Although it’s Halloween, the tablecloth is red and white. Red Solo cups are scattered across the table, and grease-stained paper plates sit in front of us. The giant eye on Ella’s green shirt stares at me, in a way that no good Mike Wazowski should. Madison is hardly wearing a costume, but her pink sweater seems to hint at a rosier time. I play with the fake blue fur I have scotched taped to my leg, wishing the awkwardness would go away. Silence fills the room, unlike any that has ever risen between us on Halloween. It’s like we have never met each other before; it’s like we are strangers.

              “So,” Ella remarks, motioning at the forgotten slice of pizza in the Domino's box before us. The moon casts glints across her elegant dark hair, the sort of moon I wish we could be outside to see. “Anyone want that? Jenna? Madi?”

              “No, thanks.” 

              “I’m alright.”

              Ella takes the pizza and I pray that this new burst of movement will light something in us. Something that used to always burn whenever we were together.

              “Um,” I say, trying to spark conversation. “You guys meet any cute boys?”

              Madison pushes a newly dyed strand of purple out of her eyes. “I’m a lesbian. Remember?”

              “Oh, yeah,” I nod and smile as supportive as I can muster. “Any cute girls then?”

              Madison shrugs. “No.”

              Ella and I exchange glances. Maybe Madison was lying or something, but I have very vivid memories of the cute boys she used to gawk over in our childhood. Jack Forester was a particular fascination of Madi’s, with his curly dark hair and light smile. Most of our time on the playground included chasing after him, giggling, and running away. 

              The awkwardness of the evening is interrupted by a piercing scream from outside. It would appear Danny Mosto and his girlfriend were up to their usual tricks of scaring children. When we were kids, I would always run past their rickety fading blue house as fast as possible, in an attempt to avoid the jump scare. But brave Madison always wanted to stay and watch the show, for she claimed it was funny. Sometimes Ella would stay and get frightened, sometimes she would race away with me.

              Halloween has always been our day. We spent months planning our group costume and weeks rearranging the trick-or-treating route, but it always ended up the same one. After the big event, we would sit in Madison’s big bedroom for hours, counting and trading candies back and forth. Halloween was tradition.

              Ever since my mother, three days out from giving birth to me, met Madison’s mother, fresh off her first sonogram, met each other on the sacred All Hallow’s Eve. For as long as I could walk I had been fairy princesses with Madison, dancing across the shadowed streets in search of candy. Eventually, Madison met Ella at grade school and she began to tag along. We became a trio, bright-eyed and hopeful. Madison was the sarcastic one who could bully our parents into a later night, Ella was the thoughtful one who could manage to sweet-talk any adult into giving us extra candy, and I was the eldest who would make sure we stayed on track and were back before the big kids came out.

              Everything was simpler back then. We did not call each other to make sure we could all come, we did not have conflicting plans. It was just us, three dreamers against the world. 

              Tonight is nothing like that though. Maybe it’s time, maybe it’s Madison’s new friends, maybe it’s the fact that Madison’s big-headed mother had busted her way in again, saying that we could not go out because of the recent sickness that struck our small town. 

              She’s going to see her grandfather tomorrow, her mom had said, we don’t want to get him sick.

              We meander up to my room, talking about things that none of us care about.

              There’s a new boy in Ella’s class who wants to go out with her. He’s going to have to wait his turn.

              One of Madison’s sisters quit college and moved back in. But the Dartmans’ always seem to bounce back.

              My parents want me to go to some fancy Catholic place for high school. I would rather die. 

              Ella plops down on my old bed and begins braiding her hair unenthusiastically, Madi slides into the splintering chair at my chaos-covered desk, and I take my place on the yellow carpet.

              “You guys wanna play a game?” I ask, thinking of things we did when we were younger. 

              Ella shrugs. “I dunno. What game?”

              “Well, it’s Halloween,” Madison chips in. “We could find a witchy thing online and do that.”

              I wilt. “Umm… no. I’m, I don’t like that kind of thing.”

              “Oh my god, you’re such a baby, Jenny,” Madison rolls her eyes, and Ella laughs half-heartedly. “Let’s do something interesting, come on.”

              If we wanted to do something interesting, we could have, you know, gone trick-or-treating. But no, we were stuck here pretending to be older than we really were and forgetting all the things that used to make us friends. 

An hour passed. We played an awkward game of monopoly, ate the few Kit-Kats Ella had brought and talked about politics none of us knew anything about. It wasn’t Halloween. It was some weird, mutant of Halloween. Eventually, Madison’s mother picks her up to go home and Ella and I waited outside for her dad.

“Do you think Madison’s really a lesbian?” I ask after a while of staring at the children prancing home.

Ella is honest. “No. But I love her, and I respect that she’s questioning things. You know?”
              “But, we’re barely fourteen, Ella. What are we even questioning?” I say, glancing at her. “I just… I don’t know. I feel like all of a sudden she’s a whole different person.”

Ella nods, staring out at the lamp-lit pot-holed street. “Yeah. But, it wasn’t like this was going to last forever. We’ve got to grow up at some point. We’re always going to be friends, Jenny. But it’ll change. Everything does.”
              I don’t like change. Some things aren’t supposed to change.

              Madison, Ella, and I, that was perfect.

              Madison, Ella, and I weren’t supposed to grow out of each other’s company.

              Halloween is a tradition.

              Halloween is supposed to be the same.

              Ella’s phone buzzes in the back of her ripped jeans. “That’s probably my mom.” She pulls the sparkle-covered case out of her pocket, and her eyes widen.

              “It’s Gwen.”

              “Gwen?”
              Ella shows me the screen and my heart drops into my stomach, splattering across the bottom of my body. Gwen Carlson is one of Madison’s new-fangled friends, but she’s also Ella’s new stepsister, although the two did not always get along.

              The screen plays a grainy video of their friend group in holy cow costumes, and Madison stands among them, wearing her Monsters Inc costume from just minutes ago. 

              “Why do you even hang out with them?” One of the fake blondes wonders. 

              A chorus of agreeing.

              “Oh, I don’t know,” Madison says, “They’re b*tches, but I feel bad saying no to them.”

              The video glitches out.

              Forget tradition. Forget everything. 

              Ella wraps her arms around me and we stand there like that, the shadows of our childhood spinning around us. I don’t always understand Ella. She’s pretty and popular and athletic. I’m not. But at this moment, I have never understood anyone better.

              She thrusts herself away from me, brushing away the tears that seconds ago were falling in quiet pitter-patters on my sweatshirt. “Forget her. She’s the b*tch. It doesn’t matter. Don’t cry, Jenny, we’re better than that.”

              But somehow, I’m still crying.

              “Stop! Stop, Jenny, please,” Ella pleads. She needs me to tell her that she’s right. That we will never again shed tears over our once friend. “Oh, come on, Jenny, why are you still crying?” 

              I shake my head and touch her shoulder. “Because I love her, Ella. Yeah, she’s being a b*tch. But we were too, right? Talking about her behind her back with the whole lesbian thing? And then… I don’t know.”

              I didn’t know. 

              It’s Halloween. Trick or Treat. Masks, costumes, and games. Nothing’s definite, nothing’s sure.

              One second you think you know someone, and the next they are a stranger.