyone that, they would only worry and it wasn't worth it. She would be fine, she reminded herself, she was just being melodramatic.

"Wouldn't know, haven't seen it," Mari shrugged as they walked to Trey's front door.

"What?" he gasped, feigning shock as he fumbled for his keys

As she waited, Mari took in Trey's house. It was the first time she'd seen it, but the rundown shack before her was the last place she had expected Trey to live; smaller than the Martinez house and in worse condition than Oscar's.

Unlocking the door and throwing it open, Trey gestured inside with a sort of after you motion. When Mari stepped past the threshold, the first thing she noticed was a lack of furniture.

Against the far wall of the living room (that doubled as the entrance to the house, and connected straight to a small kitchen with no dining area) there was a small sofa with fabric tearing at the seams and foam popping out at the corners. There was an old, chunky flatscreen sitting atop a cubed-bookshelf that'd been turned on its side to double as a TV stand. Between the TV and the sofa sat a worn coffee table; the varnish on the wood had started peeling and one of the legs was being held together by duct tape.

This house was not the kind of place that a man in finance and a woman in events lived.

But Mari knew better than to say anything just yet. Instead, she smiled politely and let him usher her inside. As she stepped over the threshold, she remembered the first time she had walked into Spooky's bedroom. It had been intimate, like he was showing her something that only she could see, it was exciting and scary all at the same time.

Walking into Trey's house was nothing like that. It was scary, but only because it was unfamiliar. The walls were cold and the room was dark and mostly empty and nothing was familiar. Nothing felt safe. The moment she stepped inside she was on edge; her skin crawled and her mind screamed.