“Yes,” I replied.
“I used to think that made everything confusing.
How could something so beautiful be part of something so terrible?”
I waited.
She looked at me.
“But the dress was only a dress.
It didn’t lie to me.
Julian did.”
She asked Sylvia to remove the lace and donate the usable fabric to a theater program.
The rest was destroyed.
As we left the boutique, Lily paused on the same platform where I had first seen the wounds on her back.
She stood straight beneath the chandelier.
The scars had faded but had not disappeared.
She no longer hid them from herself.
“You told me we wouldn’t cancel,” she said.
“We didn’t.”
A small smile touched her face.
“You let them walk straight into it.”
“No,” I said.
“You did.
You saved the messages.
You told the truth.
You survived long enough to choose yourself.”
She looked toward the mirror.
For once, no one else’s reflection stood behind her.
She reached for my hand, and we walked out together.
