Prom night was supposed to be something I’d just get through. Smile when needed. Stay quiet. Go home. That was the plan. But everything changed the moment I walked down the stairs. I was wearing a dress I had made myself—from my father’s old army uniform. Not because it was perfect. Because it was his. Every stitch meant something. Every piece of fabric carried a memory I wasn’t ready to let go of. He had taught me how to sew when I was younger. Back when life still felt… whole. After he died, the house changed. It stopped feeling like mine.

I became someone who just lived there.

Did chores. Stayed out of the way. Kept quiet.

So I worked on the dress at night. Slowly. Carefully. Like I was holding on to something that mattered.

And when it was finally done… I knew.

It wasn’t just a dress.

It was the last piece of him I still had.

When I stepped into the living room, they noticed immediately.

My stepmother looked me up and down like I had done something embarrassing.

My stepsisters laughed.

Not loudly.

Worse—quiet, cutting laughs. The kind that stay with you.

“Is that supposed to be a dress?” one of them said.

I didn’t answer.