The rest of the day, my family turned the house into a disaster zone.

Not a regular disaster zone either. A Halloween disaster zone, which somehow made everything worse and more charming at the same time. Fabric scraps covered the dining room table. Hot glue strings clung to the backs of chairs like spiderwebs. Mom had taken over the kitchen island with face paint, safety pins, scissors, and a bowl of candy she kept insisting was "for tomorrow" while Hudson ate from it every time she turned around.

By noon, the haunted bakery theme had officially won, though nobody could explain what that actually meant. Brooklyn had decided she was a ghost baker and spent twenty minutes walking around with flour dusted across her cheeks, claiming it was "ethereal." Harper was making a haunted cake decorator costume, which mostly involved a black dress, a fake piping bag, and a tiny paper ghost attached to her shoulder. Dad had fully committed to the haunted rolling pin idea, which was deeply unfortunate for all of us because he kept practicing dramatic entrances with an actual rolling pin.

Hudson still wanted a sword.

Mom told him no approximately nineteen times.

"A cursed gingerbread man can have a sword," Hudson argued from the floor, where he was supposed to be cutting out buttons and was instead holding a cardboard tube like a weapon.

"No," Mom said without looking up.

"What if it's a frosting sword?"

"No."

"What if it's symbolic?"

"No."

"What if I'm not a gingerbread man and I'm actually a warrior from a bakery kingdom?"

Brooklyn looked up from where she was attaching a lace collar to her costume. "That is the stupidest sentence I've ever heard, and I kind of respect it."

Hudson pointed the cardboard tube at her. "Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"It felt like one."

I sat cross-legged on the couch with a pile of black ribbon in my lap, trying to sew little bows onto what Mom had decided would be my haunted cupcake costume. I had not agreed to being a haunted cupcake. I had simply looked tired at the wrong moment, and my family had mistaken my silence for consent.

That happened a lot.

"Why am I a cupcake?" I asked.

Mom glanced at me from the table. "Because you're sweet."

Brooklyn snorted.

I looked at her. "Excuse me?"

"You're sweet until you're mildly inconvenienced."

"I'm sweet all the time."

Harper smiled without looking up. "That is factually untrue."

Dad walked through the living room holding his rolling pin like a medieval knight. "I think Autumn is more of an emotionally exhausted pastry."

I stared at him. "That feels too accurate."

"Thank you."

"It wasn't praise."

"I'm taking it as praise."

For a while, the house was loud in the way only my family could be. Everyone talked over everyone. Mom kept losing the scissors. Harper kept finding them under Brooklyn's fabric. Hudson spilled glitter, which Dad claimed was now part of the atmosphere. Brooklyn accidentally glued part of her sleeve to the table and tried to blame the ghost of the bakery.

It should have felt ridiculous.

It did feel ridiculous.

But beneath the laughter, I kept catching myself checking my phone.

Riley had texted a few times that morning. Nothing heavy. Nothing about the hospital or therapy or the journal. Just small things. He sent me a picture of Milo wearing a plastic vampire cape over his pajamas and wrote, He says this is a test run. I replied that Milo looked terrifying. Riley said Milo would be pleased because he had been aiming for "fancy nightmare."

Every time his name appeared on my screen, something inside me softened and hurt at the same time.

He had his phone back now.

That one fact had changed everything.

For days, there had been silence between us unless we were physically in the same room. Now there was a thread again. A fragile, glowing thread stretched between his house and mine, and every message felt like Riley touching it gently to see if it still held.

It did.

I hoped it did.

I was tying another bow when Hudson flopped onto the couch beside me so dramatically that half the ribbon slid off my lap.

"Hudson."

"What?"

"You ruined my haunted cupcake."

"It was already ruined."

I hit him with a ribbon.

He grinned, then reached into the candy bowl he had definitely stolen from the kitchen. "You know Halloween is tomorrow night."

I looked at him. "Yes, Hudson. That has been the entire theme of today."

"I mean after trick-or-treating."

My fingers paused around the ribbon.

He kept chewing like he had no idea he had just stepped directly into the center of my chest. "Are you gonna watch Corpse Bride with Riley?"

The room didn't go silent all at once.

Not dramatically. Not like in movies. But slowly, little by little, everyone seemed to hear the question and stop moving.

Mom's hand froze above the pile of safety pins. Harper glanced up from her costume. Brooklyn stopped trying to peel her sleeve from the table. Dad, halfway through another haunted rolling pin entrance, lowered the rolling pin.

