Tonight is Halloween, October 31st, 2020. Hailee and I are attending the infamous Marvel Halloween party later today, and it's all she has been talking about all week. Well, at least the few conversations we have had.

Since it was Hailee's first week of filming, it was such a hectic few days for her. Her hours were longer than usual, as they usually are when production is just starting out. She would leave early in the morning while I was still sleeping, and then arrive home when I was already in bed prepared to go back to sleep. That cycle continued every day this week, and it's honestly made me feel a sense of loneliness.

Of course I'm thankful that Hailee and I have had the opportunity to spend so much time together over the months that we have been together; they have been the happiest months of my life. However, under that layer of happiness still lies a layer of grief and feelings I have yet to explore. And with Hailee being gone for so many hours, leaving me alone in our home, I've had a lot of time to think. I guess my mind put those thoughts aside, like a defense mechanism, so I wouldn't let those emotions ruin the other beautiful things in my life.

But now, those feelings are begging to be felt, creeping up, becoming more demanding by the second.

"Are you almost ready?" Hailee shouts from the bedroom while I stare at myself in the mirror.

"Yeah, um." I reply, taking a pause in between my next sentence. "Give me a minute."

While I straighten up my beige TVA jacket with the orange letters on the back, I take one last look at myself. There's a part of me that recognizes the person in the mirror, similar to the one years ago who was in the verge of losing themselves. Back then I couldn't recognize it, but since I've been through it, I remember what it was like.

I've always had a problem with sharing how I feel, or felt, in a specific moment. It's so frustrating when your mind is begging you to just let those thoughts out, but you physically can't. There's a part of me that wants to just give Hailee a piece of my mind, share with her how I'm truly feeling, but there's a side of me that holds back since she already has been so stressed. And the truth is, the stress will only increase as production continues.

Then there's also the fact that the next person I would go to talk to is not here anymore, which makes my heart ache just at the thought.

I quickly pull myself out of this state, trying my best to just focus on the night ahead of us. No matter what, it will be a good time, and it might be a great way to get my mind off of things.

I exit the bathroom, closing the door behind me to find Hailee sitting on the edge of our bed. She's wearing a black corset with a long black blazer on top, along with black jeans and her high top Doc Marteens, finishing off the look with a DIY Sylvie horned helmet and gold jewelry. Her makeup is done to perfection, complimenting the outfit with eyeliner and green eyeshadow.

"Sylvie, what a pleasure." I tell her, pretending as if we are in character. She rolls her eyes, just like Sylvie would at Loki.

"Jokes aside, you look amazing." I compliment, and she blushes.

"As do you, Loki." She replies.

The two of us get in an Uber on our way to the venue that Marvel rented out for the evening, since the list of people invited is pretty large. We decided it would be best not to drive there, so we wouldn't have to worry about driving back; especially if we were both going to be drinking.

"Happy Halloween sir." I tell the driver as we get into the backseat. I give him the address and he begins the 20 minute drive to our destination.

Hailee and I chat in the back, as per usual, and I can tell how excited she is just by her mannerisms. Her hands are crossed together on her lap, and she's sitting up straight. Her smile is beaming, and she won't stop trying to guess what everyone is going to wear. She proposed the idea of a bet, that every person she got right I owe her a dollar.

The traffic was pretty heavy since everyone is traveling to Halloween parties or get togethers just like we are today, so the 20 minute drive turned into about almost 45 minutes. I didn't mind it though, as it gave me more time with just Hailee and I before we were emerged into a crowd of people and a night of socializing, which I honestly don't feel up to doing but for Hailee's sake and our friends sake I decided to go.

We both thank the driver and I close the car door behind Hailee, and we make the short walk to the front of the facility. We could already hear the music blaring through the walls just from outside. Hailee and I approach the man with a clipboard outside the door who asks us our names.

"Hailee Steinfeld." Hailee states to the man, and he flips the pages to the second to last page since the list was probably in alphabetical order. Once he finds her name, he crosses it off. He then looks up to me, asking for my name without a word leaving his mouth.

