My stepmother bought me the ugliest dress she could find to humiliate me at prom — but before the night was over, she was CRYING and BEGGING me to take it off. My mom died three years before prom. For a while, it was just me and my dad. Then he met Alexis. Within months, she and her daughter Brianna moved into our house. Brianna was my age, went to my school, and from the very beginning, neither of them liked me. Alexis adored her daughter. Everything Brianna did was amazing. Everything I did was somehow wrong. Then prom season arrived. Dad gave Alexis
money to buy dresses for both of us. For a moment, I thought maybe she was finally trying. I should have known better. Brianna got a gorgeous ice-blue designer ball gown. Mine looked like it had come from a thrift store. The color was awful — dull mustard-gold. Even Brianna laughed when
she saw it. But Alexis acted offended. “I spent hours looking for that dress.” Dad told me I should appreciate the effort. I knew arguing wouldn’t change anything. Besides, after graduation I was leaving for college. Far away.
So on prom night, I put on the dress.
Alexis drove us to school.
When we walked into the gym, all eyes went to Brianna. She looked stunning.
Then Brianna pointed at my dress and laughed.
“Oh my God. Did someone lose a bet?”
Several students laughed.
Then more joined in.
Soon people were whispering every time I walked by.
A few even asked if my dress came from a costume shop.
Brianna loved every second of it.
And every time I glanced across the gym, I could see Alexis among the parent chaperones, smiling with satisfaction.
I remember standing there wishing the floor would swallow me whole.
At that moment, I thought Alexis had gotten exactly what she wanted.
What I didn’t know was that less than an hour later, that same woman would be crying in front of the entire gym, begging me to take off the dress.
And the reason why would leave me completely speechless.
Three years after my mother died, our house still felt like it was holding its breath.
Dad and I had learned to move through the quiet together, pretending the empty chair at the table wasn’t 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 box up every last 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 beginning, neither of them liked me. They were discreet about it at first, but got bolder as time passed.
“Brianna, sweetheart, your hair looks gorgeous 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 glanced over the newspaper but didn’t say anything. I’d given up on hoping for him to intervene.
As prom season approached, I started dreading meal times.
At school, it was the same loop on a different stage.
Brianna walked the hallway like she owned the place, and crowds parted 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’re 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 season hit the school like a weather front. Posters bloomed on every wall, and Brianna talked about her dream dresses at every meal, even when no one asked.
“Mom, did you see the one with the crystal bodice? It’s $600.”
“Whatever you want, baby.”
Dad cleared his throat over his coffee one Saturday morning.
“I want both girls to have nice dresses,” he said, reaching for his wallet. “Alexis, take this and pick something for each of them.”
Prom season hit the school like a weather front.
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 first time ever, she smiled at me like I was a daughter.
It was such a small thing, but I felt a flicker of emotion, the kind I should have known better than to trust.
For the first time ever, she smiled at me like I was a daughter.
“Thank you, Alexis,” I said.
“Of course, dear,” she said off-handedly.
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 following evening Alexis came home carrying two long garment bags over her arm.
I heard something… it sounded like footsteps in the attic.
One garment bag was a little puffy, suggesting a ruffled skirt, perhaps. The other draped over her arm so limply it looked empty.
“Try them on, girls,” she said. “I want to see your faces.”
That flicker of hope I had carried since the previous day died the second I unzipped the garment bag in my bedroom.
The faint scent of mothballs wafted up as I lifted the dress free. It was a dull mustard-gold, the fabric stiff and slightly faded, the cut nothing like anything girls were wearing that year.
“I want to see your faces.”
Brianna had already torn into hers across the hall, shrieking with delight.
“Mom, it’s perfect! Oh my God, look at it!”
I heard the rustle of expensive fabric, then her footsteps thundering toward my room.
She stopped in my doorway in a floor-length ice-blue gown that shimmered under the light. The bodice was beaded. The skirt fell like water.
Brianna took one look at my dress and burst out laughing.
“Mom, it’s perfect! Oh my God, look at it!”
“Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Mom, you have to see this.”
Alexis appeared behind her, hands clasped, wearing an expression I could only describe as wounded.
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked.
“It’s hideous,” Brianna said.
“I spent hours looking for that dress. Hours. It’s the perfect dress for Emma.”
I held it up against my body. “Alexis, it looks like something from a thrift store.”
“It’s the perfect dress for Emma.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. I just mean, it doesn’t look new.”
Her eyes went sharp. “I drove across three counties for that dress. If you can’t be grateful, 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 rising in the house.
“If you can’t be grateful, that’s your problem.”
“Dad. Can you look at the dress Alexis got me?”
He wiped his hands on a rag and followed me back inside.
I showed him the mustard-gold dress 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 low voice.
“Dad, please.”
“It’s 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 faster than I wanted it to. I stood in front of the mirror in the mustard-gold dress and tried not to look directly at myself.
The kind of tired that asked you not to make things harder.
Alexis drove. Brianna sat in the front seat, scrolling through her phone, taking selfies with the visor mirror.
Alexis was humming.
I had never heard her hum before. It was a soft, satisfied sound, the kind a person made when something they had planned for a long time was finally happening.
I glanced up.
In the rearview mirror, her eyes met Brianna’s. They held for a second. Then Brianna smirked and looked back down at her phone.
A cold feeling slid down my spine.
It was a soft, satisfied sound.
“We’re here, girls,” Alexis said brightly. “Out you go. Have the best night.”
Brianna practically floated out of the car.
I stepped onto the curb slowly. The gym doors at the end of the walkway suddenly looked very far away.
The gym doors swung open, and the music hit me like a wall. Warm light spilled across hundreds of faces, and every single one of them turned toward us.
I stepped onto the curb slowly.
For a moment, the attention belonged to Brianna. Her ice-blue gown shimmered under the lights like something out of a magazine.
Then her eyes locked on me.
“Oh my God, everyone, look at Emma,” she called out, loud enough to cut through the music. “Did someone lose a bet tonight?”
Laughter rippled through the crowd.
“Did someone lose a bet tonight?”
I felt my face burn as I stepped further inside.
