We Fell In Love In October

Session 10.2

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wrong direction | hailee steinfeld
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I WOKE UP and shifted to my side only to realise I was on the couch alone and that the lights were turned off. Cold skin brushed my leg and I realised it was Jayce's hands, loosely dangling around my feet. On the carpet, were the three of them sleeping side by side.

Stacey and Haze were cuddled together on one side, her head on his chest and his, buried in her neck. They seemed to be clinging to each other for warmth as it had gotten colder than before. Jayce was glued to the side of the couch. He had my emerald green shawl nested around him and his face was mushed to the side facing me.

I unclasped Jayce's hands from my legs and slowly slid off from the couch. I grabbed my phone to check the time and found it to be around eleven-thirty in the night. Walking into the bedroom and balancing a couple blankets on my one good hand, I tucked them around the couple and wrapped Jayce in another. I covered myself in one and sat beside the window, watching the moonlight making the leaves glitter under its radiance. The beautifully carved pumpkins were hanging on the neighbour's house, some still lit but some put off.

Halloween was over just like that.

I pulled out my phone and balanced it on my thigh to check my messages, most of it being pictures from Luka. I took my time going through those and smiled at the screen when I zoomed in on their bright smiles. I sent a 'I love you' in response and replied back to other texts. When I opened Instagram, pictures flooded my feed, most of it being Halloween celebrations. My college friends with spooky makeup and their cute babies as witches and supermans, my colleagues with aesthetic house decorations, Halloween-themed cookies and celebrities in their own costumes. Black, orange, purple, yellow-- every colour claimed a place in my feed.

I scrolled through, showering the pictures with likes. In the cluster of photographs, one particular picture caught my eye and sucked the air out of my lungs.

I stared at it. It was Gale, locking lips with a woman with black hair and pink highlights. He was dressed as a zombie, in a tight-fitting bloody suit with his face painted as if it had cracks. She was wearing a similar dress. He looked so... happy.

There were so many things about the picture that was bothering me. Firstly, in the three years that I have spent with him not once did he agree to dress up for Halloween. I would have to join Haze and Stacey to go to the costume parties and he would be waiting for me when I returned home. The next day, he would spend it with me and then go for drinks with his friends. This was our routine for every year.

But with her, he had dressed up and even worn makeup, fucking makeup that he had called me out numerours times for wearing too much. And the fact that he was so happy with her troubled me to the bones. Had he been looking at me the same way when we used to be together? When did he even fall out of love?

Secondly, the caption. Having a spooky two-month of dating. Cheers to more, my star. It had been only a month since we broke up. The truth creeped on me like a spider I can't shake off. It clawed on my heart and punctured holes, draining out the reality I've lived in all this time. I couldn't breathe.

More details that I had so conveniently overlooked showed up everywhere. The fact that he called her his star as well, the same name he used to call me — the fact that he had used it to his advantage to cover up his infidelity — and the fact that he had fucking cheated on me. I had fallen for every lie he must have told me, every time he said 'I'm busy tonight, baby' and every time he'd abandoned me to take 'important' calls.