Lydia had the loveliest blue-black hair, and the fluorescent lights of the Halloween Factory danced among her waves. Today, she wore it down, casually tossing it as she perused the racks of costumes. I followed behind her, playing my part of loyal friend: the quiet girl she’d adopted at the college coffee shop two weeks ago.
That day, we’d ordered the same drink—she grabbed mine at the counter and I intervened with my usual awkwardness. “Um, ah… excuse me. I believe–uh…”
This was supposed to be the fall I reinvented myself for the last time. I’d lost count on which attempt this was, but with my thrifted jumper, opaque tights, and a waif-like frame, my intended vibe was “art-school-chic.” I wanted to be the quiet and serious type, the cool girl who smoked cigarettes and read Ayn Rand. Despite my best intentions and a new wardrobe that showcased my narrow waist, I was still my stilted umming and ahhing self. Lydia took a sip, her lipstick leaving a flower-like stain on the lid. My lid.
Be more assertive, I channeled the self-help videos I binged. Be who you want to be and eventually, it’ll stick.
I took a breath. “That,” I said, pointing a finger that felt alien to me with its black polish, “is mine, I believe.”
“Oh,” she said. “Here, I barely touched it.” The girl handed it to me and started mumbling about how she was trying to quit, but it was the only way she could be somewhat coherent for her early classes.
I offered what I thought was a sympathetic smile, but she shrugged it off. “So I indulge on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Baby steps, you know?”
Meanwhile, the barista placed a cup identical to mine on the counter and Lydia snatched it up before I could offer to swap.
“Cheers,” she said, giving me a brief nudge before sipping. I eyed my cup, tracing her webbed lip print that eclipsed the top in deep plum. Lydia asked if I was a freshman too, and when I nodded, she demanded my phone and plugged in her number.
“I desperately need an adventure buddy,” she said.
I doubted it. There was nothing desperate about her—she exuded an effortless kind of cool from her scuffed combat boots to the “dangerous creature” pin on her bomber jacket.
She sighed. “My roommate’s ok. Sweet, but a bit too twee, if you know what I mean?”
I nodded, reminding myself to look up “twee” later—and to buy a pair of combat boots.
We chatted until she ran off to class with a promise to text. I eventually drank the coffee, and maybe it was a trick of my mind, but I swear just enough of her lipstick rubbed off to give mine a slight tint. It was a nice color.
Since then, we met almost daily for lunch, dinner, or just to chat on the green. I learned Lydia was estranged from her parents because of their differing political beliefs, and she unapologetically read culinary cozies with titles like Murder by Meatball and Sconed to Death. She was self-assured and confident without being cocky, and for some reason, she’d pulled me into her orbit.
The trip to the Halloween Factory had been Lydia’s idea—with it only a week or so away, we both needed costumes for her roommate’s party, and she refused to settle for the usual college girl go-tos: sexy teacher or school girl, sexy bunny or cat, or something equally “sexy” and mortifying.
I cringed, thinking of a phase I went through a few years back when I reinvented myself as that body-positive “bombshell” type. I thought I’d be happy and more confident then, with curves in only the perfect places and a well-used gym membership. A new X-Men movie had come out that fall, so I splurged and bought a sexy Mystique bodysuit, covered my face in blue paint, and tinted my hair copper. Despite it all, when the night of the party came, I spent it huddled in the corner, staring into my cup of too-sweet jungle juice.
“Why do they have to make everything so skimpy? I’m far from a prude, but damn.” Lydia plucked a zombie nurse costume off the rack and pinched it between two fingers. “What if I want to be scary? There’s nothing scary about having my tits out and my legs all goosebumps.”
I laughed. “Well, what about the Reaper?” I pointed to a hooded cape with a blank, black mask. “Death scares everyone, doesn’t it?”
“Eh,” Lydia shrugged. “That’s too basic, you know?” She walked away, waves bouncing in the fluorescents. I followed on her heels until she stopped at the wall of masks. “Maybe I want to go for a gross-out. I could be Regan from The Exorcist and, like, hook a tube up and spew green syrup everywhere.”
She took the mask off the wall and slipped it over her head, turning to watch me through the holes in Regan’s pupils.
