Matty, Kaylee & Max ~ Halloween Party

The bass hit before they even pushed through the double doors of Langley Hall—a rhythmic thudding that vibrated up through the soles of Max's boots and settled somewhere behind her sternum. The entrance was flanked by jack-o'-lanterns, their carved grins warped and flickering with actual candles inside, and someone had strung orange and purple fairy lights in loops across the ceiling of the foyer. The smell hit next: sweat, cheap body spray, and the faintly chemical sweetness of fog machine vapor. Max's hand went instinctively to the yellow surcoat over her chest, fingers pressing against the embroidered stag she'd spent three nights stitching by hand.

"Oh my god," Kaylee breathed, and Max turned to see her already fixing her hair, tossing those platinum-highlighted waves over one shoulder as she scanned the crowd spilling out of the main hall. The nurse costume left very little to imagination—the white top strained across her chest, the skirt barely covered the tops of her white fishnet stockings, and the little cap sat perched at a jaunty angle. She looked like she'd stepped out of a Halloween Pinterest board titled "Sexy Medical Malpractice." "There's so many people! This is gonna be amazing."

Matty shuffled up behind them, adjusting the straps of her hockey mask. The rest of her Jason Voorhees costume was surprisingly committed—ratty flannel over a torn band tee, fake blood spatter across her jeans—but the way she was already scanning the room with visible disdain undercut the horror villain energy entirely. "That guy's dressed as a minion," she said flatly, pointing at a yellow blob pushing past a group of cheerleaders. "A fucking minion. At a Halloween party. In college."

"It's, like, ironic?" Kaylee offered, already inching toward the main hall.

"It's lazy." Matty's seafoam eyes swept the room with the judgmental intensity of a health inspector at a dirty restaurant. "And those girls are just wearing lingerie with cat ears. That's not a costume, that's Wednesday night for some people."

Max hovered between them, clutching her fake sword, the weight of it unfamiliar in her grip. The armor she'd built from EVA foam and spray paint suddenly felt ridiculous—not because of the quality, but because everyone else seemed to have chosen costumes designed to take off, not put on. A girl in a leather corset squeezed past, and Max caught a whiff of perfume and vodka. "So... do we just... go in?" she asked, her voice barely audible over the music.

Kaylee was already bouncing on her heels. "Yes! Okay, so, I definitely wanna dance first—the DJ's playing, like, actual good stuff right now—and then we can get drinks, and—"

"Non-alcoholic drinks," Matty cut in, though they both knew the rule was more suggestion than enforcement.

"Obviously," Kaylee said, with an eye-roll that suggested the opposite. She grabbed Max's wrist, her fingers warm against the exposed skin below Max's vambrace. "Come on, you guys! The night's wasting!"

They'd retreated to a corner near the emergency exit, where the thudding bass from the main hall faded into something merely oppressive instead of skull-rattling. Matty had her back against the wall, one foot propped up behind her, the hockey mask pushed up onto the top of her head like a bizarre headband. A joint sat between her fingers—rolled earlier in the evening, lit the moment Kaylee had disappeared into the mass of bodies on the dance floor with a whoop and a flip of her hair.

"This is insufferable," Matty said, exhaling smoke through her nose. She gestured with the joint toward the main hall, where some generic EDM track was building toward yet another drop. "I'd rather listen to a circular saw."

Max stood beside her, arms crossed over her surcoat, the fake sword leaning against the wall. She'd pushed her bangs out of her face, and her cheeks were flushed—from the heat of the crowd or the second-hand smoke, hard to say. "It's just... party music," she offered with a small shrug. "Not supposed to be, like, good."

"That's the most depressing thing you've ever said." Matty took another drag, holding it, then offered the joint without looking.

Max hesitated, then accepted it. She'd only smoked weed once with Matty—with a lot of coughing—but she mimicked Matty's posture and brought it to her lips. The smoke scratched at her throat on the way down, and she suppressed the cough, eyes watering. "At least they played Dance Macabre earlier," she managed, voice slightly strangled.

Matty's head snapped toward her. The look on her face was pure betrayal. "Ghost."

"Yeah! The one with—"

"I know who Ghost is." Matty's tone had shifted into something almost offended. "Max. Ghost is barely metal. They're pop with satanic window dressing. Tobias Forge is a talented guy, sure—Repugnant is solid death metal—but Ghost?" She made a dismissive sound, like she'd bitten into something sour. "It's entry-level. It's the metal equivalent of putting hot sauce on something and calling yourself a foodie."

