She breathed in. She breathed out. She took his arm.
Inside, heads turned. The same classmates who once whispered went quiet. I stood in the parents’ section, undone.
Then Eli walked to the DJ booth. He stood there a long moment before he took the microphone, and when he spoke, his voice was barely above the music.
“Sorry. I have to— I have to say one thing.” He swallowed. “Hazel. Look under the biggest rose.”
Her hands shook as she reached into the fabric. She pulled out a folded length of embroidered silk and made a sound I’d never heard her make, then lifted it high so the light caught the dark thread of the stitching.
“That dress,” Eli said, quieter now, like he was speaking only to her and the mic happened to be there, “is made of every word that tried to break her. I turned each one into something else. One a night. For as many nights as I had.”