“What do you think?” she asked, her voice muffled.
The mask and its wig of matted hair dwarfed Lydia’s shoulders, giving her the proportions of a bobblehead.
“It’s… uh… a little too big?”
“Crap,” she muttered and tugged it off. “Prosthetics, maybe? Or a zombie scarecrow? I could do facepaint and make the hay all bloody or something.”
We paused at the animal masks, some cute, some scary, and some just weird. She picked up a fly mask and slipped it over her head—the insect’s giant eyes glittered with little prismatic panes. “I could be the guy from The Fly!” she said. “And you could be…” she turned her fly head back toward the wall of masks and perused the selection.
I pulled a lizard mask topped with bulbous knobs and beady little eyes from the rack and slipped it on over my head. I watched through the slit in the mouth as Lydia did a little jump when she saw me.
“A chameleon!” she crowed. “The predator to my prey!”
I nodded, inhaling shallow breaths.
“It definitely would take the cake for originality.” She pulled the fly mask off and flipped her head to reset the fall of her curls. Each breath I took within the chameleon mask tasted of rubber and felt thick with whatever chemicals they’d used to craft the thing. I tugged it off and wiped the sweat from my lip.
“You can’t eat or drink with a mask on though,” she said. “Let’s look through the aisles one last time, and then maybe we’ll hit Goodwill.”
We circled the store again, and after much deliberation, Lydia settled on a “Final Girl” outfit—a torn skirt and blood-stained cardigan. She selected a gory vinyl axe and cradled it to her chest.
“I’ll be ‘Girl-Next-Door’ Lizzie Borden,” she mused, grabbing me by the cuff of my hoodie and tugging me back to the dressing rooms. I giggled until I caught a glance of us in a mirror and the laughter curdled in my throat. She was so commanding, so strong and funny without being self-aware. Larger than life, it seemed, beside me, the meek artsy girl. With each of Lydia’s laughs, I caught others in the store glancing her way, some admiring, some curious. Even with my meticulously crafted appearance, I was invisible next to her.
“You don’t want to try anything on?” she asked as we waited for a dressing room to open.
“Eh, I’m too indecisive.” I shrugged and stared at the shiny tips of my new combat boots. They didn’t have the same heft as Lydia’s even though I was positive to buy the same brand. Maybe it was because I didn’t walk with the same “fuck-you-confidence” as her, or because these twiggy legs and narrow frame were a weak copy of her strong thighs and height.
This is who you chose, I reminded myself. Learn to accept it.
But no matter how many times I adopted a new “me,” it was clear that no matter who I chose to be, I was still missing that palpable presence, that confidence that shone so easily for Lydia. Maybe I made poor choices in the past. Maybe when the time came to reinvent myself, I simply hadn’t chosen the right person.
One last time, a little voice from the corner of my mind whispered. The attendant pointed to a dressing room and Lydia pulled me in behind her. It was already cluttered with discarded costumes abandoned by past shoppers.
One hard reset and then it’ll all be different.
But I couldn’t, could I? Lydia turned her back to me and started shucking off her clothes. I sat on the little bench and met my stare in the mirror on the back of the door. I pictured myself with glossy black hair like hers and tried to mimic that steady gaze she always shot my way, the eye contact I inevitably broke. My eyes were too watery and twitchy, and while my face was undeniably pretty, even with minimal makeup, the fluorescents washed me out.
One.
Last.
Time.
“You ok?” Lydia looked over her shoulder at me. “You’re quiet.”
“Not, uh, good in enclosed spaces,” I lied and shifted on the bench. The dressing room wall pressed in on my back, and with each of Lydia’s movements, I was smacked with some part of the costume or her, the poke of a renegade elbow or the tickle of her hair. I sat as still as I could manage, but inside I was squirming and lashing around, desperate to break out of these confines.
“Sorry!” she said, grunting as she tried to zip up the skirt. “I’ll be quick.” The blood splatter looked cheesy and the clothes were too clean to be convincing. “I don’t know how I feel about this one. $40 seems like a bit of a rip-off.” My fingers twitched, picking at the cuffs of my sweater.
“Lydia?” I whispered.