Max's cheeks puffed out slightly—the pout she defaulted to when challenged. "They're fun, though. The whole aesthetic, the papacy thing, the costumes—"

"Costumes." Matty's eyebrow arched. "You're defending a band based on costumes. While wearing a costume. At a party. Max, you're better than this."

"I didn't say they were, like, Entombed or whatever—"

"Oh, so you know Entombed?"

"I—Grace has played stuff," Max mumbled, looking away. She took another drag, smaller this time, and actually managed not to cough. "I just think it's okay to like things that are... accessible."

Matty stared at her for a long moment, joint dangling from her fingers. Then she let out a short laugh—genuine, not mocking. "Accessible. That's a very diplomatic way of saying 'made for people who think Metallica's second album is too extreme.'" She took the joint back. "Fine. You get a pass. But only because that armor is actually decent work."

Max blinked, then allowed herself a small, surprised smile. "Thanks. I, um. I made the surcoat myself."

"Obviously. The machine-stitched stuff looks like shit." Matty glanced toward the dance floor, where the music had shifted to something equally generic. "How long do you think before Kaylee drags us back in?"

"Probably not long enough."

Kaylee had found them a spot on the periphery of the dance floor, near one of the speakers that was mercifully not blasting directly into their faces. She'd given up on dancing for the moment—her feet were starting to hurt in the white platform heels she'd insisted completed the costume—and was instead people-watching with the focused intensity of a naturalist observing wildlife. A guy in a toga had just tried to hand her a red Solo cup, which she'd declined with a hair-flip and a practiced smile that sent him shuffling away without bruising his ego.

"Okay, so that's like... the fifth guy tonight?" She wasn't bragging—she sounded almost tired as she fanned herself with one hand, the motion making her nurse top ride up a fraction. "And that girl in the devil costume definitely grabbed my ass on the dance floor, so." She shrugged, a little half-motion that didn't quite land as casual.

Max stood beside her, arms folded over her armor, the weight of the foam pauldron digging slightly into her bicep. She'd been quiet since Matty slipped out the side door twenty minutes ago, and the question had been building in her chest like pressure behind a dam. She chewed the inside of her cheek, watching a guy across the room lean close to a girl in a vampire costume, saying something that made her laugh.

"Kaylee?"

"Hmm?" Kaylee had already spotted another guy looking her way—a firefighter costume, surprisingly not terrible—and was giving him a half-smile that was more reflex than intent.

"How do you... I mean—" Max faltered, her fingers tightening on her own arm. "How do you know when someone's actually, like, interested interested? Not just..." She gestured vaguely, unsure how to finish.

Kaylee's attention snapped back, the half-smile dropping. She looked at Max and something flickered across her face. The confidence she wore like armor slipped for just a second. "Oh. Um." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a nervous habit Max had never seen her display before. "That's... actually a really good question."

"It is?"

"I mean—" Kaylee shifted her weight. "Like, guys hit on me a lot, right? But most of them just want to..." She made a vague gesture at her own body, her expression complicated. "They see the, like, outside. They don't actually give a shit about the inside, you know?"

Max nodded slowly, her throat tight. She thought of the girl in the Daenerys costume that left her standing earlier that night—how she'd tried to connect over something she loved and been dismissed like she was nothing. "So how do you tell the difference?"

Kaylee was quiet for a long moment, her baby blues fixed on the dance floor without really seeing it. The bass thumped through a silence that stretched between them. "I don't know," she admitted softly, and her voice had lost its usual breathy cadence entirely. "I'm still trying to figure that out."

She glanced at Max, and there was something raw there—something that looked a lot like the confusion Max felt every time she tried to imagine someone wanting her the way people wanted Kaylee. Then the mask slid back into place, and Kaylee laughed, light and hollow. "But like, when you find out? Let me know. Because honestly? Most of the time I feel like—" She stopped herself, shaking her head. "Never mind. It's whatever."

She reached out and squeezed Max's arm, her fingers warm through the gap in the armor. "Somebody's gonna look at you, though, and actually see you. And it's gonna be, like, super obvious. I think."

Matty had found them a spot near the back wall, tucked between a folding table littered with abandoned cups and a papier-mâché skeleton someone had hung from the emergency exit sign. The hockey mask sat pushed up on her forehead again, and she was working her way through a bottle of water that she'd very obviously not filled at the tap. Kaylee leaned beside her, one heel kicked up against the wall, scrolling through her phone with the distracted air of someone waiting for something better to happen.

"She's been gone forever," Kaylee said, not looking up. "Do you think Max fell in?"

