Page 41 of Virgin Sacrifice

Luz

“And oh my God, I have to show you the wig I got for tomorrow. It’s, like, pure mermaid hair heaven!” Autumn said with a dreamy sigh.

I didn’t fight the grin I felt forming at her unbridled enthusiasm. She seemed to finally be making peace with my homebody ways, and now the focus was on her costume for tomorrow night. Even if I wasn’t going out, I loved a good fit-planning session, and I was more than happy to indulge her.

“I went down to the city to pick up the stola from the costume designer yesterday, and Luz, it is like tailored to perfection. Oh, and the backdrop I found for the photo shoot is perfectly scaled to me, so I should be able to create an exact replica of the original painting . . .”

Autumn had decided to go as Venus, the Roman goddess of love, as depicted in Sandro Botticelli’s famous painting, The Birth of Venus, “but, like, minus the nudity.”

Instead, she found a period costume designer from NYC through TikTok and hired them to create a custom stola for her, which was apparently the name of the style of dress that women had worn during the Roman Empire. The girl knew how to execute her vision, I had to give her that.

“I know you don’t want to go out, but do you think you would be willing to still help me get ready for the party?” she said, flashing me those big, wounded eyes that she knew I couldn’t say no to.

“Hmmm,” I grumbled, pretending to play hardball. “Will there be snacks?”

Autumn faux gasped, clutching her hand to her chest dramatically. “Luz Torres, of course there will be snacks. What sort of tacky ill-bred hostess do you take me for? I am a Morgan!”

I snorted at her antics, happy to feel at ease again with her.

“Yes, yes,” I said, waving my hand at her. “Of course I’ll help you get ready; I’m dying to see your costume, and I have a whole speech for Aaron about making sure he keeps an eye on you.”

Autumn rolled her eyes at me, unimpressed. “It’s Halloween, Luz. There will be lots of people out.”

My eyebrows went up. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if her ignorance was willful naïveté or all just an act.

“That’s part of the issue—there isn’t always safety in numbers, especially if everyone’s going to be wasted because it’s Halloween, and you don’t know who else is going to be out there.”

She sighed, twirling her fettuccine noodles around on her fork aimlessly.

Now that I had the chance to study her more closely, after having avoided her the past couple of days, I realized how tired looking she was.

“How’s life outside planning your Halloween costume?” I asked, hoping to get a better sense of what was going on with her as guilt started to eat away at my appetite.

“Hm? Oh, it’s been all right, I guess,” she replied without much enthusiasm, still twirling the same piece on her fork.

“Your classes?”

She shrugged. “They’re going fine. Although I still can’t say that I, like, love any of them, but my parents won’t stop pestering me about picking a major and ‘getting serious’ about school.”

Autumn had never been the most enthusiastic about school, even if she was clearly pretty smart.

I knew that she had been taking some communications and marketing classes, with the hope she might like them or at least find them useful with her TikTok channel.

“Anything else going on? I’m sorry I’ve been MIA this week, I just desperately needed to catch up on my studying.”

She didn’t call me out on my lie, even though we both knew that I had been ahead in all my classes since the beginning of the term.

“No, not really.” She finally placed the fork down on her plate, leaving the pasta untouched. “I’ve been busy with school too,” she said with a wave of her hand, and I realized that my concern for her must have been written all over my face. “You know how it is,” she continued, “midterms are, like, right around the corner.”

“Totally. I’ve basically been locked in my room studying all week.”

What if she’s been avoiding me just as much as I’ve been avoiding her?

I didn’t like that thought, and I couldn’t help but worry what secrets Autumn might have been keeping from me. Was it something related to Aaron and she thought I wouldn’t approve? Or maybe her disagreements with her parents were more intense than she made them seem . . .

Dios knew Mami had a temper on her sometimes, and her expectations for me were high. Though, they were probably very different than the Morgans’ were for Autumn.

Autumn was the one to break the awkward tension that had gathered in the air between us.

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