Page 15 of Trick or Treat Nurse at My Feet
"Being myself?"
He sighs, frustrated. "You know what I mean."
"I'm starting to," My voice is barely a whisper.
We've reached a section of the scare house filled with dark corners and creepy shadows.
"Maybe this was a mistake," he mutters, still not removing the mask.
"Which part?" I ask. "Tonight, or us?"
The question hangs between us, heavier than I intended. Ryan's hands twitch at my waist.
"Don't start this again," he warns. "Not here."
"Then where? When?" My voice snaps louder than intended. "You never want to talk about it. You never want to define what we are or where this is going."
"Why does everything need a label?" he barks. "Why can't we just be?"
"Because 'just being' for you means hiding me away like I'm something shameful!"
The long fabric curtains hanging all around us muffle our voices. We've stopped walking and are facing each other in the dim, pulsing light.
"You knew what this was," Ryan says, his voice low and hard. "You knew I wasn't ready to be out."
"It's been eight months, Ryan." The admission hurts. "And nothing's changed."
"So, what do you want from me? To blow up my life? To lose my family, my future, so that we can hold hands at a stupid carnival?"
Each word is a knife, but also a clarification. Walking further down a tunnel, I turn a corner. In his mind, being with me openly means losing everything.
Before I can respond to him, a deafening roar fills the narrow space. A massive figure lunges from behind the curtain we had been walking past, arms raised, giant hands holding a spiked baseball bat high. His mouth is open in a bloody snarl beneath a half-face skull mask.
It happens in an instant.
Ryan yelps, a high, panicked sound that echoes in the darkness around us, and his hands slam into my back, pushing me hard toward the scary figure. I stumble forward, my arms flailing like a windmill, and crash right into the chest of a baseball-wielding maniac… frat guy.
He's big… Like really big, dressed in torn, dark clothes, with fake blood smeared across his mouth and a terrifying half-skull face mask. Strong hands catch me by the shoulders, stopping me just before I can fall. I look up, a little breathless, into the face of a stranger whose scary monster look shifts into genuine concern.
The man's hands are firm, and I feel a strange mix of safety and excitement standing so close to someone who’s supposed to scare me. As I shake off the shock, I glance back at Ryan, expecting him to be right there.
Instead, my stomach drops as I hear the sound of receding footsteps. Ryan is running in the opposite direction, abandoning me without a second thought. Confusionquickly turns to anger, bubbling up inside me like a pot about to boil over.
The scare house suddenly feels very quiet.
The frat guy is tall and broad-shouldered, and the mask he wears can't hide how good-looking he is. He still holds me by the shoulders, his grip firm but gentle. The Greek, ΔΨΩ, DPO letters on his sleeve match the ones painted on the zombie out front.
"You okay?" he asks, his deep voice suits his monster costume.
Staring up at him, while my now ex-whatever-he-was's panicked footsteps pound away from us, I realize I don't know how to answer that question.
Chapter 4
Catch and Release
TYLER
Oh, holy hell, he’s in my arms. Ethan's in my arms! What the fuck just happened?