“Yeah?” She turned, smoothing the front of the costume.
Maybe it was how quickly I was breathing, or how pale my face had grown. It could have been my shaking hands or the sharp glint in my gaze—whatever she saw sent her to her knees in front of me.
“Oh, shit—sorry! You’re really not good in here, huh?” Her eyes widened and she clasped my face, her warm palms cupping each cheek and pulling me to her.
I nodded, my breaths coming in harsher bursts.
“Just breathe,” she said. “My cousin had panic attacks like this as a kid and we’d do this breathing exercise together. It worked every time.” She paused as I placed my hands on her shoulders.
“Are you with me?”
I nodded.
“Breathe in for seven. One, two…” She counted and I closed my eyes, inhaling the lavender of her bodywash.
I’ll need to change that, I thought. Lavender didn’t sit well with me. Neither did the mint gum she carried in her purse.
“Now out for seven. Release… One, two…” She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against mine. I cracked my eyes open, breathing out through my lips and watching her do the same. This close, I had to go cross-eyed to make out the soft freckles on the bridge of her nose.
“Good,” she whispered, her hands still cupping my face. “Should we do it again or do you feel better?” Her words were a tickle of breath against my lips.
One last time—to truly be who I want to be.
“Thank you,” I sighed, my grip sliding from her shoulders to clasp behind her neck. Her hands dropped from my cheeks, but I tilted my head and leaned to meet her retreat. I placed my lips against hers and felt her go rigid as she tried to pull away.
Her mouth was sweet, still tasting of the pumpkin spice lattes we’d sipped on the drive over here. I writhed and uncoiled, sliding my way up through the core of my host and navigating the hollows of the body. It had been a good body—it served me well for the few weeks I called it home—but Lydia was too good to pass up. She was exactly who I wanted to be. The strength, the confidence, the effortless power.
I pushed my way past her lips and gnashing teeth and burrowed into her, leaving behind the husk of my past self to collapse, wrinkled and deflated, on the dressing room floor. Lydia choked me down, falling to her side and curling into the fetal position as I tunneled deeper—Conquering. Consuming. Becoming.
After all that ugliness, Lydia—I mean, I—stood from the floor on shaky legs. This part was always a bit disorienting: the change in height, the differing motor skills. I could still feel parts of her fighting me, but that never lasted very long.
I checked my appearance in the mirror and tousled my blue-black curls. The kiss had smudged my lipstick, that same plum shade she loved so much. I leaned into the mirror and used the pad of my thumb to clean up the edges. Already I could feel the difference, the strength in these legs and confident posture. I stared myself down, trying to channel Lydia’s same directness, before turning to kick the husk of my former body into the shadows under the bench alongside the abandoned costumes and Lydia’s old clothes. I grabbed her purse from the hook by the door and darted out, still a bit wobbly.
I winced, feeling with each step a twinge in her right knee—an old soccer injury maybe? It was too late to ask her. Already I could sense her fighting slow and falter. She was wilting, suffocated like a flame trapped under a jar.
I bee-lined for the door when a voice stopped me. “Hey! Miss! Excuse me?”
The attendant jogged to catch up as I turned. I panicked, waiting for him to question where the old me was. He’d ask, “Didn’t two of you go in there? Where’s the other girl?”
His gaze scanned my body, Lydia’s body, disdainfully. “You can’t just leave,” he said.
“Um, ah… excuse me?” A cold sweat broke out across the nape of my neck. I’d been careless this time. Too rushed to reinvent myself to think through the setting, the consequences.
The attendant put one hand on his hip and looked pointedly at my clothes. “Your costume. You need to pay for it.”
Relief flooded me like a sugar rush. “Oh, uh, yes. Of course! So sorry.” I caught myself speaking in a simpering tone Lydia would have never used and bit my tongue. New me, new me, new me.
“You’ll need this.” He held out the plastic packet for the costume, now only housing the cardboard picture of the gorespattered model. “Just tell them at the counter you’re wearing it out.”
I nodded, forcing myself to hold his gaze until he turned and headed back toward the dressing rooms. Then, I pivoted smoothly on the heels of my combat boots and walked to the counter, greeting every questioning glance with a smile.
