The Right Kind of Wrong

“On the right or the left?” Emily questioned annoyed as she was pressed up flush against the wall, trying to keep from tumbling down from the ladder she was standing on.

“Right,” Anna announced as she watched her friend from across the cluttered room, tapping her finger against her chin as her other arm was across her chest, her hip jutted out as she observed everything going on around her. “More. More. A bit more. Too much!”

“If you're going to be so freaking meticulous about it, why don’t you get up here and do it yourself?” Emily snapped as she swayed slightly, mentally cursing herself for moving too fast and looking down. She was afraid of heights, had been since she was a little girl and just standing on a stepladder inside a room gave her some serious vertigo.

“No need to be snippy about it,” Anna rolled her eyes as she crossed half the room. “Just a bit higher on the right and then we’re done.”

Rolling her eyes and shaking her head slightly, Emily turned back around and moved the large garlands a little higher on the right and fastened it to the wall, not caring if it was ‘perfect’ or not.

“Maybe you could…”

“No,” Emily stated as she began climbing down the ladder.

“I'm just thinking that maybe…” Anna tried as she pointed towards the garlands her friend had just fastened to the wall.

“No,” Emily repeated, with as much finality as the previous time. “I'm not getting up there again, you want to change something be my guest, but I'm not doing it,” she laid it down. “This is not what I signed up for when I agreed to help you and Pixie out with the final decoration for the party.”

“We didn’t want to do it alone,” Anna admitted, smiling innocently as she batted her lashes at her friend.

“Whatever,” Emily rolled her eyes. “So…where is Pixie by the way?” she asked pointedly.

“With her boyfriend,” Anna admitted quickly as she spun around and busied herself with the snacks currently on the table.

Rolling her eyes at her friend for the umpth time that afternoon alone, Emily picked up the ladder and began moving it out of the room and down the hall, back to where they had borrowed it some hours earlier.

She’d been guilt tripped into helping her friends the same morning with decorating the whole floor, and common room for the Halloween party that was being held there the same evening. Ever since finding out she’d been trying to get out of doing anything, but her friends had so kindly reminded her, and then lied to get her to help.

Anna, or Joanna which was her real name, lived a few doors down in the hall from Emily and the two of them had hit it off pretty much immediately after she moved in. Anna had roots in Europe and loved to go back and visit, so they had that in common but they quickly learned that they had a lot of other similarities and interests as well.

Pixie was her next-door-neighbor who didn’t know how to keep quiet…ever, and who really didn’t know the meaning of privacy. Her real name was Veronica, but everyone just called her Pixie cause she was so short, and standing next to Emily who reached some 5’8’’ her own 5’1’’ stature really did look a bit pixie-like. And the fact that she herself had coined the nickname back in high school apparently made it so much more acceptable to use, no feelings were hurt.

Spreading out fake spider web across the bar-area of the common room, Emily wandered down the hallway as she actively avoided Anna. Personally she wasn't that interested in celebrating Halloween, it was fun, she’d learned to dress up but it still didn’t…it wasn't something she particularly looked forwards to, especially the part of trick-or-treating.

Pushing the door to her room open, she stopped mid-step as she saw all the things crammed into the room. Struggling to keep her breathing normal, she could feel her hands clenching and un-clenching at her sides. “JOANNA!” she screamed as her anger bubbled over.

“Yeah?” Anna called from further down the hall, a hint of unease in her tone.

“Joanna Britney Kelido!” Emily yelled as she stepped back out in the hall. “Get your ass here right now!” Glancing back into the room where things she hadn’t even seen before were stashed, she forced herself to keep her breathing calm as she waited for her friend. She could deal with a lot, she put up with even more, but this was seriously pushing it!

Grabbing a bottle of water from her fridge, Emily rounded her bed and sank down by her desk just as there was a knock on her door and Pixie poked her head into the room. “Hey,” she smiled softly.

“Hi,” Emily replied as she unscrewed the cap from the bottle and took a long sip from it.

“Sorry I bailed on you and Anna,” Pixie apologized sheepishly, knowing fully well that Emily wasn't interested in the decorating and that she’d only agreed because it was the right thing to do.

“Don’t worry about it,” Emily shrugged slightly, not wanting her friend to feel bad even thought she hadn’t been as at ease with it from the beginning.

“No, I'm sorry,” Pixie insisted. “It’s mine and Anna’s party, you shouldn’t have had to fix everything just because I was away with Tristan.”

“No, I shouldn’t have,” Emily agreed. “But don’t worry about it.”

“So are you coming? To the party?” Pixie wondered as she sat down on the still unmade bed.

“I don’t know,” Emily admitted as she leaned further back in her chair and spun around, looking over at her friend, playing with the label of the bottle she had in her hands.

“Come on,” Pixie smiled cheekily. “It’s Halloween, you can’t stay holed up in here,” she pointed out.

“I don’t have a costume,” Emily tried, well aware that she had three or four costumes hanging in her closet from other Halloween parties and just masquerades she’d been at during the past years.

“You have several,” Pixie retorted, having raided her friend’s closet just days earlier before a date.

“I know,” Emily reluctantly agreed as she moved the chair slightly from side to side, her foot resting on the edge of the bed. “But I don’t…”

“Why?”

“Because…” Emily trailed off, genuinely trying to think of a reason as to why she shouldn’t go to the party, but she drew blank. “I got nothin’,” she admitted.

“Just think about it,” Pixie decided as she stood up from the bed and straightened out her jeans. “If you don’t have anything better to do, come,” she insisted. “You know I’ll know if you try lying your way out of it,” she pointed out, causing Emily to roll her eyes, even though she knew it was very much the truth.

“I’ll think about it,” Emily promised as Pixie wandered out of the room, leaving the door open. Sighing heavily, she reached for her iPhone that was laying around on the bedside table and she scrolled through her messages, opening one she’d received only days earlier.

It was from Fratts, inviting her to a Halloween party taking place in one of the players’ homes. She’d entertained the thought of going, and had even gone looking at costumes with Kelly, but in the end she’d almost chickened out.

Halloween wasn't something she’d celebrated before she moved to the US and the one time she had celebrated it back home, it had been pretty much like any other party, only they were all dressed up. Just thinking about celebrating it and getting dressed out made her stomach churn unpleasantly. It was another one of the millions of things she would have to do ‘for the first time’ without Erik. They had learned their way around the lifestyle of college and America together and all of a sudden she had to do everything on her own, alone.

To others it might have been a simple party, but to her it was the next thing in a long line of things she had to do alone, without the man she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with by her side.

Closing the text she spun her chair around and looked at the open document on her laptop, it was half finished for her class the following week and she probably should work on it. But then again, a party did sound rather fun…

Glancing between the not yet finished document and the watch on her arm she quickly made up her mind and with another sip from her water bottle, she stood up and walked over to her closet, digging through it in search of her old costumes. She might have used them back at University of Minnesota, but no one at UND had seen them…