"Oh um, Carter, Jayden Carter." I tell him and he repeats the same process, crossing off my name once he finds it.

"You're both good." He says in a monotone voice, and we walk through the double doors into the party scene.

Once we walk in, we take a moment to take in the visual, auditory, and sensory overload this party has to offer. There are so many decorations and lights, as well as people. All the colorful costumes blend together to create a sea of vibrancy.

Hailee and I are quickly taken back to reality when we see a short blonde approach us.

"Oh my gosh hey!"

"Florence?" Hailee says confused, and then I become confused at the fact she's confused.

"In the flesh!" She replies giggling with clearly a few drinks already in her system.

"You're not even supposed to be on set for another few months what are you doing here?" Hailee questions, and Florence just laughs.

"I know! You're probably thinking, 'what! this is crazy!' but you know I wouldn't miss a party like this. Especially one with an open bar." She says, finishing her sentence with a wink.

"I see you read the script." Hailee mentions, and Florence nods.

"Oh why hello there!" She tells me, now facing her attention to me. "I didn't see you there darling I'm sorry."

"It's all good." I reply, giving her a hug.

"So, what's your costume supposed to be?" Hailee asks, and Florence looks down to analyze her outfit.

"Well, no one told me the theme, I just showed up." She tells us, and I notice she's wearing a black and white dress.

"Tell people you're Nat from the Age of Ultron party scene. She wears a white and black dress in the bar scene." I suggest, surprised at myself at how quickly I came up with that.

"This one's good." She says directly to Hailee, pointing at me with her thumb.

"We're gonna go say hi to few people, we'll catch you later Flo." Hailee tells her, and I take that as a signal to walk always.

We both walk through the crowds, trying to find where the bar is so we can take the edge off with a nice drink for the two of us. While we are searing, we feel someone put their arms around the two of us.

"There's my favorite couple." He says, and I can already tell by the voice who it is without turning around. "Care for a drink?"

"Downey, what's good man?" I tell him, pulling him in for a hug. He then greets Hailee.

"Just here having the time of my life. This party rocks every year without fail. Come on, let me show you to where we are all sitting." He tells us, and we follow him to another area of the facility. There, we are met with most of our friends.

"Look Renner, your partner just arrived." Chris Evans says, nudging Jeremy with his elbow.

"We aren't partners." He responds, imitating Clint.

When everyone looks up from conversation to see the two of us, everyone gets visibly excited to see us.

"Hi everyone!" Hailee says, and we both give a collective wave to them all.

"Very nice choice of outfits." We hear a voice say, and we look to see Tom Hiddleston creep up next to us.

He introduces himself to us, since we never got the chance to meet him. In fact, there are a lot of people here we haven't met yet, so that will most probably take up a good portion of the night.

Hailee and I take a seat next to Scarlett and Brie, who came dressed as each others characters. Scarlett came in a leather jacket, jeans, and baseball cap like Carol Danvers, and Brie came in an olive jacket with a stripped hoodie underneath, like the outfit Nat wore in the Winter Soldier mall scene.

Drinks are brought to us by Natalie Portman, who is sitting by Chris Hemsworth and Kat Dennings. As we talk with everyone, I seem to notice that the groups of people at this partly are mostly separated by the different films. The Guardians are hanging out together on one side, then the Spider-Man crew just next to them. It makes sense, since your cast mates become your closest friends. Since Downey pulled us away with him, we are mostly sat with the original six Avengers and a few others, since not everyone could make it so some cast groups are missing a few.

I step off to the side to talk to Kat, taking the chance to ask her a question.

"Hey have you seen Lizzie around by any chance? I think she's here already." I ask, and Kat looks around over the crowd of heads.

"Yeah I was talking to her just a while ago, I think I see her over there with Paul and Teyonah." She spots, and I thank her.

I walk back over to Hailee, bringing my mouth close to her ear so she can hear me.

"I'm going to get us some water, and whatever I can find to snack on. Are you going to be okay here by yourself?" I ask, and Hailee nods.

