One thing I learned very quickly was that Silas hated Halloween.

                He hated all the jump scares, he hated not knowing who a person was when their costume hid their identity, and he hated random people showing up to the house all night.

                He told me that where he was from, Halloween wasn't a big thing. Some kids wore costumes to school the day of it, but trick or treating was rare because any parent that cared about their kid would take them out of town to somewhere much safer to go door to door.

                Silas had also told me that his parents thought costumes were a waste of money, so they never let him celebrate. The most they'd do was buy bags of Halloween candy once it was cheap and let Silas have some.

                "I ain't going to a haunted hayride," Silas said, rolling on his side so his back was to me.

                I put a hand on his shoulder and tugged him onto his back. "Silas, I was just asking if you wanted to come with us to be polite. I'm not going to force you to go. But before the hayride, we're doing a corn maze. It's not haunted; it's just a maze. It's a family friendly thing."

                "What, you're just gonna walk around in the damn dark, gettin' lost on purpose?" Silas said. "Nah, don't wanna go."

                "Si, come on, it'll be fun!" I said.

                There was a knock on the door and Ray came into Silas's bedroom. "Hey, Si, are you home tonight? I'll leave you money for pizza if you are."

                "He's going to a corn maze with me and my friends," I said.

                "No I ain't," Silas said, glaring at me.

                "The big one a half hour away?" Ray said. "You should go, Silas. It's pretty fun. Frustrating as hell, but fun."

                "You've gone?" I said.

                Ray shrugged. "Went there on a date a while back. Kept finding that damn blue marker."

                "Blue marker?" Silas said.

                "They hide four different colored markers in the maze and give you a map. The goal is to find all four, mark them where you think you are on the map, and then find your way out," I explained. "Sometimes they make it hard by looping paths back to one specific marker."

                "Unless you're just afraid to be embarrassed," Ray said with a shrug. "I get it Si, you don't want Garrett to know how bad at directions you are."

                Silas glared. "I ain't bad at directions."

                "All talk, no show," Ray said.

                "Oh yea?" Silas turned to me. "We're goin' tonight, and that's that."

                Ray winked at me. "Don't get lost, boys." He left the room and I hid a laugh, instead putting my arm around Silas's shoulders.

                "It'll be fun," I promised. "Dress warmly though."

                The two of us killed time until it got late. We grabbed jackets and left Silas's house, getting in my car. I drove to Akira's house, waiting until him and Jack came out and got in the car.

                "Oh, you convinced Silas to come?" Akira said.

                "Ray did," I said, taking off down the road. "I'm going to drop him back off home before we go to the haunted hayride, though."

                "I hope it's scarier than last year," Jack said.

                "I don't. The chainsaw murderers last year had me ready to piss myself," I said.

                "How is that fun?" Silas said, looking honestly confused. "Why do you do stuff like that?"

                "It's hard to explain," I said. "Some people just like the adrenaline of being scared, I guess. We used to go to the local haunted house growing up, and it could be scary when you were in there, but once you were out, it was fun to laugh at each other about it. It's a little easier when you remind yourself that no one can touch you. Stuff like that isn't for everyone, though."

                Silas just shook his head and picked up his phone, scrolling for a song. He wasn't a fan of most of the scary stuff, but he did enjoy horror movies. I was glad about that at least; it gave us something Halloween festive to do together without making him feel unsafe.

                It was a half hour before we arrived at the corn maze. We went into the building on the path to the maze, paying for our entrance and getting maps.

                "Hey, no, I dragged you here. I'm paying," I said, pushing Silas's hand away when he took out his wallet. I handed the lady at the counter money and took our entrance tickets, handing Silas's to him.

                "I coulda paid," Silas said.

                "Yea, you could've. But I did," I said, tugging him outside with Akira and Jack following us.

                The four of us walked the lit path to the corn maze, where a few people were gathered. We slipped past them to the entrance of the maze, testing the ground to make sure it wasn't slippery from the mud.

                "It's huge," Silas said, looking at the seemingly endless rows of corn.

                "Not so sure about your directional sense now, huh?" I teased as we stepped inside.

                "Here," Akira said, handing everyone a small flashlight and checking his map. "The maps aren't fully accurate, but it's a good starting place. We should head up and keep to the right so we don't loop back to the entrance on accident."

                Silas was staring at his map, trying to figure out where to go. I took the map from him, folded it up, and handed it back.

                "We'll be lost in a solid five minutes," I assured.

                We started through the maze, keeping to the right as we went. Silas's body was tensed up, growing even tenser whenever we heard voices nearby.

                "Where are we?" Jack said, squinting at his map. "Are we here? I think we're here."

                "We better not be there. That's the left side. We've been taking right turns," Akira said.

                "Have we? I think we looped into the left," Jack said. "Just trust me, pal."

                "Maps are useless already," I said with a sigh. "Time to wander around until we find some markers."

                A group of teenagers suddenly ran around one of the turns near us. Silas instinctively pushed me behind himself, clenching a fist. But the teenagers ran past us without so much as a glance, laughing to themselves.

                "It's okay," I said, putting a hand on Silas's shoulder.

