“There are already eight student podcasts about that missing guy,” Mia says. “I know you’re, like,obsessedwith him, but I heard he was a huge asshole. He’s not worth finding. And, he’s been missing so long, he’s totally dead. Just like our mystery web series is dead! Skincare is hot now! Taylor says we can leverage off her existing TikTok brand, and we’ll have a hundred thousand subscribers in a month!”
I really don’t want to have this discussion. If I let it go on too long, Mia will win. She always wins. This is a pattern, and patterns become cycles until someone breaks them, and I am in the mood to break things. But not this mug. I wrap the octopus mug in the newspaper.
Mia is finally silent, so I fold the flaps of the box closed, then put on my boots, parka, hat, and mittens. After I’m fully suited up to brave the snowy March weather, I look around the small living room of the apartment-style dorm room Mia and I have shared since September.The sturdy wood furniture that is surprisingly comfortable. The K-pop posters we framed. This building, West Hall, is considered the best residence in our downtown university, and Mia and I cheered when we found out we got a room here. And now I’m willingly leaving it behind, just like I’m leaving behind my best friend of more than a decade. With a duffel bag hanging off each shoulder, a knapsack on my back, and the box in my arms, I leave the room without another word.
I should have walked away from this friendship a long time ago. Actually, I should have walked away from Mia when an octopus told me to five months ago. Ironically, it was the same night that Mia first met Lance.
Five months earlier—October 29
It was a mistake to wear a mustache to my first ever university party. Afakemustache, mind you. True, as a Brown girl, I do grow visible upper-lip hair, but my mom found me a threading aunty in Toronto even before frosh week. Fake or not, though, I am the only girl with a mustache at this party.
Actually, even before gluing the handlebar mustache to my upper lip, I made a mistake bynotdressing like an octopus like I had for the last few Halloweens. Last year I was Ursula the sea witch, and the year before that Henry the Octopus fromThe Wiggles. But this year, Mia insisted that for our firstuniversityHalloween, we needed to match each other, and our costumes should be tied to our upcoming YouTube mystery series so we could create content for our socials. She would be Sherlock Holmes, and I would be Watson. My mom mail-ordered me a tweed jacket, a bowler hat, and a very realistic fake mustache, and I assumed Mia did the same.
But the moment I show Mia my Victorian physician costume, I know I miscalculated. Mia’s costume isn’t accurate to the period at all.Instead, she got a cheap “sexy Sherlock” costume, complete with fishnets and a skirt short enough to make a Victorian faint.
I suppose her costume does what she actually wants it to do, because seconds after we walk into the campus pub, she catches the attention of some dude wearing a bad Spider-Man costume without a mask. He admires Mia’s legs and makes fun of my mustache in the same breath. Mia laughs her fake, flirty giggle, and the dude orders her and all his friends (but not me) tequila shots. I head to the bar alone, yanking the bowler off my head. I didn’t bother to put any product in my shoulder-length, curly hair since I figured it would be stuffed into a hat all night, and now frizzy strands fall into my eyes. I brush them away and keep walking. I can get my own damn tequila.
I order a shot from the mad scientist tending bar. I have to show my ID, of course. I’m nineteen—legal to drink here—but I look younger, even with the mustache. When I get my shot, I take a tiny sip instead of drinking it all at once. It tastes like turpentine.
“My dear Watson, is it? How do you do?” a deep voice next to me says.
I turn to see an octopus. Literally, anoctopusis standing next to me at the bar. I frown. Is tequila supposed to cause hallucinations? I look closer, and it’s not actually an octopus, but a guy wearing a cheap Party City Cthulhu mask. He’s also got on a black T-shirt and jeans.
“How do you know I’m Watson?” I ask.
“The tweed,” he says.
I frown, which makes my mustache tickle my cheeks. “Lots of characters wear tweed.”
“True.” He rubs his hands on his tentacle beard as if he’s thinking. “Are you supposed to be Mr. Bean?”
I snort. The guy nods toward my drink. “What are you drinking?”
“Tequila.” For some reason I don’t want this octopus-man to think I’m as lame as I actually am, so I drink the rest of my shot in one gulp. It burns going down. I suppress a cough.
The octopus-person stares at me. I can’t read his expression because of the mask, so I can’t tell if he’s impressed or laughing at me.
“Are you alone?” he asks. I wonder if he’s trying to pick me up. Maybe he has a thing for mustached Victorian doctors?
I nod. “My friend ditched me for a superhero.” I glance over to Mia, who has her arm around Spider-Man’s waist while she talks to sexy Wednesday Addams.
The bartender takes my empty shot glass and asks me if I want another. I look at the list of drinks taped to the bar top.
“I’ll have a Witch’s Brew.” I give the bartender a ten-dollar bill, and he hands me a can of blackberry vodka cooler.
“I’ll take the same,” Cthulhu guy says, giving the bartender money. The bartender hands him a can. The guy lifts the bottom of his latex mask to take a long sip of his drink. I can’t make out what his face looks like from this distance. In fact, I doubt he’s trying to pick me up, or he’d be standing closer. He pulls his mask back over his chin even before he puts his can down.
“Are you in hiding or something?” I ask.
He laughs again. “It’s Halloween, the only time of the year I can wear a Lovecraftian mask and be normal.”
Him using the wordLovecraftianproves he’snotnormal. He may even be as dorky as I am. “Honestly, I thinknormalis overrated,” I say. “I wish I could wear a tweed jacket all year.”
“Why can’t you?”
I glance at Mia, who is laughing and talking to her new friends like she’s known them for years. What would it be like to be so comfortable with new people? “You ever feel like the whole world is spinning five steps ahead of you?” I ask. “And by the time you catch up with them, they’ve already moved on?”
I turn back to the guy who’s maybe trying to pick me up. I’m sure I’ve scared him off. No one wants philosophical introspection at a party like this. But again, with that mask on, I have no idea what he’s thinking. He’s still staring at me, which is disconcerting—those latextentacles almost glow in the dim lights of the bar. Even with a few feet between us, I can smell him. Clean laundry detergent and a hint of ... cinnamon? He has broad shoulders and strong arms.
