The halls of Tommen were buzzing, the kind of restless, chaotic excitement that always settled over the school during Halloween week. Posters for costume themes and off-campus parties were taped to lockers, fairy lights wrapped around banisters, and students darted past in bits of makeup and half-finished outfits. Laughter echoed, loud and messy, drowning out the quiet thoughts that had followed you around for months.

Two months.

Two months of breathing again.

Two months of choosing yourself.

Two months of letting the ghost of Hughie Biggs fall out of your chest, piece by piece.

But healing wasn’t linear, especially when Hughie walked the same halls, breathed the same air, and smiled the same sunshine-bright smile that made you fall for him in the first place. A smile that was never really yours. A smile that always belonged to someone else.

Lizzie Young.

His first everything.

His always.

She floated around campus with that familiar sharpness in her eyes, a cold, calculated edge that had only grown worse since your breakup. There was satisfaction in her gaze now—mean, vindictive, triumphant. She had you exactly where she wanted you: out of the picture, out of Hughie’s life, and out of his heart.

Not that you had ever really occupied that last place.

You could still hear the girls in the locker room whispering about the costumes for tonight’s party. Hughie and Lizzie showing up together was practically a guarantee. After the breakup, they had slipped back into their pattern—the inevitable gravitational pull between two people who had shared too much history, too many firsts, too much complicated love for anyone else to compete with.

You didn’t hate Hughie.

You didn’t even resent him.

You just finally realized what loving him had been doing to you.

For every moment he held you, a part of him still reached for her.

You had picked your outfit for the party days ago, something to do with a bunny. When evening came, the student houses glowed with warm lights, thumping bass vibrating through walls as crowds moved in and out. Decorations dangled from ceilings—fake cobwebs, carved pumpkins, plastic bats. The air smelled of cheap alcohol, sweat, sugar, and autumn cold.

You stepped inside the party, costume in place. People greeted you with smiles, compliments, waves. You forced yourself to stay grounded, to focus on the music, on the fog machines, on the neon orange lights.

But then you saw him.

Hughie Biggs.

Tall, soft-eyed, golden-hearted Hughie.

He was dressed in something stupid and charming—exactly the way he always had been. His curly hair was messy, his cheeks flushed from the warmth of the room, and he was laughing that familiar, bright laugh that used to make you feel weightless. Standing beside him was Lizzie, wrapped up in a costume that demanded attention, her arm brushing his, her eyes scanning the room like a predator looking for its favorite prey.

And then her gaze landed on you.

A smirk.

Sharp. Satisfied. Cruel.

The kind of look that twisted the knife in the place where your heart used to be.