“What?” I asked incredulously. Was she for real?
“You had your dad wrapped around your finger, and then you had James wrapped around it too, every one always chooses you,” she said angrily. I wondered how long she had been feeling this anger and resentment towards me.
“Dad and James? You’re jealous that they care about me?” I asked in utter disbelief.
“Care about you no, that they worship the ground you walk on!” she all but shouted, “You were always perfect little Michaela, you could never do wrong in their eyes.”
“Gert,” I said softly, “Dad cares about you too,” I told her and her face softened for a fraction of a second before it hardened just as fast. “He may have shown it more with me, but he never really had much of a choice when none of you ever did,” I told her honestly. “And as for James, he and I have always had strong feelings for each other. We’ve known each other since we were five, but we could have all been friends, only you chose to make that impossible,” I finished and walked away, there was nothing I could do; I’d said all I could say. I felt like I understood Gert a lot better now. She had always disliked me the most out of all the evils, and went out of her way to bother or torment me. Now I realized it had all been fueled by jealousy. I had never imagined her being jealous of me, she was beautiful, popular, she had more than me and we came from the same home. The one thing she didn’t have were any strong male bonds or relationships. Her parents were divorced and their father only saw them four times a year if they were lucky and as for any boyfriends, they were short lived and her relationships revolved around one thing. I guess seeing dad favor me and James treat me so well and actually have a happy and healthy relationship, just made her resent me for not having that herself. It was a shame she had chosen to treat me like this and self sabotage, because maybe we could have all been friends and maybe things would have worked out differently with dad and Alyssa.
Prom was a little over a month away now. Mrs. Kirk and June were taking me dress shopping and I was happy to have them here, when I couldn’t have my mom.
“Is there anything in specific you’re looking for?” Liz, Mrs. Kirk, asked.
“No, I really have no idea where to even start.” I sighed, feeling slightly overwhelmed by all the racks of different dresses and the variety of styles and colors.
“Let’s just try a bunch and see from there,” June suggested.
“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed. From there we all went through the dresses, putting them into a large pile for me to try on. I’d never done anything like this before or tried on so many clothes. Dad wasn’t a big shopper, Alyssa and my step sisters never invited me to go shopping with them, so this was all new to me.
“You look amazing!” Mrs. Kirk stated smiling, June nodded smiling too. I looked myself over, standing in a dark blue, curve hugging dress, and it did look pretty good, I smiled at my reflection. This dress looked better than the countless other dresses I’d tried on.
“You look really good, but I just don’t feel like it’s the one,” June said, undecided. I felt like I looked good in it and I felt comfortable in it, but I trusted her judgement.
“Okay.” I nodded.
“There’s another store we still haven’t gone into just down the block,” she told us.
We headed to the next store, still on the search for the right dress. When we walked in, the store was not at all what I was expecting, it wasn’t like the other ones we’d been in that had been dedicated to prom dresses, this store was all white and chic and looked like it held exclusively wedding dresses.
“I don’t think this is the right store,” I said, feeling uncomfortable by all the white surrounding me. Both June and Mrs. Kirk, smiled at me, not sharing in my discomfort in the least.
“No, I’m sure there will be some stuff here,” June said and went to go look through a few racks.
“I don’t know about this,” I muttered mostly to myself as both she and Mrs. Kirk disappeared into the racks. I looked around, not finding anything, lost in thoughts of wedding bells and the dress I would wear then.
“We found the one,” June squealed delighted and bought me to the changing room, where an ivory silk dress hung.
“It’s a wedding dress,” I said, not understanding why they would pick this.
“Just try it on,” Mrs. Kirk smiled brightly. I wanted to say no but I couldn’t let Mrs. Kirk down when she was so excited.
“Okay,” I sighed unenthused. I slipped into the cool silk dress, loving the soft feeling of the silk as it hugged and glided down my body. There was no mirror in the stall, so I had to wait to see what I looked like in the viewing room. The second I stepped out both Mrs. Kirk and June stopped talking. June’s mouth dropped slightly and Mrs. Kirk’s eyes began to water.
“It’s perfect,” Mrs. Kirk said simply, wiping at her eyes.
“You look beautiful, Mick.” June nodded. I stepped in front of the mirror, shocked to see what was staring back at me. They were right. The dress was beautiful, everything about it looked and fit perfectly on me. From the thin spaghetti straps, that went down into a V-neck to the open back and tight waist that flared out just subtly to the floor, it was the dress. But it was still a wedding dress.
“It’s a
