She doesn't know if it's the loudness or the intensity of her voice, but her parents look up from their animated conversation.

"Something wrong?" Her dad asks before her mom elbows him in the side. "Christ, Alicia! What?"

"What is it, Ember?" She asks instead.

"It's a bucket list." It's a fully written out email, addressed to her and containing eight different things. It looks like it was meant to be sent, but she's met enough teenage girls with bad intentions to know that not everything looks like what it is.

"Can I?" She walks over in one swift motion. November shrugs and hands her the tablet.

"Hey, that carnival's coming up soon, you know. Oh, Arnold's Arcades?" She laughs. "Is that place even still open?"

"They have bowling now," her dad calls from his chair in the kitchen, finishing his (or his wife's) coffee. "They renovated that one area after that wall fell down, remember?"

"Yeah. Yeah, they did. Hey, your school's haunted house starts tonight. You could go tonight and cross that one off before Jessie gets out."

"It's only the sixteenth, though?"

Her mom raises an eyebrow. "Would you rather it be earlier in the month?"

She hums. Good point.

"Okay, she wants to force you to—Buchanan, that's a familiar name."

"Bucky Barnes' middle name. James Buchanan Barnes." When both parents turn to her with puzzled looks on their faces, she puts her hands in the air. "Hey, Max is the big fan in the group, not me."

"Do we know any real people with the surname Buchanan?"

"Nope."

"Don't think she was asking you, Em." Her dad rises from the table. "Oh, Elizabeth, from high school."

"But did she have a daughter?"

"You know what, I'm not sure."

The name Buchanan is sounding more and more familiar to November in a non-Marvel Cinematic Universe context, but she couldn't say (and also doesn't know) why.

Her mom scratches at her lip with her finger and moves down the list. "You never sent in that resume to that record stor—you don't know how to ice skate?"

She is noticeably quiet at numbers seven and eight. "Well, this seems like a good bucket list, for the most part," she says eventually. "And you're definitely volunteering for the haunted house event at school tonight."

November couldn't disagree more.

—

At six o'three precisely, November knocks on Jessie's door, with a final hope that maybe, just maybe, this is some sort of prank or sick joke, that Jessie will be behind the door.

That hope is (of course) immediately shattered when Cameron opens the door. "Hi, honey."

November whips her head around to see her parents backing out of the driveway as the rain starts. "Hi. Sorry again."

"Don't worry about it." She will. "When does the haunted house start again?"

"Six thirty."

She pulls the door open. "Great. I can drop you off before heading to the hospital."

November has seen this trick before. She's giving her an out. She's realizing she's doing something she doesn't want to do. She's hoping she'll say 'actually, wait, can I come to the hospital with you?' Except the hospital's not letting non-family visitors in yet, so the question would be pointless.

Or she could just be letting her know about the situation regarding getting to the school. Not everything is that deep. If it was, then nothing would be.

"This situation is convenient in that you get Jessie's room all to yourself," Cameron explains as she leads her up the white, wooden, winding staircase. "Well, there might be a girl who shows up through the window. Her name's Sophie. I have no way of contacting her to let her know about what's going on, so if she comes over, don't hesitate to tell her to shoo." She says this nervously, as if reciting something.

"How long will you be there?" This seems like a good time for a change of subject. "At the hospital."

"How long will you be? At the haunted house."

"It only takes two, two and a half hours."

"I'll be able to give you a ride home. Well, not, you know." She twirls one of her hair extensions repeatedly and rapidly. "My home."

"Yeah," November replies, nodding. "I got it the first time."

"Right. Yeah. Um. Okay. Let me know when you want to leave. I'll be in the living room." She brushes her hand against November's shoulder gently—one finger at a time, pinkie to thumb—before retreating back down the stairs.

A closed door at the end of the hallway blares with the sound of a sports game. Victor must have been told to stay in his room for the first night.

Taking a deep breath, she pushes the door open.

Jessie's room is exactly how November left it last Friday. She doesn't know why she expected some massive, life-altering change. (Because this is a massive, life-altering change. Having to live—because, honestly, just face it, that's what is going on here—in her best friend's house with her best friend's parents while aforementioned best friend is in the hospital impacts someone in some way, even if only a little.)

The walls are the same vermillion red, her comforter the same red-orange-yellow ombré it's always been, dried paint stains on the otherwise completely beige carpet. Her canvas sits at the foot of the bed—she always warns Jessie against working there, and yet somehow, there's never paint anywhere but the canvas—only overshadowed by the dozens (hundreds?) of the pictures hung everywhere. On string lights, in picture frames, through every medium where the beauty of each picture could be viewed.

