CHAPTER ONE
The delicate flicker of my lighter cast a warm, trembling glow across the vanity, its flame reflecting in the mirror like a distant star.
The soft, eerie notes of Lana Del Rey’s Season of the Witch played quietly on my HomePod, the haunting melody filling the room like a ghostly whisper, setting the perfect ambiance for the night ahead. One of the perks of having a birthday so close to Halloween: spooky festivities, the thrill of masquerading as someone—or something—else, and the freedom to dress however the fuck I wanted.
I held the eyeliner pencil between my fingers, steady, yet something about tonight felt heavier, the weight of the world creeping in through the cracks of my mind. I leaned closer to the mirror, its cool surface almost brushing my skin, and with gentle, deliberate strokes, I began my work.
Slowly, I drew the first line, then the second—thin, precise vertical marks across my lips, each one carving out a stitched-up smile. The dark charcoal smeared easily against my pale skin, the illusion of torn seams becoming real under the soft, amber glow. My lips, once whole, now seemed bound by invisible threads, each stroke tightening the knot around my heart. I couldn’t help but smirk at the irony.
With a steady hand, I added the final touches—cracks spider webbing from my eyes down to my cheeks, each line faint yet sharp, as though I had been shattered and put back together again. They stretched across my skin like broken porcelain, a fractured doll pieced together, fragile and imperfect. It was perfect.
Finished, I leaned back, taking in the reflection before me. The broken doll look. I admired it with a sense of detachment, my face a mask of distortion and beauty, both destroyed and recreated.
I’d always loved makeup. It was more than a passion—it had become my art, a medium through which I could transform, escape. Turning it into a career had been the best decision I’d ever made. On days like this, when everything felt like it was falling apart, makeup was my armor, my disguise. Tonight, it was my shield against the ghosts that had been haunting me for months.
The song’s sultry, witchy vibes thrummed through me, matching the energy I needed to get through the night.
Halloween always gave me that chance to escape, to play pretend in a world already half-hidden in shadows.
My fingertips brushed the edge of the vanity, tracing the outline of my brush set as I stared at the hollow eyes of the doll in the mirror. A broken doll… just like me. For a moment, I considered wiping it all away, exposing the raw — the real beneath, but the thought faded as quickly as it came.
Tonight wasn’t about the truth. It was about hiding in plain sight.
My boyfriend, Kai and I, were together for five years now.
High school sweethearts.
From the moment we met in sophomore year, we clicked, sharing the same love for the spooky season. It started with thriller movies—Scream, Friday the 13th, Child’s Play—we were obsessed with them all; the kind of stuff that made us jump and laugh in equal measure. Those late-night movie marathons became our thing, spending hours watching ghost-faced killers, masked murderers, and creepy dolls come to life.
Kai always loved Friday the 13th—he’d joke that he could do a better Jason Voorhees impersonation than anyone. Meanwhile, I swore Scream was superior, with its twisted mind games and that iconic phone call scene. But when it came to Child’s Play, we were both hooked.
Chucky’s sinister humor, the way he’d go from a creepy doll to a full-blown nightmare—it was the kind of horror we both ate up.
We weren’t the “it” couple, but we didn’t need to be. What we had was real, or at least it felt that way back then. Our love was admired quietly by those around us, the kind of connection people noticed without it needing to be loud or showy.
At first, everything was simple. Dates meant meeting up at the local diner or catching a movie, the kind of low-budget stuff a high school guy could pull off without much money to his name. And I didn’t mind. I never cared about fancy dates or expensive gifts—just being with him was enough.
We’d spend hours walking through town or the local pumpkin patch in the fall, talking about everything and nothing. He’d hold my hand, and back then, it felt like the whole world disappeared, like we were the only two people that mattered. His laughter was contagious, and those dark, thoughtful eyes of his? They made me feel like I was the center of his universe.
He was the kind of guy who could make anything fun, and I always believed that our relationship was forever. It didn’t matter that we were young or that others didn’t understand. I believed, deep in my bones, that he would be my first and last love.
But then, we grew up.
We graduated, moved into the real world, and suddenly, everything changed.
Slowly.
So slowly, it was almost imperceptible at first.
It wasn’t like we had some huge fight or that he did something terrible. It was just… a feeling. That uncomfortable distance that creeps in when you least expect it, like waking up one day and realizing the person next to you feels further away than they should.
Kai stopped making plans like he used to. He stopped putting in the small, thoughtful gestures that used to make me feel special. I found myself the one planning our time together, the one trying to rekindle that spark that once came so easily. I started to notice the way he’d pull out his phone in the middle of dinner, or how his eyes seemed to glaze over when I talked about my day. It was like he was slipping away, and I didn’t know how to stop it.
But the idea of breaking up, of losing him? That wasn’t even a thought. The very idea frightened me. I didn’t want to lose Kai. He wasn’t just my boyfriend; he was my best friend, my constant, the person who knew me better than anyone else. The thought of us drifting apart, of him becoming a stranger, scared me more than anything. I wasn’t ready to give up on us.
I wasn’t ready to admit that something was wrong, even though deep down, I knew it was.
I wanted so badly to feel that spark again, to look at him and feel the same rush of love I did when we were teenagers. And I still did, sometimes. In those rare moments when he’d laugh the way he used to or pull me into a kiss without warning, I’d remember why I fell in love with him in the first place. But those moments were becoming fewer, and the silence between us was growing louder.
I wasn’t ready to give up on him, not when I’d worked so hard to hold on. I wished, more than anything, that he would try too. That he would notice the distance between us and want to fix it. That he’d remember the boy who used to take me out on dates even when he didn’t have a dollar to his name, the boy who made me feel like I was the only girl in the world. I wished he would see how hard I was trying and meet me halfway. I still believed in us, in what we had, and I wasn’t ready to let it slip away without a fight.
The beginning of Somebody’s Watching Me playing in the background was interrupted by a sharp honk from outside my window. I blinked, snapping out of my thoughts, and glanced at my phone just as it buzzed. A text popped up on the screen:
Vanessa: Are you ready? I’m outside.
Swiping up the message, I quickly typed a reply.
Yeah, coming now.
With a final touch of lipstick to complete the look, I grabbed my coat and headed for the door, my heart heavy but my face a perfect mask for the night ahead.
