Keeley and her roommates stared down the many aisles of the costume store with trepidation. Halloween was four days away, and they still hadn't decided on costumes for the party.

"Should we try a group costume?" Jennica suggested.

"No," Keeley and Valentina answered in unison. Their freshman year, they'd dressed as ketchup and mustard bottles, a decision their dorm mates had mocked for months.

Keeley pouted. "You guys are no fun."

Valentina eyed the numerous "sexy" costumes—lobsters, lions, even Chewbacca—with disgust. "Why does everything have to be sexy?"

"Can I just wear my scrubs? People dress up as doctors!"

"That's so lame!" Jennica exclaimed. "You can't dress up as what you already are! That defeats the purpose of Halloween."

Keeley eyed a "sexy" Minion costume with distaste. She agreed with Valentina: there weren't enough normal options. Making her own costume might be better, though she wasn't a DIY enthusiast.

"This isn't terrible," she said, holding up a pineapple-print dress and hat.

"You seriously want to go as food?"

"Why not?"

Jennica shook her head sadly. "Your unoriginality wounds me. By the way, do you know what Ryan and his friends are doing?"

"No clue."

"It would have been fun if we'd done a group costume…"

Valentina and Keeley exchanged a look. Jennica was still clinging to the group costume idea. That was worrisome.

"Oh, this is fun, look at this!" Jennica called from a few rows away.

They found her holding a hipster Little Mermaid costume: a white crop top with purple clamshells, green fish-scale leggings, thick black glasses, and a red wig.

"It's perfect for you," Keeley said, eager to finish the ordeal. "You'll be a hipster mermaid, I'll be a pineapple, and Valentina will be a—"

"Doctor," Valentina said firmly. "I already have scrubs, and I can't afford another costume."

Jennica grabbed her roommate's arm. "No! We're finding you a proper costume." She suggested a pirate, fairy, medieval princess, and vampire, but Valentina rejected them all. Keeley spotted something appealing.

"What about this?" It was a skeleton costume—a simple black jumpsuit with an anatomically correct x-ray print, far less ridiculous than the other options, and perfectly suited to her interest in medical science.

Valentina's interest was piqued. "Not bad! I think I'll go with this one."

Jennica sighed dramatically, leaning against a rack. "No one appreciates the fine art of costume-wearing anymore."

Keeley grinned. "We can't all be actresses, Jen."

Jennica stuck out her tongue.

They paid at the counter; Jennica covered Valentina's costume. The costume shop was tucked away on a backstreet near the upscale shopping district Keeley used to frequent as Aaron's wife. They planned to eat at Burger Barn a few blocks away, requiring them to walk through the shopping district.

Keeley hadn't been there in years and disliked the social pressure it brought back. Shopping with her roommates was a stark contrast.

As they passed a storefront, Roslyn Hale and Lacy Knighton emerged with several other women Keeley vaguely recognized.

Keeley's blood ran cold. "Hide me!" she yelped, ducking behind the taller Jennica.

Jennica craned her neck. "What are you—"

"Shh!" Keeley was desperate to avoid being seen. Having supposedly left Aaron's life after high school, she'd disappeared from Lacy's radar. She didn't want that to change. Valentina also tried to shield her.

Once the women passed, Keeley's friends looked at her questioningly. She waited until they were seated at Burger Barn.

"Thanks for covering me," she said quietly. "The girl with black hair is a total psychopath who made my life hell in high school. I didn't want her to see me."

Jennica's face hardened. She cursed Lacy. "I met her at a cocktail party. She was spoiled, but I had no idea she was that bad."

Valentina frowned. "What did she do to you?"

Keeley replied, "Well, aside from stealing my husband and having my father murdered"

Her friends gasped. "Why?!"

Keeley shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant despite feeling sick at seeing Lacy after nearly six years. "She thought I was after the guy she liked. I wasn't; I was avoiding him. She's completely nuts."

She didn't notice the color drain from Jennica's face.

This cleaned-up version addresses grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure, making the narrative flow more smoothly. The extraneous sentence at the end was removed.