(It's a shame for everyone who has ever wanted to come over and see her house, really, because Jessie has only ever hung out with the same five people.)

"It really is a shame, you know."

November flinches, spins around on her heels, and gasps in one ever-so-familiar motion. Victor Reynolds scratches at the door frame with one fingernail, glancing at one unpainted section with displeasure.

She stuffs her hands deep into the pockets of her sweater.

"What is?" Since we're forgoing anything even remotely sounding like a greeting.

"You're not Cameron."

"Nope."

"Where did—Cameron!"

"I'm taking November to the school!" She calls back in response. "Don't worry."

Victor guffaws softly, and it's then she realizes with a jolt and he and her have very different experiences with anxiety.

"I should get back to my game. It's nice to see you, November." He walks away, careful to not hit his head on the door frame.

She sets her bags down by the foot of the bed and sits down. The colour of the room has been, on occasion, headache and/or nausea inducing, but now, given the circumstances, it's—

Okay, she feels a headache coming on. It's not any different.

She should probably get ready for the haunted house.

—

Twenty minutes later, November, dressed in all black, sits in the passenger seat of Cameron's van at the front of the school, cradling a bloody nose.

"Okay," Cameron says. "You go to the gym and they'll tell you what to do."

"Alright."

"Preferably after your nose stops bleeding."

"Why are you being so weird?"

After a few seconds of silence, she twists to face Cameron. She looks like she's choosing her words carefully.

"I'm not sure if I should tell you," she replies slowly, glancing anywhere but her passenger. "This is supposed to be a good night for you."

So was yesterday. She knows better than to bring up that argument.

"So it's something bad?" God, she sounds so childish. It's disgusting.

Cameron rummages through her purse for a Kleenex and offers it. November drops the bottom of her shirt and zips up her sweater.

"It's nothing for you to be worried about."

"Oh, come on. You know I can't—"

A knock on the window interrupts her.

"Is that a friend of yours?" She wonders, rolling down the window.

"We're...friendly." November grabs her coat and opens the door. "Thanks for the ride."

"Text me when you're done."

She slams the door and turns to face the window knocker. "Didn't think you lived well in these cold temperatures."

Sawyer Bolton-Page chuckles. "It's mildly chilly at best."

"At best? It's like, five degrees out."

"All the best for our haunted school." He starts up the path to the back entrance, and she follows him with no small amount of reluctance.

"I figured you wouldn't know where to go."

"I'm truly just surprised you responded. I didn't think you were a fan of Daphne or her friends."

"A friend of an enemy is...well, it's something."

"There's some relation."

"Yes." He throws open the door. "You don't have to do much, really. I'm first in command—second behind the school admin, of course—so I put you as the assistant to the photographer. Walk with me."

"Jessie Reynolds-Somber," she recites. If she wasn't in charge of the school's social media account (as per student council rules), she wouldn't have cared so much about November going and/or helping out. "But she's not here."

"No. Some sort of accident, I was told? People think her cancer's back. Oh, she has, or had, leukemia, by the way."

It amuses her that out of all the people she could have emailed for help, it had to be the one person who apparently doesn't even know that they're best friends. (But he knew about the cancer. Sometimes, she wonders why people only remember the bad things about others.)

"—assistant photographer," he goes on, "I've seen you hang out with her sometimes."

"I hang out with a lot of people." A huge lie, but she wants to know if he'll call her out for it.

"Oh, she's tall, always in leather boots." He starts rattling off more details, but she already knows.

"Ainsley Nicks?" She questions as he leads her to the music room.

"November Adams?" Ainsley mocks from behind, but her voice ends up sounding more surprised. "What are you doing?"

"Being your assistant, I suppose. We're stuck in the music room?" She ducks under a low hanging streamer and pops up.

"Yep." Sawyer looks around. "Oh, I have to go. We're starting." He strides (and being as short as he is, avoids the streamers with relative ease), and disappears into the dark hallway.

Ainsley whoops. "Okay, I gotta pee, but we'll start moving when I get back."

November—as unsure as always—simply shrugs and sits down.

"I heard that she had a heart attack," a girl from behind her says quietly.

"Really? I heard it was a seizure."

She turns around wearily. She's used to hearing rumours regarding Jessie (and occasionally, herself and Jessie), but she thought they would give it a break tonight. For the sake of the (not-really) Halloween spirit, or whatever.

"Hey, should we even be allowed in here?" A third girl asks. "I mean, after the infestation, or whatever."

