Page 103 of Where Roads Lead

“It’s okay,” I told him, “but considering the hit it took to my self-esteem, you can imagine it’s a bit of a sore subject.”

“Noted.” He nodded. “It won’t be brought up again.”

And because I’d come to know Will Hughes over the last month, I knew I could trust his word on that.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asked, apparently offering a distraction from the heartbreak I was sure he thought I was remembering.

“Sure,” I said, and he flipped through the channels. “But it has to be a festive one—ooh, stop there! That one’s called Halloween, and it’s just starting!”

“This one?” He stared at me with arched brows.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s called Halloween. What could be more fitting?”

He stared at me for a moment, assessing his next words as the opening credits played.

“I thought you hated—do you know that it’s a—never mind.” He shook his head, barely suppressing a laugh. “Let’s watch Halloween.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Will

Ican’t believe I used Theo’s move.

His cheesy as hell, let’s watch a scary movie move.

But apparently he—and every teenaged boy to ever exist—was on to something, because Elsie was currently pressed up against my side, clutching onto my arm as if I were the only thing in the world standing between her and Michael Myers.

It didn’t take long for her to realize we were watching a horror movie. The menacing theme song made quick work of that.

And at first, she reminded me of her hatred for scary films, which I—God knows why—encouraged her to give a chance, for the sake of the holiday.

Really, I didn’t think it would be so bad for her. I mean, Matthew and I had watched this ourselves when we were ten or eleven. It was more cheesy than anything else. So I thought.

But I quickly realized Elsie’s hatred of horror movies wasn’t just a dislike, but a genuine, all-encompassing fear.

No matter how content I was with my situation, I felt like an ass for getting Elsie so freaked out. But at least it had her distracted from my other fumble of the night—bringing up her past.

“We don’t have to watch this,” I told her when she let out a particularly high-pitched squeal.

“Yes, we do! That’s the problem with me, Will! I’m a curious being by nature!” she said through the gap in her fingers covering her face. “Now that my intrigued is peaked, I won’t be able to look away, even though I know it’ll result in some emotionally scarring images I’ll never be able to get out of my head!”

“We can watch something else,” I said, lifting the remote.

“Don’t you dare.” She stared me down menacingly. “I have to wait for the happy ending.”

“Elsie,” I said, “you realize this is a horror movie, right?”

She stared at me as if to say, what’s your point?

“They usually don’t end with a ‘and they all lived happily ever after.’”

“Well, duh. But they at least have to kill off the villain by the end, don’t they? I mean, I read a lot of books, and that’s usually the formula for how stories end.”

“Do you read horror books by any chance?”

“No. Usually romance.”

“Jesus,” I muttered under my breath, realizing how ill-prepared Elsie was for the rest of the movie.