Page 69 of The Invisible Roommate

“Mischief night?” Emory stammered out the question.

“Yeah. You’ve never heard of mischief night? Kids go out on October thirtieth to raise hell and play pranks on unsuspecting adults. They got you pretty good.” Gerard’s care curdled as Emory snuck his own glance at the clock over the stove.

Past midnight? October thirtieth? His whole body froze.

It was Halloween.

Words lodged up in Emory’s throat. He wished the holiday didn’t have such a viselike hold on him, making air harder to breathe and thoughts impossible to express. Given the ample distractions, he’d nearly forgotten all about it. The calendar had been more for tallying the number of days he’d been invisible than for tracking the passage of time.

He abhorred the holiday. Cursed it all—from the songs straight down to the decorations. On October 30, every year, he stocked up on essentials, and on October 31, he hunkered down inside a quiet, dark room, reading until the hullabaloo passed and he could pretend it never happened.

This was much harder when he was still in school and teachers made the class paint pumpkins or cut out paper bats, but when he became an adult, he vowed to extricate the day from his life. As far as he was concerned, the calendar only contained 365 days if it was a leap year.

“You okay?” Gerard asked.

“Yes,” Emory lied.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. I’ll say it was me the kid hit. Nobody can deny that I’m perfectly visible.”

“Sure.” Those four letters were nearly impossible to push out.

“All that sex worked up an appetite. I know this is bad, given you just got hit with one, but scrambled eggs sound really good right now.” Gerard moved over to the fridge and ducked his head inside. “Can I make you some? A little midnight snack?”

“No thanks.” Emory’s stomach walled itself off.

“Suit yourself.” As the eggs cooked on a sizzling pan beneath the whirring fan, Gerard offered Emory hot tea or warm milk, both of which he declined. The egg situation slunk to the back of his mind when he realized this was the first Halloween he was spending in the presence of another since he went to grad school.

While he was required by the state to have his own room at the various foster homes he passed through, avoiding people entirely on Halloween was a nonstarter. He could reject hand-me-down costumes and offers to go out trick-or-treating with the other children, but he couldn’t skip meals or neglect his chores.

As he sat at the kitchen table, it was impossible not to feel like that helpless, lost little boy, face still slightly dewy and breath still ragged.

“I have a question for you,” Gerard said, bringing his heaping plate of eggs to the table. “Since I’m performing the solo at the masquerade tomorrow—or now, later today—I was wondering if you’d like to come see me perform it.”

“You want me to see you perform?” Emory’s heart took on the speed of a sports car, vrooming away from him.

A distinct pink flush painted Gerard’s bulging cheeks as he chewed. He’d gobbled up nearly half his eggs already. He must’ve been really hungry. “I do,” Gerard said after a big swallow.

“I … I’d love to. But…” Emory drummed his fingers against the table, uncertain how to approach this.

“Hold that thought! I know what you’re about to say, and don’t worry—I already got you a costume.” Gerard grabbed the shopping bag from beside the door and dumped the contents out on the rocking chair. “Jeanie really came through. Since it’s a masquerade, I got you a full-face mask and a cloak with a hood.” The material was a jade-green velvet that fastened around the front. A pair of matching gloves fell from the seat of the chair and hit the floor.

The mere thought of leaving the apartment on Halloween turned Emory’s blood cold. Fighting back panic, he said, “What about my voice? What if someone recognizes it?”

“I hadn’t thought about the voice thing.” Gerard tapped a finger to his chin. “We’ll be singing, so there won’t be a lot of opportunity to talk. Plus, the mask will obscure some of the sound.”

The rising tide of Emory’s worry grew without pause. “What if my hood falls?”

Gerard returned to the table. “We could pin the hood to your hair to keep it up.”

The mention of pins reminded Emory of the ones his mother wore in her brown hair sometimes. No, those were barrettes. They were colorful. That much he remembered. Hadn’t he just been dreaming of them?

Bored, he’d steal them from the outer pocket of her purse when he was sitting outside one of her many job interviews. He’d snap them back and forth, tickled by the sound, delighted by the way they caught the light. Back then, he was so easily entertained, so easily convinced everything would work out because the world was a weird and wonderful place that could all be explained by science.

What about the day his mom left him? How could science explain that?

“Pins fall out, Gerard,” he snapped, feeling stripped raw.

Shock slammed Gerard’s eyebrows upward. “Right. You’re right. Okay. What about a hat? I know I have a few in my bag.”