At the doorway, she turned back.
“You know why nobody likes you,” she said. “You make everything heavy.”
I didn’t raise my voice.
“And you make everything fake,” I said. “I’d rather be heavy than hollow.”
After she left, I laid my dress on the bed.
Midnight blue. Simple.
No room for them to call it attention-seeking. No room for them to set me up again.
I didn’t feel angry anymore.
I felt steady.
One day left, and I could tell they weren’t trying to fix what they’d done.
They were trying to save their stage.
Grandma Eleanor’s birthday was in a quiet neighborhood in the city, the kind of place where smiles come with witnesses.
Her backyard looked staged on purpose: white chairs, string lights, and a photographer drifting through the crowd like he was editing the family in real time.
I walked in on time in a midnight blue cocktail dress, simple and sharp.