"Public restrooms at campus parties are nightmare zones." Matty took a swig from her bottle. "She's probably just hiding in a stall scrolling her phone. Social battery and all that."

"Fair. I did see her looking kinda—"

"Well, well."

The voice arrived before its owner did—honeyed and unhurried, with the kind of practiced warmth that made it impossible to tell if you were being welcomed or warned. Charlotte Alexander materialized from the crowd like a shark cutting through still water, her roman emperor costume immaculate: gold-trimmed white toga draped over one shoulder, a leaf crown perched on her honey-blonde head, sandals laced up her calves. Behind her, Stacy, Chloe, and Rebecca fanned out in a formation so practiced it might as well have been choreographed.

Matty's spine straightened. Her grip on the water bottle tightened.

"I didn't think you guys would actually show," Charlotte said, her pale blue eyes flicking between Matty and Kaylee with the casual assessment of someone cataloguing specimens. "Cute costumes, by the way. Very... you." Her smile was all teeth, no warmth. "Kaylee, that nurse thing is iconic. You really commit to the bit."

Kaylee's expression flickered—something hurt surfacing before she smoothed it away. "Thanks! I, um, I got it on—"

"And Matty." Charlotte's gaze slid over, and her smile widened just a fraction. "Jason Voorhees. Very fitting. You always did like hiding behind a mask."

"Fuck off, Charlotte." The words came out flat, bored—but Matty's jaw was tight.

"Tut tut." Charlotte placed a hand on her chest in mock offense, gold bangles jingling. "Is that any way to talk to a fellow student? I'm just being friendly." She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur that somehow carried perfectly. "I saw your little friend earlier—the one in the armor? She was trying to talk to someone about... medieval stuff, I think? Sweet. Very... quaint." She exchanged a glance with Stacy, who covered a giggle with her hand. "You guys have such an eclectic group. It's honestly adorable."

Matty's hand twitched toward the fake machete strapped to her belt. "Where is this going?"

"Nowhere! I'm just making conversation." Charlotte straightened, smoothing her toga with the air of someone who'd already accomplished what they came for. "Tell the rest of your little squad I said hi. Especially Grace—I love what she's done with her hair. Very... committed." She threw one last smile at Kaylee, something pitying in it. "Have fun tonight, ladies. Be careful out there. You know how these parties can get."

And then she was gone, gliding back into the crowd with her entourage trailing behind like remoras, leaving the air around Matty and Kaylee thick with something sour.

Kaylee's phone screen had gone dark. She stared at her own reflection in it, her lips pressed together. "What did she mean by that? The 'be careful' thing?"

Matty's voice was hard. "She meant whatever makes us feel small. That's what she always means."

The mask was suffocating.

Matty had pulled it down the moment she'd heard the jocks—three guys in football jerseys passing around a bottle of something, laughing with that particular braying quality that made her skin crawl. One of them had elbowed another, grinning, and said something about "that slutty nurse" and "taking turns" and "she's definitely down for it." The words had hit her like ice water, and she'd been moving before her brain caught up.

Kaylee's phone had gone straight to voicemail. Twice.

The party blurred past her as she pushed through the crowd, the hockey mask cutting her peripheral vision to nothing. Someone stumbled into her and she shoved them aside without looking, the fake machete gripped tight enough that the molded plastic creaked. Her heart was hammering against her ribs—not from exertion, but from the images clawing at the edges of her mind. Kaylee's laugh, Kaylee's breathy voice, Kaylee's tendency to smile at guys who didn't deserve it because she couldn't tell the difference between desire and decency.

Where the fuck is she.

The main hall was a mass of bodies—dancers grinding, drinkers shouting, a guy in a banana costume doing shots off a table. No blonde hair, no white nurse outfit, no flash of fishnet. Matty's seafoam eyes swept the room with desperate efficiency, cataloguing and discarding faces. Not by the speakers. Not by the refreshment table. Not pressed against a wall by some asshole with wandering hands.

She checked the corner where they'd left Max. Empty. The bathroom hallway was clogged with a line of girls doing makeup checks and gossiping. Not there either.

Think. Where would she—

Upstairs.

Matty took the service stairs two at a time. The second floor of Langley Hall was quieter—classrooms converted into makeshift hangout spaces, the doors propped open to let the noise filter up. She checked the first room: a circle of people passing a bong, no Kaylee. Second room: a couple making out on a desk, no Kaylee. Third room: empty except for a passed-out guy in a werewolf mask.

Her chest was tight. Her palms were sweating inside the fingerless gloves. Every room she checked and came up empty made the knot in her stomach twist tighter.

