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𝚃𝚠𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝙽𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚎
☽
I sit in my room with my earphones on, as I pull the last box in the corner of my room, left over from when we moved here.
It's filled with my old things and photographs. I pull out a stack of photos and start to sort through them.
You'd think that there'd be a euphoric feeling about reminiscing over your childhood, but to me, it just makes me feel empty - like I'm looking at someone else, envying their family and their life. Envying the thing that I lost a long time ago, the thing I will never get back.
'Hey,' Tate says, leaning in the doorway, 'I just finished my psych session, wanna go out?'
'Sure,' I say as he walks towards me and sits down beside me. 'Where are we going? It's getting pretty late...'
'I thought I'd take you on a date, since it's a special occasion,' He says leaning in to kiss my neck. His breath is warm and soft.
'What's the occasion?'
'It's halloween, silly,' he says with a giggle. 'It's my favourite day of the year and I want to spend it with you.'
I blush and smile at him.
'You were cute,' he says, looking down at the photo of a much younger me at christmas still in my hand. I quickly stuff it away and turn to him.
'Shall we?' he says, taking my hand and leading me out of the door.
'So where exactly are you taking me?' I ask again.
'That, Evie, is a surprise. I thought it would be romantic, stop asking questions,' he laughs as we walk out of the door and down the driveway, interlacing his fingers with mine.
After walking for a while through the quiet streets, we reach a small stretch of beach. I didn't know that this was anywhere near my house.
When we set foot on the sand, Tate taps my arm.
'Tag, you're it,' He shouts and runs away, leaving trails of sand blowing up behind him.
'Oh no you don't,' I shout back and chase after him.
I haven't played tag in years. I'm running across the beach, the wind blowing through my hair, the sand crunching under my feet. And being with Tate makes me happier than I've felt in a long time. It's almost like going back in time to when I was little, carefree and playing with my friends in the kindergarten playground. A time when things were simpler.
Tate's pretty fast, but I manage to catch up with him. Just as I go to tag him, he turns and trips, falling backwards to the ground. I stumble over him as he falls, landing on top of him. We both stay there laughing and panting.
When we both catch our breath, I find myself staring into his big brown eyes. I lean down to kiss him as Tate rolls over with a chuckle. He's now on top, and tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear.
I smile at him. He leans down until our lips are touching.
We're interrupted by the sound of footsteps crunching on the sand. I signal for Tate to stop and he reluctantly pulls away.
He follows my gaze to the right, where a group of high school age kids are standing in halloween costumes.
Tate stands up, startled and offers me a hand to help me up. There are 5 kids, and they're just standing there, not saying anything.
'Nice makeup,' I comment, trying to break this intensely awkward silence. They all have special effects makeup on to look like they'd been shot. I've got to hand it to them, it looks pretty realistic.
All I receive back from this is a cold glare from the girl in front. She has platinum blond half-shaved hair and is clothed in black, ragged clothes.
She turns to Tate.
'Haven't you got anything to say?' She questions.
'I-I don't know what you're talking about...' Tate replies.
I give him a confused look and he returns it.
The girl walks over to him and grabs the front of his shirt and shoves her face right in front of his.
'Stop playing games, you know what you did.'
'What's going on?' I ask, stepping between Tate and the girl, trying to separate them.
'Aw he hasn't told you?' One of the boys, a jock wearing a varsity jacket mocks, his arm wrapped around a sobbing cheerleader.
What in the hell is going on?
'Tate? What are they talking about?'
'I don't know - I've never seen them before...' he trails off.
I don't know what's happening, and I don't know who to trust.
The other boy steps forward.
'You stole everything from us... we could've been something... and you took that away and you think you can just be happy and not have to pay for the consequences of what you did?'
All 5 of them walk towards Tate and circle round him.
'Tate, what is going on?' I say again, raising my voice this time.