I looked at Hudson.

He looked back at me, still chewing. "What?"

I swallowed. "What did you say?"

He blinked. "Are you gonna watch Corpse Bride with Riley after trick-or-treating tomorrow? You always do."

My heart sank.

Not because he was wrong. Because he was right.

We did always watch Corpse Bride.

Every Halloween night.

It had started when we were probably twelve. Maybe thirteen. I couldn't remember the exact year, which bothered me because now I wanted to remember everything. I wanted dates. Times. Weather. What pajamas I had been wearing. Whether Riley had complained before or after the opening credits.

But I remembered enough.

I remembered begging Riley to watch it with me because it was my favorite Halloween movie and he had claimed it looked "too blue." I remembered throwing popcorn at him for that. I remembered him sitting beside me on the couch with his arms crossed, fully prepared to hate it just because I wanted him to love it.

Then he had gotten quiet. Really quiet.

By the end, he was pretending he didn't care.

The next year, he asked if we were watching it again.

After that, it became ours.

It had been my favorite first.

Then somehow, somewhere between the blue shadows, the music, and Riley sitting beside me every Halloween night, it became his too.

For years, that was our tradition.

We took the little ones trick-or-treating first. Hudson, Milo, sometimes cousins, sometimes neighborhood kids who ended up joining us because Riley had a way of turning everything into a group activity without meaning to. We walked through cold streets carrying flashlights and candy bags, Riley stealing candy from Hudson when he wasn't looking and claiming it was a "tax." I scolded him every year. He ignored me every year.

Then, when the little ones were home, exhausted and sugar-drunk, Riley and I watched Corpse Bride.

Sometimes at my house. Sometimes at his. Sometimes with blankets and hot chocolate. Sometimes with leftover Halloween candy spread between us. Sometimes one of us fell asleep before the ending, and the other pretended not to notice.

I thought about last year.

Riley had sat on the floor against the couch with a blanket draped over his shoulders and a bowl of candy in his lap. I had stolen all the peanut butter cups. He had called me a criminal. I had told him he could arrest me after the movie.

He had looked at me then.

Not long. Not in any way that meant what I wanted it to mean. But enough that I remembered it.

Enough that I had gone home that night and cried a little because loving Riley in silence had always made the soft moments hurt the most.

Now Halloween was tomorrow.

And Riley didn't remember that the movie was ours.

I looked down at the black ribbon in my lap.

"I don't know," I said quietly.

Hudson's expression shifted. For the first time, he seemed to realize he might have said something that hurt. "Oh."

I forced a small smile. "It's okay."

No one believed me.

I hated that.

Mom set down the safety pins and came to sit on the arm of the couch beside me. She didn't touch me, but she was close enough that I could lean against her if I wanted to.

"Sweetheart," she said softly.

I shook my head. "I'm okay."

Brooklyn gave me a look.

I sighed. "I'm not okay, but I'm not going to cry over a Tim Burton movie."

Dad lifted one hand. "Technically, it's a very emotional movie."

I looked at him. "Not helpful."

"Sorry."

Harper smiled sadly. "Maybe you could ask him."

My chest tightened. "What?"

"Ask Riley if he wants to watch it with you."

I looked down at my hands. "He doesn't remember."

"I know."

"So it won't be the same."

"No," Harper said gently. "It won't."

That hurt.

I knew it was true, but hearing it out loud still hurt.

Brooklyn leaned back in her chair. "But nothing is the same right now."

I looked at her. She shrugged, softer than usual. "That doesn't mean it can't still be good."

I looked away quickly because my eyes were starting to burn.

The worst part was that I wanted to ask him. I wanted to so badly it made my chest ache. I wanted to text him and say, Do you want to watch Corpse Bride tomorrow after trick-or-treating?

But what if he asked why? What if I had to explain another tradition he didn't remember? What if he said yes only because he felt like he should? What if he watched it beside me and didn't love it?

What if he hated it?

What if he sat there quietly and confused while I tried not to cry through every scene because I remembered all the Halloweens when he had known every line?

What if he didn't laugh at the parts he used to laugh at? What if he didn't steal the peanut butter cups What if he didn't look at me during the ending? What if the movie felt like mine again instead of ours?

My throat tightened. "I don't want to make him feel like he has to."