"Didn't you read the follow-up email?" The first girl retorts. "It was just the science hallway."

Just, as if it's not the biggest hallway in the building.

"Still, I mean, if they got into the vents..."

"We'll be fine. Did Jessie post anything?"

"Ugh. No. Try that weird friend of hers. The one she's always with."

(November doesn't have social media.)

"I don't know her username."

"What does she look like? Maybe she's here."

"Oh, yeah, like I remember? She has like, a really bizarre name that I personally don't think suits her. January or, uh, June. Something like that."

"Maybe she went on vacation?" The second girl says. "We don't always have to assume the worst."

"Jesus, Anna. Yes, okay. She went on vacation. Her preferred mode of transportation? Ambulance."

Anna huffs. "All I'm saying is that it bothers me when you're constantly pessimistic. Not everything bad that could happen will."

"You don't know that for sure," November responds quietly without looking up, but the other three don't hear her. The music room is fully carpeted with a dark grey that isn't actually too bad if you spend more than one ninth grade music class in it, which most people end up doing.

One of the other two girls screams through gritted teeth. "Oh my God. What is that girl's name?"

"November?" Ainsley picks that moment to stride into the room, apparently forgetting about the paper streamers blocking her entrance. "Ready to go?"

"No, I doubt it's November," Anna says, referring to Ainsley literally saying the name of Jessie's best friend in front of her. "That doesn't sound right."

"Yeah," November replies.

"Okay." She waits until they're in the hallway to continue. "So, what you're really doing is pointing out anything that could be picture-worthy." She holds up what appears to be—

"Cameron let me borrow Jessie's camera, since I was called in on less than a day's notice and my own camera has a massive crack in the lens, thanks to Max."

"I didn't think I saw her camera in its spot."

This gets her a confused look, and she lowers her voice as a group of eleventh graders sprint past her to get to their spots on time. "I take it you got your living situation figured out?"

"Cameron let me stay with her and Victor."

Ainsley nods thoughtfully. "I knew she would. I think you knew she would."

Ignoring this sudden wisdom, she notes that she doesn't know what she'll be doing. (She didn't just note it, but the pressure that comes with not receiving clear instructions is eating at her chest.) "We're taking pictures of...?"

"The decorations, the spookiness, the reactions, if at all possible. I think I'm going to get a video of Sawyer telling the ghost story this year." She suddenly turns into a narrower hallway. "The line starts at the front of the school, which means we need to take a shortcut, not because it's not shorter—and it's not—but also, longcut is not a word."

"If anything—"

"You take the word 'cut' out of it entirely."

"Exactly." Ainsley turns to smile at her, but it's soon replaced with a look of concern. "Hey, your nose is bleeding."

"Again?" She stops walking to search for a tissue.

"Again?" She repeats.

"I ju—I had one on the ride here." She finds one, sticks it in her nostrils, and gestures to keep walking with her free hand.

"I thought that was more of a problem Jessie has."

"I think it's the sudden change in weather. Not everyone's nostrils fare as well in cold weather as yours, Ains," she jokes.

Ainsley moves her arm out unexpectedly to stop her (which, as luck would have it, goes directly into her chest.) November lets out a soft breathy yelp. Ainsley jabs her with her elbow and points at the hallway in front of them, where Sawyer is making the mistake of starting a ghost story while walking backwards in front of a group.

"Let's go; the first time is always the best time." Ainsley moves seamlessly into the back of the group and turns on the camera. "Video, video. November," she whisper-shrieks. "Where is video?"

"Wherefore art thou video," she whispers in reply, switching on video.

'You just asked why is video,' Ainsley mouths.

November nods. 'I know.'

"If you're all going to Hanworth Heights next year like you say you are," Sawyer begins, "then you must know about the legend of Lizzy Buchanan."

November's gaze flickers up and over to the picture frame that shows the class of 2005 almost subconsciously. The first three names read Cole Adams, Elizabeth Buchanan, and Melissa Buchanan. Sawyer is referring to one of the latter two names. As to which one, no one knows, exactly.

"Lizzy Buchanan went here, like me and my classmates." He gestures to her and Ainsley here. "And you, too, if you can get past the fact that she still haunts these halls to this very day."

Some of the kids gasp.

"But before we get to that, I still have a story to tell. Lizzy Buchanan was an average student who hated nothing but the fact that she was an average student. She wanted to be the best. Not at everything, mind you, but academically. She was in everything. Student council, every club you could think of. I don't know how she managed it, but she did. Now, her life was going pretty well up until the last few months of her senior year. When nominations for valedictorian closed, she found out that nobody had nominated her."

