When Clyde Parker, the wayward son and the rotten-apple of the Parker family-tree, storms his way back into Avery Fields, he sets out a flurry of butterfly effect in Dawn Marshal's life.
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HALLOWEEN CAME AND WENT away. Mia still wouldn't talk to her and Alec was just another face among many. Another stranger, she once knew; perhaps, the kind of stranger that carried all her secrets.
On the day of Halloween, her mother's smile was back and although she couldn't comprehend the source of her mother's newly-minted smile, she was thankful that her mother had found a reason to be happy.
Only when she did see her mother dressed in a red dress, the one she wore on a second cousin's wedding five years ago, the dress that made several heads turn at the event, and made her father latch onto her mother's arm over-protectively—did Dawn realize that the reason behind her mother's smile was a man.
Although, she was aware the very thought wouldn't sit well with her brother, Dawn could see it as clear as day that her mother deserved the kind of happiness her father found.
Dating Caleb Parker had its perks; it bought her an invitation to the Halloween party classified only for fellow popular cheerleaders and jocks aka Caleb Parker and Co.
They got dressed up as Superman and Lois Lane and although she wasn't tempted to deviate from the traditional trick-or-treating business for some free booze and obnoxious music she didn't like, Caleb had pulled the boyfriend card on her.
It would be a lie, if she said she had a great time blending with the elites in a sea of strangers. Even Mia, who was a socialite threw away the opportunity to grace the rave in her Easter bunny costume (the R-rated version of course) and was a no-show.
All she could think about was how much she would love to be back home, wait till her mother got back from her date, with a cup of hot cocoa curled between her fingers, lying on the living-room couch in her comfy pjs, zoning out in midnight infomercials.
She was present in that party beside Caleb Parker, their fingers interlaced, her cheeks hurting from all the fake smiles but in another version of the reality she was cradled away from the party.
She was back home, the taste of hot cocoa lingering in her mouth as the doors clicked open and her mother arrived with a gleaming smile and clicked off her red stilettos the one she wore perhaps twice, humming the song she used to hum when Dawn and her brother were little and her mother was in love with her father.
When Caleb dropped her off on her driveway later that night and kissed her, she tasted a little liquor on his lips. Although, it wasn't anything overpowering she still found herself reminding him to drive safe and call her first thing after reaching home. Not text, but call her because she needed to hear his voice to be assured if he was truly in one piece.
She found her brother chasing middle school rebels, who toilet-papered her house as a Halloween prank, with a baseball bat in his dark cape and a white satin dress-shirt stained with blood-red acrylic paint, baring his fangs to pull off the whole Dracula façade.
