Garrison scrutinizes my hair and then his eyes fall to mine. “Are you sure you want me to come?”

My brother (it’s actually starting to feel normal calling Loren Hale that) is hosting a Halloween party for the neighborhood. Garrison is technically already invited since he lives in the same neighborhood, but I asked him to come with me anyway.

This past month has been…difficult at Dalton Academy.

No one harasses me or stuffs my locker with things anymore, but I haven’t made any friends either. Lots of behind-the-back whispers.

If someone even tries to talk to me, they only ever ask about Loren Hale. I always shut down at the start of those questions. If I discuss my time with Lo and Lily or any of her sisters, I feel like I’m betraying them.

But I finally have a nickname.

Wordless Willow.

Apparently not responding to someone paints a target on you. Though, my whole body was practically painted red before I even arrived at Dalton.

I haven’t exactly told Lo any of this. I also don’t plan to tell him today or tomorrow. Some things, I have to deal with on my own.

My current plan: focus on my classwork and not the people in my classes. I only have one semester after this one ends. I can make it.

“I want you there,” I tell Garrison. I’m not going to know many people besides Lo, Lily, her sisters, and their significant others. “But if you don’t want to go—”

“I do.” He twirls a cigarette in his fingers. He won’t smoke in my room. I’ve never told him, but he’s the only reason school isn’t unbearable. He’s the reason there aren’t more tampons in my locker—or worse. He made sure his old friends left me alone.

I’ve needed him.

If he wasn’t here, I’m not sure I’d have the strength to stay.

Maybe I’d find it somewhere else, but he’s kept me looking forward. At a better future. At a better place.

In our quiet, I hear the front door to the apartment opening, audible from my cracked bedroom door. Voices emanate from the hallway, and I’m sure my roommate (the only other person with a key) has stepped inside the living room.

Seconds later, my door swings further open, until Maya sticks her head inside. She wears a pink wig and plastic body armor. Her costume: Lightning from Final Fantasy.

“Hey,” she says. “I’m heading out. You sure you don’t want to come?” A smile creeps on her lips. “Your first college party could be a cosplay Halloween.”

At seventeen, I might be living in an off-campus apartment near the University of Pennsylvania, but I’ve successfully avoided the college parties so far. Thinking about them brings on this whole new wave of anxiety that I didn’t even know existed.

“It’s tempting, but I have to go to Loren’s neighborhood thing.” It’s Lo, Willow. Right. Lo. Lo. Lo.

“Yeah, I heard about that on Yik-Yak.”

Garrison snorts from my rug. “Someone yakked about it?” He returns to the video game, eyes glued to the screen as he plays.