Missing ↝ ÉLITE ²

TEN

CHAPTER TEN
Halloween

IT WAS HALLOWEEN and instead of going to Rebeca's house party, Arlo was accompanying Diego for trick or treating while Izzy was at a friend's house after deciding she was too old to tag along with them.

"You get a lot of candy?" Arlo asked as she looked down at her brother, who was dressed up as Spider-Man keeping a tight grip on his hand.

It had been weeks since his incident and luckily Diego was able to walk and put pressure on his ankle. He looked up at his sister and grinned, showing off the gaps in his teeth as he waved his bag of candy around. "Yeah!"

"Alright, c'mon." Arlo laughed. "Let's go home so you can eat it."

"Yeah!" Diego cheered as he did his best to run up to their house while Arlo took out her keys.

As the girl opened the door, Diego ran inside and straight to Alma, showing her the amount of candy he had gotten.

The woman beamed down at him, taking off his mask and ruffled his hair. "Nice, darling."

The door bell then rang and Arlo opened it to see a figure in a mask on her porch, holding up a fake saw and letting out a groan. The girl raised her eyebrows, completely unamused. "You know if you wanted to scare me, you shouldn't have told me what your costume was."

"Aw, come on." Samuel exhaled, taking off his mask. "I must have scared you slightly."

"Nope." Arlo deadpanned. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be at Rebe's by now."

"I came to pick you up." Samuel stated.

Arlo scoffed. "Where'd you get that idea? I told you guys I'm not going."

"Look, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you haven't been acting like yourself recently." Samuel said. "And it's the first and last Halloween we get to celebrate together before we leave for college at the end of the academic year." He then sat down on her porch and patted the space next to him. "So tell me what's going on, let your brother stuff his face full of candy and we can go and have some fun."

Arlo cracked a small smile before she plopped down next to him. "The, uh, other day, my dad came home. Him and my mom are out right now, but surprise surprise, we got into another argument before school."

Samuel nodded. "What about?"

"My dad basically said I was the reason why they're barely home." Arlo exasperated. "I know– I know he didn't mean it, we were both angry and said things we shouldn't have. But...when he said it, I felt like it was my fault that Izzy and Diego were stuck with me for years instead of the them. It was my fault that my parents weren't around."

"That's not true, Lo."

"I know." The girl whispered. "I just got so mad and upset. Everything I've been feeling the last few months just came out. All the anger, all the frustration, all the resentment. I talk a big game about not acting on rage, but that's exactly what I did. What kind of person can't take their own advice?"

"Lo," Samuel murmured. "You're the best person I know. You're allowed to make mistakes. You're allowed to act on your emotions. And I'm also pretty fucking sure you gave everyone the wake up call they needed the other day."

Arlo sighed, thinking about the party. "I don't know, Samuel. I don't even have a costume."

Samuel smiled. "I've got you covered."

A couple of hours later, Arlo now stood in the foyer of Rebeca's house wearing cat ears Samuel had given her with matching whiskers on her cheeks to match alone with a black nose. She had drawn on eyeliner and put on a mini black dress.