Ethan had worked in retail, in customer service, for eight years, so it was easy to be pleasant. He just imagined himself in that damned red vest, wearing that damned smile, and treating Jesse cordially came easy enough. A million ways to sabotage the night had occurred to him in the past few nights, but ultimately, he decided that the red-vest-route was the way to go. Emma would never love him, but there was no reason to make her hate him.
He forgot about his forced pleasantness when Jesse started the chant. His skin tingled, his bones itched, and it felt like his brain was trying to crawl through his nose. He tried to focus on the candles around him, but he couldn’t see anything. The night was falling hard, all black and thick and he thought he would be lost in it. He struggled to keep
