Ivy Brooks lives her life day to day like a normal college student. Majoring computer science at UCLA, the sophomore- most of the time- tries to stay out of trouble as much as possible and focus on her studies. And as much as she loves to be antisoc...
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❝chapter eight❞
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It was the 24th of October, meaning Halloween was just around the corner. Everyone was decorating their houses and shops to be a spooky place, getting the town ready for the holiday. It's said that on Halloween night, a gate between the mortal world and those that have passed on is opened and the eerie decorations are there to scare the bad ghosts away. Besides the creepy stories about Halloween, it was one of the holidays we looked forward to the most hence why everyone wanted to have the best Halloween house and party or the best costume.
Today was our families annual tradition day, and the only day our parents allowed us to skip school— yes, we still asked for permission, and it was also the first time in the year we willingly woke up at five in the morning to go to Walmart and buy the ingredients we needed for the tradition, as well as decorations for the house. Bonnie was trying to find something for her DIY project and I personally didn't think her hunt for the required things was going quite well because she kept circling around the same two isles. I gave up trying to help her at one point, she kept mumbling about how it's a witchy surprise, and went to look for the things I needed when I noticed a cute bat fairy lights to stick on the walls.
After a while, when I've decided on everything I wanted to put up in my room, Bonnie and I meet in the food section to buy the ingredients we needed for tonight. It's a tradition between the two families of Brookes and Quinns from way before Bonnie and I were born, to have a family dinner exactly one week before Halloween. And every single year they retell the story like we've never heard it before— and it's annoying, they're lucky certain parts of it are too funny to get boring. My parents and Bonnie's parents were friends since middle school so you can guess that pretty much every holiday I've been part of in my twenty-three years, I've celebrated it with Bonnie and all the vacations we've had around the world, Bonnie was always there. That said, it's self-explanatory that Bonnie is like a sister to me.
"Mom texted me this morning and said I'm Mexico," Bonnie said once we've reunited. What the tradition is based on is a stupid contest they had when they were seventeen. Each one of them were given a country and they had to make four dishes from that country, entrée, main dish, second dish and dessert. The first competition they had was in 1993, after my father and Bonnie's dad got their first cars. The person who cooked the best dishes would win four tickets to the screening of Bonnie and Clyde at the drive-in cinema downtown. Obviously, it didn't really matter who won because either way there were four tickets so they were all still going to see the movie. But, of course, our parents were very competitive— still are, so everything was really... chaotic.
"I'm France, had to ask mom days ago to make sure I have enough time to prepare what I want," I pursed my lips and rolled my eyes. Two years ago, mom told me my country so late that I only had time to boil water. No one wants to drink boiled water for their main course.
