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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.
Her hands shook as she reached into the fabric.
“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.”
He stepped down from the booth without another word.
And tomorrow, I knew, she would eat breakfast at the table again.
The room stopped breathing. I watched the faces nearest the dance floor — saw the moment a girl in a green dress recognized her own handwriting in a petal, saw her hand fly to her mouth. Saw a boy two tables over go very still.
She walked up first. Whispered something into Hazel’s ear I couldn’t hear. Then another girl. Then the boy, tears running down his face.
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