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9
Grady
I had been bugging Evie for weeks, trying to get her to commit to going to Fright Night with me, but today she was finally starting to cave. I could feel it. Where she had been giving me emphatic “no damn way, Grady” answers, she was now giving me “go away, Grady” answers, and those I could deal with.
Evie didn’t like to be scared. She hated it. She didn’t watch scary movies. She didn’t like haunted houses. She didn’t even like to dress up for trick-or-treating. She got scared easily. The one time I’d talked her into watching a scary movie with me, her grandma had given me what-for the next day because Evie hadn’t slept a wink that night. She kept seeing shadows moving in her dark room, and she’d ended up in bed with her grandma every night after that for more than a week.
Evie often slept with the light on. She couldn’t see well in the dark, and she used a nightlight in her room even though we were both fifteen years old. The one time I’d commented on it, her cheeks had turned bright pink as she’d stammered out an excuse, saying that she used the nightlight to read by when her grandma told her to turn out the lights. She said it wasn’t because she was scared of the dark, but I knew she was. Hell, I was scared of the dark, too. You couldn’t see things coming at you in the dark, which made you wary. But that was why it was so much fun.
So I was thrilled when she’d finally agreed to go with me. Her grandma insisted on driving us there. When I got to their house, Evie was wearing a karate costume so she looked like Daniel from Karate Kid, and I was her nemesis so my costume was a black “Cobra Kai” outfit. We were opposites. Hers was white and she had a white bandana with a black sun emblem on the front that her grandma had embroidered for her. Ms. Markie had sewn a yellow cobra on the vest of my black jacket and removed the sleeves for me. Our costumes were perfect, aside from the fact that Evie and I could never be enemies, not in real life. I loved her too much for that.
But tonight, when I’d walked up on her porch, and she’d walked toward me and pretended to kick me in the jaw, her leg flying so high that I thought she was really going to do it, I hadn’t been so sure. She’d laid her hatred on pretty thick. She’d almost convinced me.
“Evie,” her grandma had chided. “Don’t kick the boy in the chin. He’s got a pretty smile. Wouldn’t want you to mess it up.”
Back then, we both had braces. That was the only reason I hadn’t tried to kiss Evie yet. I was afraid our braces would get locked together like Little Robbie Gentry’s braces had gotten locked with his girlfriend’s. They would never live it down. And Robbie’s dad made him pay to have his girlfriend’s braces fixed. He’d had to work digging sweet potatoes for a whole month to earn that money back. His advice was not to kiss anyone who had braces like you, if you could avoid it. So I’d held off.
“You hear that?” I teased Evie, bumping her shoulder with mine as we sat side-by-side on her grandma’s glider on the front porch. “I have a pretty smile.”
Evie appraised my face, her gaze darting all over my skin, her eyes soft. “Your face is all right,” she said. Then she grabbed my cheeks and gave my face a shake, so I blew a raspberry into the side of her hand.
“Ew,” she complained, as she wiped her hand on her costume. “You’re so gross.”
I batted my lashes at her. “But you still love me,” I said quietly.
“Yeah, I do,” she’d agreed, her face and neck flushing pink.
“We had better get moving if you guys want to get there on time,” her grandma said, as she stood up from her front porch rocker. “I’m dropping you off and running to the grocery store, and then I’ll pick you up after.” She pointed from me to Evie and back. “You get one hour, you hear me?”
“It won’t take that long. I’m running through that thing as fast as my legs will carry me.” Evie shivered dramatically. She hated being scared. She was only going because I wanted to go so bad.
Evie and I got to the hay bales maze at Lake Fisher right after it turned dark. Barbara-Claire and Junior were already waiting there for us, and Evie immediately grabbed Barbara-Claire and started whispering in her ear. Barbara-Claire kept looking at me and grinning as Evie whispered to her, and then they both squealed and stamped their feet with excitement.
“Girls are weird,” Junior said.
“Totally weird,” I agreed. The more time I spent with Evie, the less I understood her.
Mr. Jacobson gave us all glow sticks and we walked around the corner with them so we could crack them before we went in the maze. Junior immediately cracked his and then split it open with his pocket knife, smearing his hands and face with the glowing liquid inside.
“That’s going to give you cancer,” Barbara-Claire had warned, and I could see her roll her eyes at him in the glow from her stick.
“You guys ready?” Junior asked, as he flexed his muscles.
“No,” Evie murmured.
But Barbara-Claire and Junior were already clasping hands so they would walk into the maze together. They went before us, and then Mr. Jacobson made us wait.
“You okay?” I asked Evie, trying to see her face.
“Fine.”
“You sure?” I didn’t want her to be unhappy. “You know we don’t have to do this, right? We can go buy some candied apples and sit and eat them while we wait for Junior and Bee-Cee to go through.”
“No, I can do it.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and steeled her spine. I could see it happen. “I can do it,” she said again.
I held my hand out, palm up, and she put her hand in mine. Her palm was already sweaty, but I didn’t care. It was the first time we’d ever genuinely held hands and I gave hers a squeeze. Even though she wasn’t my girlfriend, I desperately wanted her to be my girlfriend, but as yet she’d failed to pick up what I was putting down. I would have given just about anything if I could have seen her face so I’d have some kind of idea about how she was feeling, but I couldn’t. I was completely in the dark—both literally and figuratively.
Her hand quivered as we walked into the Fright Night maze made from stacked hay bales meticulously and demonically arranged to present a truly baffling and frightening experience. Evie relaxed a little when she saw that there was just a little girl sitting there blowing bubbles. “Good evening,” the little girl said quietly. Then she turned her head and we saw that they’d made her up to look like half her face was melting. Evie squealed and pressed herself against me, so I wrapped my arm around her and held her close. She grabbed my shirt tail, pulling so hard that she pulled it right out of my jeans. I laughed and hugged her closer to me, and she melted into my side. I’d never felt anything quite so wonderful.
