Chapter 1
I had saved for my graduation dress one shift at a time.
Every Saturday at the bakery, I counted tips while my friends made plans for the ceremony. I passed on movies and new shoes. When I finally bought the pale blue silk dress, I hung it where I could see it from my bed.
On graduation morning, I found it on the floor.
The skirt had been cut into strips. One sleeve hung by a thread.
For a moment, I thought I had walked into the wrong room. Then I saw the empty hanger swinging from my closet door.
Mia stood in the doorway.
My stepsister was seventeen, one year younger than me. She had a pair of scissors in her hand and a smile she made no effort to hide.
“Why?” I asked.
She looked at the dress. “It never suited you.”
I dropped to my knees and tried to fit two pieces of silk together. I had worked nearly six months to pay for it. I knew every seam because I had checked them whenever I worried I’d made a mistake spending so much.
“You knew I was wearing it today.”
“Obviously.”
My stepmother, Vanessa, appeared behind her.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
I held up the ruined sleeve.
“Mia cut my dress.”
Vanessa’s eyes flicked to the scissors. She had seen them. I waited for her to take them away or ask Mia what she’d done.
Instead, she sighed.
“Aaliyah, please don’t cry over a dress.”
“I paid for it myself.”
“Then you know better than to leave expensive things where someone might damage them.”
Mia laughed.
I looked at Vanessa. “You’re blaming me?”
“I’m telling you to calm down before your father comes home and you make the whole day about this.”
The ceremony started in four hours. I had shoes, a gown, and no dress to wear beneath it. My hands were shaking too much to search the closet for anything else.
Mia leaned against the doorframe.
“I did you a favor,” she said. “It was ugly.”
That was when I heard Dad coming up the stairs.
He had left early to collect my grandmother from the train station. I knew they were back because he called my name from the hall, cheerful at first.
Then he reached my door.
He looked at me on the floor. He looked at the silk in my hands, then at the strips scattered around my knees.
His face changed.
“What happened?”
“Mia had an accident with the scissors,” Vanessa said.
“No,” I said. “She cut it on purpose.”
Dad turned to Mia. “Is that true?”
Mia lifted her chin. “She was acting like that dress made her better than everybody.”
“You cut it?”
“So what if I did?”
Dad stayed quiet. I watched his hand close around the strap of the bag he was carrying. I had expected him to tell Mia to apologize and Vanessa to make another excuse. That was how most arguments ended in our house.
He set the bag down.
Then he walked past them.
“Daniel,” Vanessa said. “Where are you going?”
Dad didn’t answer. I heard Mia’s bedroom door open across the hall.
She straightened at once. “Stay out of my room.”
Dad came back carrying the designer handbag Mia had received for her birthday. She talked about its price every day. Three thousand dollars, she reminded us whenever anyone came near it.
“Put that down,” she said.
Dad held it in one hand. With the other, he picked up the scissors Mia had left on my dresser.
“Dad,” I said.
I had never heard my own voice sound so small.
Mia took a step toward him. “Don’t touch my bag.”
He looked at the ruined dress, then at her.
The scissors closed through the leather. He cut down the side until the bag split open.
Mia screamed.
Vanessa grabbed the doorframe. “Have you lost your mind?”
Dad let the scissors fall onto the dresser. He dropped the bag at Mia’s feet.
“It hurts when somebody destroys something you love,” he said.
Mia stared at the bag. For the first time that morning, her smile was gone.
Dad turned to Vanessa.
“You watched her stand here and laugh.”
“I didn’t know she was going to cut the dress.”
“You knew when you came into this room.”
Vanessa opened her mouth, but he stopped her.
“Take what you need and go to your sister’s. Mia goes with you.”
“You can’t throw us out,” Vanessa said.
“I’m asking you to leave today. We’ll talk about everything else after Aaliyah graduates.”
Mia looked from Dad to me.
“This is her fault.”
Dad moved between us. “You chose to cut her dress. I chose what I did to your bag. Don’t put either choice on Aaliyah.”
My grandmother appeared behind him. She saw the silk on the floor and pressed a hand to her mouth.
I wished she hadn’t seen me crying.
She came in, knelt beside me, and took the torn sleeve gently from my hands.
“Let’s see what you can wear,” she said.
I looked past her at Dad. Mia was crying now. Vanessa was pulling her toward the hallway.
I should have felt relieved. Instead, I felt frightened by how quickly our house had changed.
Dad knelt on my other side.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have stopped this long before today.”
I didn’t know whether he meant the dress or all the smaller things that had led to it.
Grandma opened my closet. Dad gathered the pieces from the floor so I wouldn’t have to step on them.
Down the hall, Mia slammed a drawer. Vanessa was on the phone with her sister. Everyone was moving, but I was still kneeling where I had found my dress.
Dad held out his hand.
May you like
“We’re getting you to graduation,” he said.
I took it and stood. I wanted to believe that the day could still belong to me. First, I needed to find something to wear.
