Three years after my mom passed, my dad’s new wife treated me like an uninvited guest in my own house. When prom time came, she spent hundreds on her daughter and gave me the ugliest gown she could locate. She believed the whole school would mock me. Instead, she finished the night in tears.
Three years after my mother passed, our house still felt like it was holding its breath.
Dad and I had learned to move through the quiet together, acting like the empty chair at the table was not the loudest thing in the room.
Then Dad started dating Alexis, and within four months she and her daughter, Brianna, moved into our home.
One of the first things Alexis did was pack up every single thing that had belonged to my mother.
Within four months she and her daughter, Brianna, moved into our home.
Brianna was my age, went to my school, and from the very start, neither of them liked me. They were quiet about it at first, but grew bolder as time passed.
“Brianna, sweetie, your hair looks beautiful today,” Alexis said one morning, sliding a plate of pancakes across the counter.
I reached for the syrup, and Alexis pulled it back an inch. “Emma, you might want to skip that.”
“Yeah,” Brianna added, “or we’ll need to get a special chair in here for you.”
Dad looked over the newspaper but did not say anything. I had given up on hoping for him to step in.
As prom time got close, I started fearing meal times.
At school, it was the same loop on a different stage.
Brianna walked the hallway like she owned the place, and crowds split for her and her friends.
I kept my head down and counted the months until graduation.
“Three months, Em,” Jenna whispered, bumping my shoulder at our lockers. “Three months and you are free. Your stepmother won’t be able to touch you anymore.”
I smiled, because she was right, and because counting down the days until I left for college was the only thing keeping me upright.
“Your stepmother won’t be able to touch you anymore.”
Prom time hit the school like a storm. Posters appeared on every wall, and Brianna talked about her dream gowns at every meal, even when no one asked.
“Mom, did you see the one with the crystal top? It is $600.”
“Whatever you want, baby.”
Dad cleared his throat over his coffee one Saturday morning.
“I want both girls to have nice gowns,” he said, reaching for his wallet. “Alexis, take this and pick something for each of them.”
Prom time hit the school like a storm.
He counted out the bills slowly and slid them across the table. Alexis covered his hand with hers and squeezed.
“Of course, Mark. I’ll find something perfect for both of them.”
She looked at me when she said it, and for the very first time, she smiled at me like I was a daughter.
It was such a small thing, but I felt a spark of emotion, the kind I should have known better than to trust.
For the very first time, she smiled at me like I was a daughter.
“Thank you, Alexis,” I said.
“Of course, dear,” she said without much thought.
I went to bed that night thinking Alexis was finally trying.
I was just falling asleep when I heard something… it sounded like footsteps in the attic. I listened for a moment, but heard nothing more.
The next evening Alexis came home carrying two long clothing bags over her arm.
I heard something… it sounded like footsteps in the attic.
One clothing bag was a little puffy, hinting at a ruffled skirt, maybe. The other hung over her arm so flat it looked empty.
“Try them on, girls,” she said. “I want to see your faces.”
That spark of hope I had carried since the day before died the second I unzipped the clothing bag in my bedroom.
The light smell of mothballs drifted up as I lifted the gown free. It was a dull mustard-gold, the cloth stiff and a bit faded, the style nothing like anything girls were wearing that year.
“I want to see your faces.”
Brianna had already ripped into hers across the hall, yelling with joy.
“Mom, it is perfect! Oh my God, look at it!”
I heard the sound of expensive cloth, then her steps rushing toward my room.
She stopped in my doorway in a floor-length ice-blue dress that sparkled under the light. The top was beaded. The skirt fell like water.
Brianna took one look at my gown and burst out laughing.
“Mom, it is perfect! Oh my God, look at it!”
“Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Mom, you have to see this.”
Alexis appeared behind her, hands together, wearing a look I could only describe as hurt.
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked.
“It’s ugly,” Brianna said.
“I spent hours searching for that gown. Hours. It is the perfect gown for Emma.”
I held it up against my body. “Alexis, it looks like something from a thrift store.”
“It is the perfect gown for Emma.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. I just mean, it does not look new.”
Her eyes went sharp. “I drove across three counties for that gown. If you can’t be thankful, that’s your problem.”
I went looking for my dad.
He was in the garage, half under the hood of his car, the way he always was when voices started getting loud in the house.
“If you can’t be thankful, that’s your problem.”
“Dad. Can you look at the gown Alexis got me?”
He wiped his hands on a rag and followed me back inside.
I showed him the mustard-gold gown hanging on my closet door. He looked at it for a long time, then turned to me and said something that broke my heart.
“Em, honey. She tried,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Dad, please.”
“It is one night. Just appreciate the effort, okay? I don’t want another fight in this house.”
He turned to me and said something that broke my heart.
His voice was tired. The kind of tired that asked you not to make things harder.
I swallowed everything I wanted to say. In three months I would be gone, living in a dorm room across state lines.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, Dad.”
Prom night came quicker than I wanted it to. I stood in front of the mirror in the mustard-gold gown and tried not to look right at myself.
The kind of tired that asked you not to make things harder.
Alexis drove. Brianna sat in the front seat, looking through her phone, taking photos of herself with the mirror.
Alexis was humming.
I had never heard her hum before. It was a soft, pleased sound, the kind a person made when something they had planned for a long time was finally happening.
I looked up.
In the rearview mirror, her eyes met Brianna’s. They held for a second. Then Brianna smiled and looked back down at her phone.
A cold feeling slid down my back.
It was a soft, pleased sound.