                "Yea, they'll slip in the mud and feel like dumbasses," Akira said. We heard a thud from where the teens had taken off to, and their laughter grew. "See? Muddy cornfield, not a good running place."

                "Hey, ain't that a marker?" Silas said, pointing down the path they'd just come from.

                We looked down the path, where a podium with a marker tied to it was sitting at the dead end of it. I grinned.

                "Nice, you found our first one of the night," I said.

                "I was makin' sure there weren't any more of 'em down there," Silas mumbled.

                "And instead of teenagers, you found a marker," I said. "Thank god for small favors, huh?"

                "The question is, where are we?" Jack said, pulling his map out as we went up to the marker. "I still think we're on the left side."

                Silas turned his map several different want, trying to puzzle out where we were. In the end, all four of us just marked down where we figured we were, and moved on to find the next marker.

                I slipped a little as we went down an incline, and Silas gripped my arm to keep me from falling. I shot him a grateful look.

                "Thanks," I said, regaining my balance. Silas released my arm.

                "Can't even stand on your own damn feet," he said, shaking his head.

                "I'd bet all the money on me that Jack is the first to fall," Akira said.

                "Just for that, I'm tripping you," Jack said, glaring at him. "Garrett is the clumsy one."

                "But Garrett has someone catching him when he slips. You don't," Akira pointed out.

                "So you're just going to let me fall?" Jack said.

                "If I try to catch you, I risk falling with you. Not worth is," Akira said.

                "I am offended," Jack said. "I thought we were friends."

                "I'd catch you!" I said. "But, well, I'd probably just fall right on top of you. I'm not overly coordinated."

                "That's a real friend," Jack said, gesturing to me. "We fall together. I become a mud monster, so does Gar."

                "I hope you fall," Silas said.

                "And I hope you like the firework display I'm going to send through your window at ungodly hours of the morning every day for the next week," Jack said.

                "I hope you like ten broken fingers," Silas said.

                "See? Isn't this fun?" I said.

                "Exhilarating," Akira said dryly.

                We wandered around for a while before finally finding another marker. As we left the dead end it was sitting at, a little boy slammed right into Silas.

                Silas stumbled back, immediately going into his defensive mood, ready for a fight. But then he realized it was just a kid, who had fallen into the mud from the force of the impact.

                "Sorry," the kid said, looking up at Silas.

                "S'alright," Silas muttered, holding a hand out and pulling the kid to his feet. "Ain't supposed to be running here. It's muddy."

                He noticed the map in Silas's hand and brightened, pointing at the green dot on Silas's map. "Hey, where's the green marker?"

                "Down there," Silas said, pointing at the path we'd come from.

                The boy looked excited. "Thanks! Mommy, daddy, I found it! I found the marker!"

                A man and woman came around and the woman frowned, going over to him. "Did you fall?"

                "Uh-huh. The marker is down there!" he said, grabbing her hand and tugging her past us.

                "You okay, Silas?" I asked.

                "Fine," Silas said.

                "I can't believe you didn't punch a child. You seem like the kind of guy who'd punch a child," Jack said.

                "I'm the kind of guy who'd punch you," Silas offered, flexing his arm.

                Jack scoffed. "I'm not afraid of you, pal. Besides, if you hit me, Garrett will leave you lost in the corn maze forever."

                "Quit fighting. We still have two more markers to find," I said.

                We started off down a path, only for Jack to let out a surprised noise as he hit a slippery spot and lost his balance. He hit the mud hard and scowled.

                "Called it," Akira said.

                "I am glad I came," Silas said, snickering as Jack tried to get up.

                I offered Jack my hand, pulling him to his feet. "Are you okay?"

                "I'm muddy and miserable. Let's find those markers and get out of here," Jack said, trying to wipe the mud off his clothes.

                It was about an hour before we'd found the markers and made our way out of the maze. As we started back down the lit path, I looked at Silas.

                "Did you have fun?" I asked.

                He shrugged, trying to hide a smile. "It was alright. My favorite part was karma knocking Waymire's ass into the mud."

                I elbowed him lightly. "You're such a jerk sometimes."

                "Never claimed I wasn't," he said. He hesitated before dropping his gaze to his muddy shoes. "Did you, uh, have fun?"

                "I did," I said brightly.

                "Good," he said. "You goin' to that haunted hayride now?"

                "Yep. But when we're done, I'll come to your house if you want. I'll pick up apple cider and we can watch a movie," I offered.

                "Yea, sure," he said, blushing lightly. "If you want. I guess."

                "Thanks for coming, Silas," I said, smiling at him. "I'm glad you did."

                "It wasn't bad," he said, blush growing.

                "You know, there's a nonhaunted hayride we could try," I said.

                He shrugged, looking away. "Sure. I'm free tomorrow."

                "Tomorrow it is," I said, brushing my hand against his as we walked.

                Maybe Silas would never adjust to the scarier parts of the holiday, but I'd find relaxing things for us to do. I wanted him to see Halloween as a time to enjoy, not fear. So I shifted a little closer to him as we walked, glad he was giving me a chance to show him how fun the season could really be.