I thought keeping a promise would be the hardest part of my night. I had no idea that walking into prom would turn me into the center of attention for all the wrong reasons.
The dress smelled of cedar and the faintest trace of her perfume. I sat on the edge of my bed two months after Grandma Ruth’s funeral, the dusty rose satin pooled across my lap like spilled tea.
My fingers traced the pearl buttons one by one.
I could still see the way she looked that afternoon in late winter, pulling the gown from the back of her closet with shaking hands.
My grandma had laid it across her bed as if it were something sacred.
“I wore this the night your grandfather first told me he loved me,” she said, smoothing the satin.
Her eyes had been wet but steady.
I had promised. Of course, I would, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t afford another one.
***
My mom, Karen, knocked softly and came in, holding a small sewing kit, even though we’d finished the alterations a week earlier. We’d fixed the zipper, shortened the hem, and cleaned the pearl buttons.
She sat beside me and ran her hand down the hem we’d shortened together.
“The zipper’s holding,” she said. “And those pearl buttons came up beautifully after I soaked them.”
“You did most of it, Mom.”
“We did it together.” She squeezed my knee. “Your grandma would’ve loved that.”
I looked at the dress and thought about how it wasn’t modern, sparkly, or expensive. It wasn’t the kind of gown the other girls had been posting about for months.
It was something better. It was hers.
“Emma.” Mom’s voice was gentle. “You don’t have to go or wear that dress tonight if it’s too much.”
“I have to go. And I have to wear it. I promised Grandma.”
She nodded and kissed the side of my head. “I know. Then go keep your promise, baby.”
At school that week, the hallways had been loud with prom talk, and one name floated above all the others.
Brielle.
Nobody had voted yet, but everyone already knew. Brielle had decided, and what she wanted usually stuck.
Bria from chemistry warned me on Tuesday at my locker, half-laughing. “Just stay out of Brielle’s way at prom, Em. You know how she gets.”
I hadn’t planned to be in anyone’s way anyway, so I never thought much about the warning.
The only strange thing that week was Austin.
Austin, my lab partner since sophomore year, the quiet boy who always passed me the goggles before I asked, had tried twice to catch me in the hallway.
What happened next changed everything… continues on the next page.
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