While it only takes him a few seconds to accept Jess’s apology and shake his hand, those few seconds feel long and ominous. And even after he tells Jess that it’s “no big deal,” his arms remain tight and his body on guard. I know that it was a very big deal, and that one tiny sentence is going to sit on his conscience for most of the morning.

We all devour our breakfast, soaking our pancakes in butter and syrup and stuffing our cheeks until we’re all equally sick from the sweetness of the syrup and the richness of bacon. As Elise promised, the small snow flurries have disappeared by the time we’re done helping my mom load the dishwasher, and soon we’re all pulling on the mountain of winter clothing we left in the pile by the door.

“Make sure you get one for me,” my mom says, handing me a hundred dollar bill, urging me to pay for everyone’s pumpkin. My father was always stingy with money, never wanting to pay for things with my friends. He wouldn’t even buy Gaby and Morgan’s museum tickets the times we went in the city. Just one more thing I think about differently now.

“I’m driving,” Willow announces as we all pile onto the porch in our heavy boots and coats.

“I’m out. Who’s with me?” Owen says, and Ryan is the first to raise his hand, stepping next to his friend.

“Hey!” Willow protests.

“Will, your driving scares the shit out of me in the summer. If I have a second option when there’s a chance for snow, I’m taking it,” Ryan says back quickly, and I notice Willow shakes her head, a little stunned by his honesty.

“You know you could drive yourself to school in the morning, asshole,” she says, her eyes squinting, trying to mask how upset she really is.

“Oh, it doesn’t scare me so much that I want to drive my dad’s piece-of-shit car. You’re still safer than that,” he says, and this seems to make her feel better.

“Well all right then,” she says, leading the way as we walk down my front steps and toward the street out front. “You know he’s not that safe either, though, right?”

“This guy? Hell, he’s never had a crash,” Ryan says, pointing to Owen, whose hands are buried in his pockets, his hood pulled up over his head and his arms stiff with the wool material of his black overcoat. Owen only rolls his eyes, then pulls his keys from his pockets, urging me to ride with him as well. I go willingly, but for different reasons.

We pile into Owen’s truck, and Elise and Jess climb into Willow’s car; we head a few miles to the outskirts of town where one of the farmers still has a stand open for fall goods. The pumpkin selection is a little picked over, but we all settle on a few decent-sized ones, and before anyone can protest, I hand the money to the cashier.

“My mom insisted. Part of my birthday present,” I say, smiling and enjoying the feeling of treating friends to something—even though it may be trivial.

By the time we get home, my mom has moved a few of the cardboard boxes out to the kitchen floor, where she’s cut them open for our carving mess. When I was little, my mom and I used to make a pumpkin for our balcony every year. But that tradition sort of just faded away—forgotten among the other things in life that got in the way. I picked an extra large pumpkin just so she and I could create something together, and when I nod for her to join me, I notice her eyes tear up a little with her smile.

“So, this is gross,” Willow says, pulling the lid from her pumpkin, long, gooey strings trailing from the bottom.

“You know there’s more inside, right?” Elise says, reaching into hers with both hands, digging her nails in, and scooping a handful of the pumpkin insides onto the cardboard next to Willow.

“Oh my gaaaaaaah,” Willow says, bringing her arm completely around her face, smothering her nose. “It smells…so bad.”

“You are such a baby,” I say, reaching into Willow’s pumpkin and pulling out a scoop for her. I let it plop onto the cardboard, splattering some seeds and strings onto Willow’s jeans.

“I think I’m out,” she says, standing, her nose still buried in her sleeve.

“I’ll clean yours for you,” I say, and she lifts her arm up long enough to show me her grin and to raise her thumb in approval.

It doesn’t take long to understand why Elise likes carving so much. I’ve managed to create a pretty spooky-looking set of teeth, and Owen’s carved his into a series of triangles to form a face—sort of. Elise’s pumpkin, however, is straight out of the set for Sleepy Hollow, a headless horseman charging forward through thistle with bats and menacing tree roots tangling around him.