Like Old Times

This story is by RC Hipp and was part of our 2025 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

My best friend Rachel ghosted me at the start of freshman year.

One day we were nerding out over monster manuals and mythology with our boba teas, the next she started pretending I didn’t exist. It hurt like hell, so I ignored her back. That got easier when I joined anime club and made new friends — and then harder again, a year later, when her videos started trending. I watched one — it was Rachel, in full goth attire, doing her makeup and chatting about witches and demons. I downvoted the video, and swore to ignore and forget the girl that had been my best friend.

And that went alright, until the day she called me. I hesitated when I saw her name and number pop up, but of course I pressed accept.

“Hi, Becca,” she said.

“Hi,” I answered.

“I…umm…” Rachel paused, took a deep breath. “Hey, I gotta tell you something. But like…in person.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Yeah?” Rachel sounded relieved. “Do you…um…do you want to have a sleepover, like old times? My place, tomorrow night, 5pm.”

“Um…yeah, okay,” I said.

I was proud of myself for keeping cool on the phone, but once I hung up I was a ball of stress. What the crap, Rachel? Why call me now, and act like three years hadn’t passed?

Somehow I got through my classes the next day, then went home to trade books and tablet for my favorite PJs and a cute fit for tomorrow, folded up in my backpack with some choice snacks and tampons. Then I zoned out with cartoons until it was time to leave. I hugged mom, traded fist bumps with dad, and headed out.

Rachel lived three blocks away. Walking up, her house looked the same as it always had, with aloes and native Californian shrubs clustered around a yellow and green bungalow. The car in their driveway was nicer than I remembered though — no beat-up minivan but a neon blue SUV, heavy on the sport. The vanity plate read RACHEL.

I rang the bell, and Rachel’s dad answered the door.

“Why hello stranger, long time no see!” he greeted, all smiles. Rachel’s brothers, Dan and Gavin, looked up from the FPS they were playing on the couch.

“‘Sup, Becca!” Gavin greeted.

“Dad’s burning some steaks tonight, so hope you like eating leather,” said Dan.

“Boys!” their dad said, with the half-angry, half-in-on-it style of a sitcom character.

“Mmmm, leather,” I said with an uncomfortable laugh.

“Becca, get up here!” Rachel’s voice called from the top of the stairs. I half-waved to dad, Dan, and Gavin, and hustled up the steps.

“Um, hey,” I said as Rachel pulled me into her room. “That was weird.”

“What was weird?” she asked.

“Your dad, your brothers…I don’t remember them being so…”

“Corny? Yeah. Internet brainrot or something, I guess,” Rachel shrugged. “But how are you? How’ve you been? You can put your stuff over there.”

“Good, mostly good,” I said. “I’m bombing pre-calc.”

“Oh, who’s your teacher?” Rachel asked.

“Mr. Carter.”

“Ooof,” Rachel sympathized. “I had him for trig last year. Not recommended.”

We started gossiping about teachers and classmates, compared notes on movies and music. I gushed about David Corenswet, and she gushed about Timothée Chalamet. It was good, but it was…artificial. And Rachel kept holding herself back, cutting herself off with a sip of seltzer water or some of my zebra kettlecorn, ceding me the floor to monologue in a way she never had before. Maybe it was growth? But I was getting more and more suspicious. Something was wrong with my former, maybe current friend. Something she wasn’t telling me.

“Hey,” I asked at last, “why does the car out front say RACHEL on the plate?”

“Because it’s my car,” she laughed.

“Really?”

“That streaming ad money is no joke,” Rachel said with a shrug.

“Yeah, but your parents let you buy it?” I asked.

The eyeroll she gave was authentic Rachel. “It’s my money. Besides, that’s just not how our relationship works anymore.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

The look she gave me was ice cold. I’d never seen anything like it before on Rachel’s face. “I don’t know if you’d understand, Becca.”

Then her mom called us down to dinner.

The steaks were good. Everything was good. It was starting to creep me out. Last time I had seen them, Rachel’s mom had been harried, her dad had been disengaged, and neither could cook. Her brothers had kicked each other under the table and stolen my training bra. A lot could change in three years, but for the whole family to go from messy and rude to influencer-perfect…did that happen?

When Rachel’s brothers started clearing the table and her mom went back into the kitchen to get dessert, I excused myself and went to their downstairs bathroom. There was that jump-scare moment when I pulled down my pants and underwear — a vertical splotch of bright period blood, expected and yet alarming and disgusting. I sighed, wiped myself and washed my hands, and went upstairs to get those tampons from my backpack.

“Rebecca Valeria Green,” a soft voice said when I entered Rachel’s room. A throaty, old woman voice. I froze, searching for the source of the sound.

“Close the door, Rebecca Valeria Green,” the voice said. “We need to talk.”

“Who are you?” I asked as I pushed the door shut. “And, um…where are you?”

“Under the bed,” the voice said.

Not sure what to expect, I bent down and pushed aside the bedskirt. The only thing under there was a wooden box, dinged up and decorated with alchemy-type symbols. It sported a small lock.

“I’m in the box,” the voice said.

“How?” I asked, pulling the box out. I ran my fingers over the edges, the hinges, the lock. Then I flipped the box over to check the bottom.

“Aaah!” the voice cried out as I felt whatever it was tumble inside the box.

“Sorry,” I said. Only what was I apologizing to? A speaker?

“Look, I don’t have time for your confusion,” the voice in the box said. “You can think of me as a fairy, it’s close enough. Your psychopath of a friend captured me. She’s threatened my village if I don’t do everything she asks, and she’s getting more creative. She’s going to command me to make you her slave once you’re asleep tonight.”

“That’s…a lot,” I told the box.

“Please, just open the box. Or break it if you have to,” the voice said, strained with distress.

But I heard something else too — feet pounding up the stairs. “I have to think,” I whispered to the box, and pushed it back under the bed before I grabbed for my bag. By the time Rachel threw the door open, I had a tampon in hand.

I saw cold rage on her face — but then she saw what I was holding and laughed it off. “I…uh…just wanted to let you know dessert is ready,” Rachel said.

I smiled back, hoping it looked more convincing than it felt. I was rattled. This was all too weird, and as I took care of the tampon and came back downstairs I was considering excuses to call my mom to take me home. Then I saw the cake on the table — my old favorite, German chocolate, decorated with a spray of icing flowers and the words, Love You Becca.

“Hey Rachel, can we go outside for a moment?” I asked as I looked at the cake and her family, all eerily still and smiling at me.

“Um, yeah, what’s up?” she asked, and moved to join me out on her back patio.

“That’s what I want to ask you,” I told her. “Like, something really weird and probably not good is going on, and it’s not just because you have some influencer money.”

“Are you jealous?” Rachel asked, her dark eyes searching my face.

“No, I’m not jealous. I’m weirded out, Rachel. I love the cake, but it’s weird. Your family is being weird. You’re acting weird.”

“You are jealous!” she accused again.

“No!” I insisted. And then I told her, “I talked to the fairy under your bed.”

For a moment she looked horrified, and then that ice cold look from before settled on her. “I wanted to be nice about this, you know. You were my best friend. I just wanted you with me again, like old times.”

I didn’t know what to say, what to think, but I knew I had to leave. I turned to go, only for Rachel to shout, “Dan, Gavin! Grab her!”
I tried to dodge past, but there were two of them. They caught me, and each told hold of one of my arms.

“Take her to Agrat,” Rachel said, and her brothers’ cold grins mirrored her own as they marched me back upstairs.