The Costumes They Wouldn’t Change

Every October, Eli and Jonah lived for Halloween.

Their apartment turned into a half-decade museum of fake cobwebs, cheap candles, and carved pumpkins that never quite looked as cheerful as they meant to. Their friends treated the holiday like sacred ritual: an annual party, ridiculous costumes, too much sugar, and, once everyone was old enough, too much whiskey.

This year, the party couldn’t happen in person. The virus had taken that from them. But the group refused to let October pass quietly. They planned a video call instead—still costumes, still music, still laughing until someone had to mute themselves to recover.

Their friend Wren was dating a man named Nolan. They’d been together almost a year. He was pleasant enough, at least on the surface. He had once made a pair of ugly comments about men marrying each other, but after Wren exploded at him, he apologized and swore he didn’t think that way. Eli and Jonah had accepted the apology for Wren’s sake. She seemed happy with him, and that had mattered more than their discomfort.

When the group started talking costumes, things seemed harmless at first.

The women had chosen to dress as the witches from *American Horror Story: Coven*. Their outfits were elaborate, dramatic, and gorgeous. Eli and Jonah had already bought most of what they needed for their own costumes: Michael Langdon and Mr. Gallant.

Nolan, however, had other plans.

He announced that he thought the three of them should go as Ross, Joey, and Chandler instead.

Eli and Jonah exchanged a look. They liked *Friends* well enough, but they’d already spent money on the horror costumes. They had spent evenings putting the pieces together. They told him, politely, that they were sticking with what they had planned.

Nolan left the call ten minutes later.

At first, no one thought much of it.

Then he texted Eli.

He said he was uncomfortable with their costumes. Michael and Gallant, apparently, were often “shipped” together online. He accused them of “flaunting” their sexuality. He said they had ruined *Harry Potter* for him once before when they dressed as Remus Lupin and Sirius Black.

And he insisted they change.

Eli stared at the message in disbelief. Jonah, reading over his shoulder, went from confused to furious in the span of a breath.

They weren’t trying to make a statement. They were dressing as characters they liked. But Nolan had decided that anything affectionate between men was an attack on him.

Worse, he was trying to turn it into a friendship problem, as though Eli and Jonah were deliberately excluding him because he didn’t care for the same show. There were no rules to the party. He could dress as anything he wanted.

They didn’t want to start a fight. More than that, they didn’t want Wren dragged into a mess over something as stupid as a Halloween costume.

But the next hour made one thing impossible to ignore: this wasn’t about costumes.

It was about Nolan.

So they told Wren.

They sent screenshots.

Wren read the messages, and then the silence on the other end of the call was broken by a sound Eli would later remember as pure rage. Wren went off on him so hard they could practically hear the furniture shaking in the room. By the time she was done, she was done done.

She broke up with him.

Eli and Jonah expected that to be the end of it.

It wasn’t.

Their Halloween call grew larger than planned. A few classmates and mutual friends asked if they could join, and the small gathering became a crowded screen full of laughing faces, half-finished drinks, and bad lighting. They made it clear that the first part would be a bigger group hangout and the later part would just be close friends.

Then Nolan showed up anyway.

He was roommates with one of the mutual friends, a guy named Reed, so he managed to worm his way into the call through that connection. He sat there with a sour expression, obviously there to make everyone uncomfortable, and made it his mission to remind Wren of his existence.

He called her names. He asked if they could talk privately. He made the kind of comments designed to wound and provoke. Reed, who had the patience of a locked door, told him to knock it off.

For a while, Nolan kept sulking in the corner of the frame like a child forced to attend a family dinner.

Then Eli and Jonah got petty.

If Nolan wanted to weaponize their costumes, they were happy to return the favor.

Whenever they could, they dropped lines from the show into the conversation—little teasing exchanges, suggestive comments, things that made the whole thing read exactly like the pairing Nolan had been so offended by.

“So, you like leather?” Jonah said at one point, deadpan.

“I like a lot of things,” Eli replied.

It was stupid. It was childish. It was also incredibly satisfying.

Nolan sat there visibly grinding his teeth. The more they leaned into it, the quieter he got. After one final exchange, he disappeared from the call.

The room erupted in laughter.

Reed just shook his head, amused despite himself, and the rest of the night recovered beautifully. Once Nolan was gone, the call went back to what it should have been: friends in costumes, joking, drinking, and enjoying the small strange joy of celebrating together even while apart.

A few days later, Nolan tried to contact Wren again.

He didn’t get far.

Her father answered the situation before she had to. He was a large man with a face that suggested he had little patience for fools, and Nolan apparently remembered that fact in a hurry. After that, he vanished from all of their lives.

Wren was happier without him.

Eli and Jonah still wore their costumes.

And every time October came around after that, they made sure to remember the year they were told to change, and chose not to.