High Life | ✔️

30

I HAD NO preconceived desires to attend the Halloween party that Emily hyped endlessly about. But one's gotta admit there's something magical about unfolding a corridor cloying of perfume, with girls in Halloween costumes scuttling barefoot room to room.

Shutting the door behind me, I eyed the bags of Forever 21 clothes I had yet to unpack. I could probably conjure a costume from the amount of lace and fishnet in there. Real nightmare characters. Perhaps "The Slut That Fucked Your Father". "The Whore That You Impregnated and Now Incessantly Demands Child Support". "The Girl Who Made You Cheat On Your S.O.". "The Underaged Girl Who Got You in Trouble for Statutory Rape".

I loved Halloween. As children, Marc and I used to go trick-or-treating at the richest part of the neighborhood. We weren't too well off back then, but we knew which houses gave Walmart gum, and which houses gave luxury handmade nougats straight from Belgium.

I was never one for the conventional, not even as a kid. Where kids my age took forms of nightmarish creatures, movie characters or even animals. What did I go as? I went as Unfinished English Homework as a ten year old. Eleven year old me went as a starving African child - received quite the amount of questioning looks that year but everyone brushed it off because I was a kid.

Needless to say, I really didn't want to attend the Halloween party as The Prostitute Who Gave You STDs or something of similar intensity. But the only other option was The Pious Priestess Who Christened Your Mother.

So I dug my hands into the nearest paper bag, retrieving a corset thingamy which had more holes than fabric. The next item I retrieved was a pair of ripped fishnets, as though fishnets alone weren't scandalous enough.

A long and undetermined amount of time passed before I finally settled on an outfit. I had to prep talk myself into believing that it was a Halloween party and this was what youths my age wore.

I didn't exactly own cosmetic products, so I had to get creative for this bit. I dug my hands into my pencil case, and retrieved a Sharpie marker.

I already knew I would regret my decision before painting my eyelids, but it was a Friday night, meaning I would have an entire weekend to wash the marker off my lids.

If it wasn't for my expertise in applying eyeliner, mastered to perfection with a 100% success rate in terms of hand steadiness, I wouldn't have been able to pull off using permanent marker as eyeliner. The color looked off but I rationalized that no one would notice if the lighting was dim - coincidentally and thankfully a common occurrence at parties.

I had to use a wet color pencil to shape my eyebrows, and faint pink lipbalm for my lips.

It wasn't difficult to locate the 'haunted gymnasium', I only had to trail a group of girls dressed costumes varying from that of a nurse, to cat, to mermaid.

Though I must say, it was admittedly depressing to approach my destination alone. As I neared the party, students started emerging from buildings in the vicinity.

Everyone had friends, and they were all high on excitement, evidenced in the peals of laughter that escaped into the night air from clutters of students. I sighed, speeding up my steps so my strides looked less stroll-ey and more purposeful.

Out of habit, I dug my hands into my pocket for my cellphone, but then I remembered its fate. So I pressed my lips together to prevent expletives from spilling out. No good in swearing, people would only stare and think I'm weird.

I had a coat draped over my shoulders, so I wouldn't instantly look like the slut adults feared and avoided.

The 'haunted gymnasium' was more or less the way I pictured it. It was located in the basement of the Bernadette block, only accessible through the stairwell that no one used. Soundproof too, seemingly, from the way I seemed to have stepped through a portal from a silent stairwell into such a noisy place. Hard to believe the prestigious blocks comprising Richmond Park Academy could conceal such... wilderness beneath.