Fourteen years ago, Priscilla Jones destroyed a boy’s heart with a few cruel words. Now he’s back, wearing a clown’s painted smile held in place by safety pins, ready to make memories that will last forever. Sometimes the past doesn’t stay buried—sometimes it comes to your Halloween party.
When I was twelve years old, I killed someone.
It didn’t feel like I thought it would. You see it in films, read it in stories—the drama, the weight of it. But they’re all wrong. It wasn’t dramatic or meaningful or even real-feeling. It just was.
Mark and I had grown up together, friends since we could walk. We shared everything: the same interests, the same talent for trouble, the same obsession with cops and robbers. We were closer than brothers—we were two halves of the same reckless whole.
The last long rays of light fell through the bedroom window, which stood open but an inch or two. Billions of dust motes floating in the sunlight now faded from view, although their ethereal travel was far from complete. Twilight fell and time appeared to stand still. Those moments between day and night seemed to
