The Dress That Wasn't

Years of saving. Every single penny. I worked double shifts at the diner. Skipped meals.

Wore the same shoes until they had holes. All for one thing. The dress. I found it at a

boutique downtown when I was nineteen. Ivory lace with tiny crystal beads sewn into every

inch. Twelve thousand dollars. I kept the polaroid they gave me tucked

in my mirror. Started a secret savings account my fiancé didn't even know about.

Took me six years but I finally walked in and bought it. They wrapped it in layers of tissue

paper like it was fragile as bone. I hung it in the spare bedroom. Would open the door

sometimes just to look at it hanging there. Proof that good things were coming.