Prom Night
Prom night arrived before I was ready.
Eli appeared on our porch wearing a thrifted suit. A garment bag hung over his arm like something sacred.
Hazel opened her bedroom door intending to refuse him.
Then she saw the gown.
Ivory silk. Huge roses blooming across the skirt like a living garden.
“Eli,” she whispered. “Where did you…”
“Just put it on, Hazelnut.”
The nickname struck me like lightning. For a second my knees nearly gave out.
I remembered Mason teaching Eli how to drive stick shift the summer before he died. I remembered him ruffling Eli’s hair like a younger brother.
Hazel stepped backward.
“I can’t. Eli, I can’t.”
He never pressured her. Instead, he laid the dress across her desk chair and sat on the floor. Suit and all. Leaning against her bookshelf.
“Then I’ll sit here. Your brother made me promise, before the accident. He said if you ever got quiet, I had to get loud enough for both of us.”
A broken little sound escaped her.
“One song,” Eli said. “That’s all. Then I bring you home.”
The silence stretched.
I watched from the hallway as she covered her mouth with both hands. She looked at the dress. She looked at him.
Then she lifted the gown from the chair as though it weighed nothing at all.
Ten minutes later, she came downstairs.
For the first time in a year, she looked at herself in a mirror and did not flinch.
