I rolled my eyes because if I didn’t, I would cry.
“Mom.”
“What? I’m allowed to be dramatic. I paid for the dress.”
So we bought it.
Prom night came warm and damp, with that heavy spring smell of cut grass, perfume, and rain waiting somewhere beyond the clouds. My mother curled my hair slowly, carefully, letting the dark waves fall over one shoulder. I spent an hour doing my makeup, though makeup could only soften the scars, never erase them. Maybe that was why I tried so hard. Not because I thought I could hide.
Because I wanted to prove I could still choose how to be seen.
My mother zipped my dress.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she pressed both hands to my shoulders.
“Look at me.”
I did.
Her eyes were wet again.
“No matter what happens tonight, you are not less because people don’t know how to look at you.”
I tried to laugh.
It came out thin.
“That sounds like something from a poster in the guidance counselor’s office.”
“Maybe the guidance counselor is right sometimes.”
“Impossible.”
She kissed the top of my head.
At the front door, she took pictures. Too many pictures. Me smiling. Me pretending not to smile. Me holding the little silver clutch my aunt mailed from Arizona. Me standing beside the porch railing where the paint peeled in curls.