The hallway stretched ahead of her—four more doors, some open, some closed. Somewhere behind one of them, Kaylee was asleep on a couch, her head pillowed on Max's shoulder, nurse cap askew and phone forgotten in a bag downstairs. But Matty didn't know that yet.

She moved toward the next door, machete raised, mask still on.

Max had been standing alone for exactly four minutes and thirty-seven seconds when she spotted the roman emperor.

She'd counted. That was apparently now the kind of thing she did when she was uncomfortable—count things, catalog details, anchor herself to observable facts so the anxious spiral in her brain couldn't carry her away entirely. Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds since Kaylee went to dance, since Matty went outside for a joint, since she'd been left holding a plastic sword and trying to look like she belonged.

The costume was impossible to miss. Gold-trimmed white toga, leaf crown, sandals laced up the calves—Charlotte Alexander held court near the refreshment table like it was a throne, her entourage arranged around her in a loose constellation. She looked like she'd stepped out of a marble frieze, all pale skin and effortless elegance, and for a moment Max forgot to be intimidated because her brain had latched onto something else entirely.

Roman emperor. First century, probably—Julio-Claudian dynasty based on the leaf crown style. The draping's actually pretty accurate. Is that intentional? Does she actually know about—

Before the anxiety could catch up, Max's feet were moving.

She wove through the crowd, her armor catching on someone's fairy wings and nearly toppling a girl in a mermaid costume, mumbling apologies as she went. Her heart was doing that thing where it hammered against her ribs like it wanted out, but the prospect of talking to someone about history—actual history, at a party where everyone else was talking about nothing—propelled her forward.

Charlotte's pale blue eyes flicked to her as she approached. The smile that appeared was practiced, polished, and revealed nothing. "Hey! Cute armor."

"Thanks!" The word came out too loud, too eager. Max adjusted her sword belt, then immediately felt stupid for doing it. "I, um—I noticed your costume. The laurel wreath, the toga style—that's really specific to the early imperial period. Most people just do, like, a generic toga thing, but yours is actually accurate to, like, Augustus or Tiberius? Which is cool, because most people don't realize the whole 'Caesar in a purple robe' thing is a Renaissance invention, and—"

She was rambling. She knew she was rambling. The words kept coming anyway, tumbling out like coins from a overstuffed purse.

"—and I always thought it was interesting how the corona civica evolved from a military honor into basically a fashion statement, because originally it was, like, this huge deal to earn one, you had to save a citizen's life in battle, but by the imperial period the emperors just kind of... claimed them? As a propaganda thing. To legitimize their rule. So wearing one as a costume is actually kind of ironic if you think about it, because—"

Charlotte's smile hadn't changed, but something behind her eyes had gone flat. She glanced sideways—at Stacy, maybe, or Rebecca—and one perfectly sculpted eyebrow lifted a fraction of an inch.

"That's... super interesting," Charlotte said, in a tone that suggested it was the opposite. "I actually just picked it because it was cute. I wasn't really going for, like, historical accuracy or whatever."

"Oh." Max's momentum stuttered. "That's—yeah, no, that makes sense. It's a party, so. Fun is the point. I just thought maybe you were into Roman history, because—"

"I'm a marketing major." Charlotte's laugh was light, dismissive, the kind of sound that managed to close a door without slamming it. "I don't really have time for, like, ancient stuff. But good for you for knowing all that! Very... niche."

Niche. The word landed like a stone in water, sinking through Max's chest.

One of Charlotte's friends—Stacy, the brunette—leaned in and whispered something. Charlotte's smile widened, and she touched Stacy's arm in that effortless way popular girls did, like physical affection was a language they'd learned from birth.

"Anyway!" Charlotte shifted her weight, and the movement was a dismissal dressed up as casualness. "We're gonna go dance. But, um—good talk! Enjoy the party."

And then she was gone, gliding away with her entourage trailing behind, leaving Max standing alone by the refreshment table with her plastic sword and her historical facts and a hollow feeling spreading through her chest like frost on glass.

She stood there for a long moment, watching the space where Charlotte had been. Someone bumped her shoulder reaching for a cup, and she stepped aside automatically, her hand drifting up to touch the embroidered stag on her surcoat.

Stupid. That was stupid. Of course she doesn't care about Roman history. She's Charlotte Alexander. She's—

Max's cheeks puffed out, the pout forming before she could stop it. Her throat felt tight, and the party suddenly seemed very loud and very bright and very full of people who all seemed to know exactly what they were doing in a way she never would.