"I'll be right back guys." I say to the group, and they all take note that I'm leaving the conversation for a second.

"Don't worry Carter, we got her." Evans says to me, putting his hand in the air with a thumbs up. I take one last look at Hailee before I start looking away, and she mouths 'go' with her lips so I take that as a sign to walk away.

I make my way through the maze of people, until I reach a quieter part of the floor where I find Lizzie and Paul Bettany. Lizzie's face immediately brightens up when she sees me, opening her arms for a big hug. I reciprocate, squeezing her back. I say hi to Bettany as well, who is dressed like Bruce Banner in a lab coat.

"I'm assuming you're dressed as Agatha?" I guess, and she nods. I could tell her costume by the purple elements she decided to wear.

"How's everything? How are you enjoying New York?" She asks, sparking up conversation, and we make small talk the three of us. While we talk, my hands are in my pockets, and I'm unconsciously rocking back and forth. Lizzie notices this quickly, and decides to do something.

"Hey Paul, I'm gonna steal her for just a moment, sorry." She tells him, and he reassures her there's nothing to worry about. We both watch as he walks away, joining another groups conversation.

"Are you okay?" Lizzie asks upfront, and I look down at the floor.

"Um, that's actually why I came to find you." I tell her honestly, and she grabs my hand.

"Okay." She replies, making it clear that she wasn't expecting me to say that. "Well then, we can talk if you'd like."

"I think that's just what I need right now."

Lizzie and I find the back area of the venue, which is just a small alleyway that has other backdoors of other facilities leading down the two brick walls that make up the small path between buildings. Once the door closes behind us, muffling the loud music, we each take our place on the wall, our backs touching the exposed concrete, our shoulders touching.

"So...." Lizzie begins, trying to get me to talk. "You seemed a little tense out there."

"Yeah." I reply, not knowing what to say. I take a second to gather my thoughts, and a silence grows between Lizzie and I. The only sounds that fill the air around us are the sounds of beeping cars whirring by.

"You can talk to me, always. That never changed, Jay." She tells me, breaking the shared silence.

"Um, in this past week I guess..." I begin. "I've just sort of had some time to process some untouched areas of my feelings. You know, with Hailee being away for most of the day."

"Tell me about them, I'm here to listen." She reassures me.

"I guess I never really had the time, or energy for that matter, to process the week where I felt like the world was crashing on top of me. That day was undoubtably one of the worst days of my life, I mean, I lost my Momma that morning and I thought I could try and redeem the day by winning the championship game but that didn't go through either."

"I know, I can't even imagine how hard that must have been for you. I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"Don't say that Lizzie, you know I understand."

"Still."

"That's besides the point. I just feel like ever since that day, I've just been... pushing away the feelings that day brought up within me. I feel like theres a pool of untouched emotions inside of me that I have no idea how to handle. I've been feeling anxious this week, and I haven't really had anxiety like this in years. That's kind of why I came to you." I explain.

"I'm glad you did Jay. I mean, I'm no expert, I still deal with anxiety but I guess you could say I'm managing. We both are."

"Thank you, just you listening helps."

Our conversation is interrupted when I feel my phone buzz in my pocket.

Hailee: where did you go???

The white light of the screen of my phone illuminates both our faces, and since Lizzie is standing beside me, she can clearly read the message from my phone.

"Have you talked to her?" Lizzie asks me.

"Um, not really. I don't really know how." I tell her. "That sounds dumb, we talk all the time but this is different, and you know how hard it is for me to do this sometimes."

"I get it, I understand completely. I think that's where you should start."

I stare at the ground in response to Lizzie's last statement, a million thoughts going through my mind.

"I also feel like there's still so much she doesn't know about me, about my past." I start off. "She doesn't even know about my scar."

"You mean the scar on your back?" Lizzie asks, and I nod.

"She saw it for the first time when we were in Oxford with Florence, but I made up some shitty excuse. I don't even know if she bought it or not. But I've never talked about my Dad in front of her before, it's already hard enough to talk about my Mom."

