The Beautiful Monster

"Don\'t worry. I couldn\'t be bad if I tried. Anxiety, remember?" Alyssa joked as she nudged Elias.

Elias chuckled and nodded.

"Even if you were a little bad, everything would be fine. No one is fully good," he pointed out as he stopped in front of a restaurant. He looked through the window before glancing at the girls. "Pizza?"

"Hell yeah," Zoe said before yanking open the front door and heading inside.

Alyssa shared an amused look with Elias before following Zoe inside. She sat down at a table near the window, feeling her heart flutter a little when Elias sat next to her.

"We should do this more often. You know… go out," Alyssa told them. Maybe it wasn\'t a big deal to them.

They probably did this with their other friends a lot, but she didn\'t usually have this. This meant a lot to her.

"If there\'s food, you know I\'ll be there," Zoe quipped as she picked up a menu to have a look at it.

"Yeah, this is fun," Elias agreed with a nod. He grabbed a menu and placed it in front of him and Alyssa so that they could share it.

It was probably a small and mindless gesture, but it was still sweet to Alyssa. She had to lean a little closer so that she could see everything on the menu. Her arm pressed against his, but he didn\'t shift away from her. In fact, it even felt like he was pressing back against her.

"Let\'s get some breadsticks," Zoe muttered as she read over the appetizers. She was oblivious to the tension across the table.

"Yeah, okay," Alyssa forced out before clearing her throat. He was so close. She could feel the warmth of his skin, smell that nearly vintage scent. She wished she could get closer.

"How many slices can everyone eat? I think that\'s important to know first," Elias asked, acting as casual as ever.

Alyssa could only guess that he didn\'t have any serious feelings about her since he wasn\'t reacting at all. She was a bundle of nerves right now, so she expected him to at least be a little nervous.

"Probably three," she said. She was used to two because she had to share with her family, who only got one pizza for the three of them, but she was pretty sure she could put away three. She was nearly starving at this point anyway.

"Half a pizza," Zoe replied.

"It\'ll be safe to do two pizzas then," Elias said. "One cheese and one meat lovers?"

"Sounds good to me," Alyssa said. She told herself to calm down before she did anything embarrassing.

Once they all ordered their drinks, the breadsticks, and the two pizzas, they dove right back into conversation.

Alyssa enjoyed how lighthearted she felt when she was with them. She didn\'t feel so weighed down by her own mind, unless she was thinking of the feelings that she was hiding.

Zoe held one breadstick up to her mouth to steadily chew away on it, while her other hand held her phone up close to her face. Her eyes then suddenly widened.

"Oh! There\'s a Halloween party coming up next weekend! We should all go," she suggested.

"Where at?" Alyssa asked with a slight wary look. She bit into her second slice of cheese pizza. She wasn\'t sure about going back to another frat house.

"KDP," Zoe replied with a sheepish smile. She knew that Kaleigh and Olivia were from that sorority. "I doubt you\'ll see those girls. A lot of people will be there."

Alyssa was conflicted. She loved Halloween, but she didn\'t want to be anywhere near Kaleigh and Olivia. They would ruin her night somehow, and she didn\'t want another party to become a bad memory.

"I\'m just a little worried after the last party, you know?" Alyssa replied.

Elias turned to her.

"You don\'t have to go," he told her.

Alyssa fiddled with the crust left on her plate. She didn\'t want to be scared away from parties forever.

She knew that she could avoid what happened last time by just not drinking or having someone look out for her. Besides, she had never been to a Halloween party before.

"It\'s also a costume party," Zoe said. "You can disguise yourself."

Alyssa laughed a little at that. She didn\'t like being around Kaleigh and Olivia, but she wasn\'t scared enough to hide from them like that. She believed she would be okay if she stuck close to Zoe and didn\'t take anything from anyone.

"It could be fun," she admitted as she looked over at Elias, who still looked unconvinced.

"Why don\'t you come? You can watch out for her," Zoe said to Elias. "Be her date."

Alyssa felt heat flush across her cheeks as she looked down at the table. There Zoe went again, nearly throwing her under the bus.

"Fine," Elias replied. "I dare a frat boy make a wrong move."

Alyssa watched Elias bite into his pizza with wide eyes. Did he seriously agree to being her date to the party?

"You don\'t have to," she told him, not wanting him to feel forced. Of course, she wanted him to come along with her but only if he wanted to.

"I want to. It\'ll be fun," Elias replied warmly. "Zoe just saved me the trouble of asking you to go with me."

"You\'re welcome," Zoe said before cramming the last bit of her breadstick into her mouth. She shot Alyssa a wink.

Alyssa brushed a strand of her hair out of her face, attempting to rid her cheeks of her blush. She hadn\'t expected this to happen, but she couldn\'t say she wasn\'t happy about it.

She didn\'t know if she could count it as an actual date, but it would still be nice to go to the party together.

"So, costumes? What are you wearing?" Alyssa asked Zoe. She had a feeling that Zoe already had an idea of what she wanted to go as.

"You know Raven from Teen Titans?" Zoe asked.

Alyssa nodded, remembering the show from her childhood.

"My ultimate girl crush. I have to be here," Zoe said with a confident smile.

"I think you\'ll pull that off great," Alyssa said encouragingly. She believed that Zoe could pull off anything that she set her mind to.

"What about you guys?" Zoe asked as she glanced between Alyssa and Elias.