Someone sneezes.

"Bless you. She was, of course, not pleased by this. She was not pleased at all. I believe she rightfully deserved valedictorian; though I wasn't alive to see this myself, I have seen her numerous awards in cases throughout the building."

The group oohs when the light above Sawyer flickers and goes out. "No, you guys, that's just our lighting.

"You don't know that," Ainsley replies, which starts up another round of oohs.

"Right, okay, can I finish? Alright. So, some of the members of the graduating class bought out the gym for a one year reunion a year later. Don't ask me why. I get that question every year. I don't know why. Lizzy was not invited, but she showed up anyway, unbeknownst to anyone. She spent all of her time backstage, and when it was announced that they were playing the final song, there was a single, deafening gunshot."

The group—and November—stills. She's heard this story before; her parents were at that reunion. Her mom was pregnant with her.

But if Sawyer doesn't know how close she is with Jessie, then he surely doesn't know this.

"Some say," he continues, "that she roams these halls today, stalking all whom she fears will become more successful than her."

One kid in the front snorts. "So one girl kills herself because she's not valedictorian? Boring."

Sawyer is suddenly on the defence. "Would you prefer to hear about the long list of mental health issues she could have inherited? Or the physical ones we know she had? Or the little pieces of—"

"There are a lot of factors that went into Lizzy's decision, of course," Ainsley interrupts, giving Sawyer the filthiest look November has ever seen. "We can't ever know for sure what they all were. If she were here—"

"If she were here, there would be no ghost tour," another kid interrupts, this boy looking excited, almost as if he's glad Lizzy died.

Sawyer mouths that he's done, and November ends the video. "Okay, feel free to explore the school. Be very careful regarding the areas you can't go in, there was a pest infestation in that particular hallway."

"Hey, maybe we'll find ghost pests."

'Lizzy' (really college freshman Eliza Stanton dressed in all black) suddenly jumps out at the group, who all scream and run towards the gym.

Sawyer laughs. "That never gets old." He turns on a flashlight and aims it at Eliza. "Thanks, Liz."

"Anytime." She sees Ainsley and November. "Oh, hi, you guys!"

"Hey."

"Hi!"

"Uh, you guys can go," Sawyer says to Ainsley and November. "The next group isn't coming in for another fifteen minutes."

She nods wisely. Code for give me some time to make out with my college girlfriend. Loud and clear.

She matches Ainsley's pace towards the gym, but right before they go in, Ainsley pulls her aside.

"I didn't realize that's the story they would be telling. I mean, I guess I did, but I just-I didn't put two and two together."

She waits for Jaxon Martin (arguably the scariest thing there) to walk by. When he does, she laughs. "I wasn't even born, you know. It doesn't affect me. Even if it did, I'm not a little kid anymore, Ains. I can handle myself."

"Not all the time. Nobody can all the time." When she was younger, Ainsley would always nibble at her dark brown ends during times she was nervous. She never stopped, she muses, as Ainsley goes to bite pieces of her (noticeably lighter) brown tips.

"Look. It's fine, okay? I'm fine." Somehow she thinks this conversation has evolved from Lizzy Buchanan. "Let's just go take pictures of whatever's inside the gym, and maybe let's not drop Jessie's camera, because she paid a lot for that, okay? And then, I don't know, we'll figure everything else out when we get there."

It takes Ainsley a long time to respond. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I think I left my phone in the bathroom. Can you hold the camera?"

"Sure thing." Sure thing? What kind of person says that in this day and age? Who—

"Great." She hands her the hand. "Be right back."

Desperate to stop thinking about how embarrassing she is, she goes through Jessie's camera roll. Lots of selfies, her and November, just November, her friend group in every possible combination. Tons of them are just November, though, in every situation. There's the good (every birthday since she bought the camera, November's literal first reaction when she found out Jessie was cancer-free, all the soccer team wins), the bad (entirely Jessie's relapses, she refuses to let any other failure or setback to be recorded, preferring to let it die out off-camera), and the one embarrassing moment where November fell off the top level of their elementary school's float.

She slides down the wall. She can't let herself think about any of this right now either, but she also can't take her finger off the button, so she presses it harder so it speeds up, so she sees the most recent picture taken on Saturday: a blurred picture of nothing.

#3 Volunteer to work at our school's annual haunted house (you know you've always wanted to.) (Don't worry about taking pictures for me, Ainsley has that covered.) ✔

word count: 3470 (wattpad) / 3620 (google docs)

total word count: 8097 (wattpad) / 8597 (google docs)