"I know." Lizzie responds, and our conversation grows silent once again.

"Ever since the day of the championship..." I begin, and Lizzie turns to look at me.

"Yeah?"

"I feel like I've slowly started to lose the joy that basketball brings to me." I admit, and Lizzie gasps lightly.

Admitting this to Lizzie was the first step in dealing with the emotions within me. Every time I would go and practice, a part of me felt different. This is the sport I've been playing since I was about 5 years old, meaning I've devoted 20 years to this sport. I've found myself not wanting to practice and not wanting to get out of bed to go to the gym.

Losing the championship game really affected me for some reason, sure I've lost important games in the past but that night was different. It was one of the most shitty feelings in the world. I worked day and night that season, doubling my practice times and doubling the shots I would put up, and for all that hard work to be stripped from you in one game really took a piece out of me. Especially since the trophy went to the person I despised most in my career.

"Wow." Is all Lizzie says.

"I know."

"Have you told anyone?" She asks.

"You're the first." I respond, and Lizzie takes a second to process the fact.

"Maybe you can just take a season off?"

"There's options that I haven't even looked into yet, but I just know that this is what my heart is telling me. I just feel so detached from the sport I love, I need time to rekindle that." I explain to her, and she listens wholeheartedly.

My phone buzzes once again in my pocket, and I take it out once more.

Florence: your boo is looking for you

"Shit I forgot to respond to Hailee."

"It's okay, just respond now." Lizzie suggests.

"No I told her I was just going to get waters, I don't even know why I said that now. And I left her alone, god that was not a good move." I tell her, my emotions starting to elevate in the slightest.

"Hey, it's okay." Lizzie reassures me, putting her hand on my shoulder. "Let's just go back inside, we can find her."

The two of us turn back to go inside, opening the door to return back to the party. The music and crowds of people talking floods our ears. I grab Lizzie by the wrist, directing her towards where I last left Hailee, hoping she's still with the same group of people. On the way there, I grab a water bottle from one of the stands, so I can at least bring her the water I promised.

After shoving around a few people, the same group was still talking amongst each other, and thankfully Hailee was still there, still sitting on the couch part of the table with Scarlett and Brie. As soon as she sees me, she stands up from her seat. I notice her look Lizzie up and down as she walks over to me.

"Where were you? I tried to text you but you didn't answer. You were gone for like half an hour." She tells me, clearly upset.

"I'm sorry, I just saw Lizzie by the waters and we just started talking."

"I see." She responds dryly. "Hi Elizabeth."

I'm taken aback by the way Hailee is acting right now, and I won't tolerate her being rude to my best friend. I look over at the table where she was seated and I can see a few empty glasses, meaning she had another drink or two while I was gone.

"Here, I got you your water." I tell her, handing over the bottle.

"I don't need water, you think I'm drunk or something?" She says, clearly under the influence.

"No, I- I promised you water and now I'm giving it to you."

"That would have been nice 30 minutes ago." She says, grabbing the bottle out of my hand.

There's one thing I wont do, and it's to have a conversation like this in front of our friends. It's embarrassing for starters, and it's also rude. I grab Hailee by the wrist with one hand, placing the other hand around her waist so I can guide her to a more quiet part of the venue. I look to Lizzie before I walk alway with Hailee, and I can tell by Lizzie's eyes that she's worried.

"Is everything okay with you?" I ask firmly. "What was all that back there?"

"Care to explain why you were gone for half an hour with Lizzie?" She spits back. "You could have been doing anything there."

"Really. You really think I would do that?" I state in a tone that's more shocked than anything.

"You tell me." She responds crossing her arms, slightly slurring her words.

"I'm really gonna need you to drink that water right now because clearly the drinks are getting to you." I respond, opening the water bottle for her, helping her drink it, which she thankfully does.

"You still never answered my question." She reminds me, wiping the excess water off her face.

"We were just talking, I haven't seen her since we went to London."

"What was there to talk about?" She asks.

"I don't know, just life... how I've been feeling lately."