She turned and walked toward the nearest corner, looking for a familiar face and finding none.

The corner behind the DJ booth had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Kaylee had let herself be walked there after three songs—three songs of dancing that had started fun and flirty and gradually narrowed into something more focused, the guy's hands settling on her hips and then her waist and then the small of her back, his body pressing closer with each beat drop. He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing some kind of cop costume that was obviously just a tactical vest over a tight shirt, and he'd been cute in the strobing lights. He'd bought her a drink from the bar—non-alcoholic, she'd watched the bartender pour it—and he'd laughed at her jokes, and his eyes had done that thing where they flickered down to her chest but came back up to her face like he was trying to be respectful about it.

So when he'd leaned in and murmured "want to get out of here for a sec?" with that crooked smile, she'd said yes.

The making out had been fine. Good, even. His mouth was a little aggressive but his hands stayed in acceptable zones—her waist, her shoulder, the curve of her hip. Kaylee had let herself sink into it, the familiar warmth of being wanted, the heady rush of “yes, this person chose me, I'm the one he wants right now”. She'd made those little sounds she knew guys liked, let her fingers curl into the fabric of his tactical vest, tilted her head back when he kissed her neck.

And then the shadows shifted, and suddenly there were two more bodies in the corner.

"Yo, Derek, there you are." The voice was low and amused, coming from a guy in a football jersey who leaned against the wall like he owned it. Behind him, another jersey—both of them grinning with the easy confidence of men who had never been told no. "We've been looking for you, bro."

Derek pulled back from Kaylee's mouth, his hand still on her hip. "Oh hey. Yeah, I was just—" He gestured vaguely at Kaylee, like she was a TV he'd been watching. "What's up?"

Football Jersey One let his eyes travel down Kaylee's body slowly, deliberately, taking in the nurse costume with the kind of appreciation that made her skin prickle. "More like who's up, am I right?" He nudged his friend, who snorted.

"Very funny." Derek's grip on her hip tightened slightly. "Guys, this is—"

"Kaylee," she supplied, because he hadn't actually asked her name. The realization landed strangely.

"Kaylee." Football Jersey Two rolled the name around like he was tasting it. "Like the Kaylee? Community Kaylee?"

The words hit like cold water. Her smile froze on her face. "I—what?"

"Dude, don't be a dick." Derek sounded more annoyed than defensive, like his friend had interrupted a good meal. But he didn't let go of her hip. If anything, his fingers pressed harder into the fabric of her skirt.

"I'm just saying." Jersey One stepped closer, and his hand landed on Kaylee's shoulder—light, casual, like it was nothing. Like she was nothing. "If you're into it, we could all hang out after. Derek's got a place off-campus. Could be fun."

"Could be really fun." Jersey Two's hand found the bare skin of her lower back, just above the skirt. His palm was sweaty. "We share everything, right bro?"

Derek laughed and his eyes met Kaylee's. There was something in them now that hadn't been there on the dance floor. A calculation. An expectation.

"You're down, right?" His voice had shifted from asking to assuming. "I mean, you're Kaylee."

The air in the corner had turned thick and sour. Three sets of eyes on her, three bodies hemming her in, and the wall at her back and the DJ booth to her side and nowhere to go that didn't require pushing past one of them. Her heart was slamming against her ribs, and not in the good way—not the way it did when someone looked at her like she was the only person in the room.

"I don't—" Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "I'm not really—"

"Come on." Jersey One's hand slid from her shoulder toward her collarbone. "Don't be a tease."

The word landed like a slap.

Tease. Slut. Community Kaylee. Campus Mattress. That's what they think you are. That's all they—

Her body moved before her brain made the decision.

She twisted out from between them, ducking under Jersey Two's arm, her heels wobbling on the sticky floor, and then she was moving—fast, desperate, not toward the crowd but toward the first person she saw walking past the corner. Her vision was blurred at the edges, her pulse roaring in her ears, and she didn't register {{poss}} face or {{poss}} costume or anything except person, moving, escape route.

Her hand shot out and grabbed {{poss}} arm.

"Hey!" The word came out too bright, too loud, the performance smile snapping onto her face like armor. She pressed herself against {{poss}} side and looked up at {{obj}} with wide, pleading eyes that she hoped communicated everything her voice couldn't. "There you are! I've been looking everywhere for you, baby."

Play along. Please, please, play along.

She turned back toward the three jerseys, still standing in the corner watching her, and her smile didn't waver even though her hand was shaking against the {{user}}'s arm.

"Sorry guys, my—my partner's here, so. Gotta go!"

...