Mom's hand moved gently to my hair. "You wouldn't be making him."

"But if I say we always did it, he'll feel bad if he says no."

"Then don't say it that way."

I looked up at her.

She smiled softly. "Ask him if he wants to watch a Halloween movie with you. You don't have to make it about everything he forgot."

I stared at her.

That sounded simple. It probably should have been simple. But nothing involving Riley felt simple anymore.

Hudson shifted beside me. "He liked it, you know."

I looked at him.

He shrugged. "I mean, he really liked it. He always pretended he watched it because you wanted to, but he liked it."

My eyes burned. "How do you know?"

"Because one time you were sick on Halloween and couldn't watch it."

I froze.

I remembered that year. I had been sixteen. A fever had ruined everything. I had cried because I was sixteen and dramatic and apparently very attached to Halloween traditions.

Hudson looked at me. "Riley watched it anyway."

My heart stopped. "What?"

Hudson nodded. "At his house. With me and Milo. He said we were watching it because you'd be mad if Halloween ended without it."

I stared at him.

I hadn't known that. How had I not known that?

Hudson kept talking. "He knew all the songs."

My hand pressed against my chest. "He did?"

"Yeah." Hudson frowned like he was trying to remember. "He said the movie was sad but pretty. Then he said that sounded like you."

I looked down.

The room blurred.

Mom's hand stilled in my hair.

Brooklyn whispered, "Oh."

I swallowed hard, but the tears came anyway.

Riley had watched it without me.

Because I couldn't. Because the tradition mattered even when I wasn't there. Because maybe he had loved more of our little things than I realized.

That was the worst and most beautiful part about losing someone who was still alive. People kept handing me pieces of him I didn't know existed.

Hudson looked horrified. "Did I make it worse?"

I shook my head quickly and wiped my face. "No."

"You're crying."

"I know."

"So I made it worse."

"No," I said, voice trembling. "You gave me another memory."

He stared at me.

I smiled through the tears. "Thank you."

Hudson looked unsure, but he nodded.

For a moment, the living room was quiet. Then Dad cleared his throat. "So are we thinking haunted cupcake or tragic cupcake?"

I laughed despite myself.

Mom looked at him. "Do not call your daughter a tragic cupcake."

"It feels thematically consistent."

Brooklyn nodded. "Actually, he has a point."

Harper looked at me. "Devastatingly beautiful cupcake?"

I threw a ribbon at her.

Everyone laughed, and the sound loosened something in my chest just enough for me to breathe.

After a while, the chaos resumed. Mom went back to costume repairs. Dad continued practicing his haunted rolling pin expressions. Brooklyn finally freed her sleeve from the table. Harper helped Hudson make buttons for his cursed gingerbread costume.

I sat on the couch with my phone in my hand. My thumb hovered over Riley's contact. For several minutes, I did nothing. Then I opened our messages.

Our new ones sat at the bottom now.

Tiny little roots growing beneath a forest of old conversations.

I typed slowly.

Do you have plans tomorrow night after trick-or-treating with Milo?

I stared at the message.

Then sent it before I could lose my nerve.

Riley answered five minutes later.

I don't think so. Unless my mom has scheduled more "mandatory rest" without telling me.

I smiled.

Sounds like Willow.

She's very powerful.

Terrifyingly powerful.

A pause.

Then:

Why?

My heart pounded.

I looked up at my family. Hudson was watching me. He gave me a small thumbs up.

I nearly cried again.

I looked back at my phone.

I was wondering if you wanted to watch a Halloween movie with me.

The dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

My chest tightened.

Finally, Riley's message came through.

Which one?

I closed my eyes for a second.

Then typed:

Corpse Bride.

I waited.

One minute. Two.

Then he replied.

That movie feels like something you would like.

I laughed softly, even as my eyes filled.

It is.

Another message appeared.

Then yeah. I'll watch it with you.

My fingers trembled.

You don't have to.

His response came quickly.

I want to.

I stared at those three words.

I wanted to believe them.

So I did. Just for tonight.

I smiled down at my phone while my family continued building costumes around me.

Halloween was tomorrow.

Riley didn't remember our tradition. He didn't remember all the years we had watched that movie with candy between us and blankets over our legs. He didn't remember that it had been my favorite first and then somehow became his too.

But tomorrow night, we would watch it again.

Not because he remembered.

Because he wanted to.

And maybe that would have to be enough.