Chapter 157 The Dress

Chapter 157 The Dress
The first thing I learned about formal gowns was that they were basically social weapons with zippers.

You didn’t just wear one. You declared something in it.

Money. Taste. Family name. Confidence. Whether your mother had a stylist. Whether your father was working in the estate kitchens while everyone else’s father donated marble fountains with their names carved into them.

So when Krizzy found me in the dorm corridor after final bell, I already knew the truth.

I was not scared of dancing.

I was scared of being displayed.

She stopped in front of me, tablet in one hand, half-eaten strawberry biscuit in the other. Her eyes dropped to the folder pressed against my chest.

“Do you have a dress?”

I blinked. There were questions a person could survive. That was not one of them.

“I have clothes.”

“That was not my question.”

“I have a black dress.”

“For a Ball?”

“For… situations.”

Krizzy’s expression sharpened. “What kind of situations?”

“My cousin’s graduation. A church anniversary. One time, a funeral.”

She stared at me.

“It’s versatile,” I said weakly.

“Clara.”

“I’m serious. It has sleeves.”

“That is not the selling point you think it is.”

My face warmed. “I’m not spending ridiculous money on one night.”

Something gentler moved behind her eyes, but her voice stayed firm.

“Then we won’t spend ridiculous money,” she said. “We’ll spend strategic money.”

“That sounds illegal.”

“It’s friendship. Similar energy.”

Down the corridor, girls passed with garment bags, silk ribbons, and the casual confidence of people who had never checked a price tag before touching fabric.

My stomach tightened. Krizzy hooked her arm through mine before I could invent a reason to disappear.

“Come on,” she said. “We’re finding you something they can’t ignore.”

And that was exactly what terrified me.

Krizzy did not take me to the glittering boutiques on Montclair Row, where faceless mannequins posed like they were judging everyone’s tax bracket.

She took me two streets behind it.

The shop was tucked between an old stationery store and a flower studio, its faded gold sign reading: Maribel’s Archive. Like dresses came here after surviving better lives.

Inside, the air smelled like lavender, steam, and old perfume. Racks stood close together beneath warm lamps, each dress wrapped in clear sleeves with handwritten tags near the neckline.

Consignment, my brain supplied immediately. Thank God, my budget whispered after.

Krizzy checked a tag. “See? Reasonable.”

I leaned closer. Reasonable was still two weeks of groceries. My fingers dropped before touching the fabric.

Before she could say anything, the doorbell chimed.

Celeste walked in with two girls from the senior committee, all polished hair, glossy lips, and Fletcher-girl brightness that looked less like beauty and more like training. Behind them, a sales assistant carried three garment bags.

“My mother said ivory is safer under ballroom lights,” one girl said, barely glancing at the racks.

Celeste sighed. “Ivory is safe. That’s the problem.”

Another girl laughed. “My stylist pulled emerald, but Daddy thinks green photographs too aggressive.”

Daddy. Stylist. Aggressive green. I stared hard at discounted satin and tried not to feel like my entire life had been written in a different font.

Krizzy bumped my shoulder. “Breathe.”

“I am.”

“You’re calculating.”

“I can do both.”

Across the shop, Celeste held a silver gown to herself, then handed it back without checking the price. Like refusing expensive things was also a luxury.

My throat tightened. I hadn’t even reached the Ball yet.

And somehow, I was already underdressed.

I moved deeper into the racks, mostly so Celeste and the others wouldn’t see my face doing something emotionally poor.

Every dress seemed to ask a question I could not afford to answer. I stopped at a navy gown with thin straps and fabric that fell like liquid beneath the lamplight.

The tag was folded backward, mercifully, until I turned it over. My soul briefly left my body.

“No,” I said, releasing it.

Krizzy caught the hanger. “Why no?”

“Because I enjoy eating.”

“We can rent it.”

“I also enjoy not owing mysterious boutique women favors.”

From behind a curtain, an older woman with silver hair and sharp red glasses appeared.

“The mysterious boutique woman accepts deposits, not souls.”

Krizzy beamed. “Maribel.”

“Krizzy.” Maribel looked me over once, not unkindly. “First Founder’s Ball?”

“Is it obvious?”

“Only because you’re staring at dresses like they might bite.”

“They might.”

“Only the badly made ones.” She pulled a garment bag from the end of the rack. “Try this.”

I backed up half a step. “I don’t think—”

“You don’t have to look like them,” Krizzy said quietly.

The words landed harder than I expected.

Across the shop, Celeste laughed as one girl spun before the mirror, glowing in champagne silk. Like elegance had been taught to them before handwriting.

I looked at Krizzy. “That’s easy to say when everyone else will notice that I don’t.”

Krizzy’s face softened just enough to hurt. Then she pushed the garment bag into my arms.

“Then let them notice something worth remembering.”

I wanted to argue. To say being remembered at Fletcher usually ended badly for girls like me. Attention did not feel like power when it could be screenshotted, twisted, whispered through corridors before breakfast.

Instead, I looked down. The dress was deep blue. The kind of color that looked like midnight had decided to behave.

My fingers tightened around the hanger.

“Fine,” I said.

Krizzy grinned. “That sounded like surrender.”

“Strategic exhaustion.”

“Same thing. Changing room. Now.”

The mirror was cruel because it told the truth.

The dress fit—not perfectly, but close enough that, for one dangerous second, I forgot to search for what was wrong.

Deep blue skimmed my waist and fell softly around my legs. The neckline left my shoulders bare in a way that felt too honest.

I looked older.

Softer.

Visible.

My chest tightened. I wanted to disappear. Which was inconvenient, because the mirror had apparently decided to make me beautiful.

The curtain snapped open an inch.

“Do not hide,” Krizzy ordered.

“I’m not hiding.”

Her face changed when she saw me. Just warm enough to make my throat ache.

“Oh,” she said. “Clara.”

I looked down. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I should believe it.”

Before she could answer, her phone buzzed. She glanced down, then froze.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Krizzy.”

“I may have sent the photo to the Ball committee chat instead of you.”

My blood went cold. “You took a photo?”

“For comparison!”

“Krizzy.”

“I deleted it.”

“That does not mean unseen.”

By the time we crossed the west passage, the dress bag felt like evidence. Isaac stood near the archway with Franco. His gaze dropped to the bag, then rose to me.

“That one,” he said.

I stopped. “You don’t even know which one.”

“I do.”

“How?”

His eyes stayed on mine, quiet and certain.

“Because you looked like you were trying not to believe you belonged in it.”

I wanted to disappear. He kept looking at me like disappearing would be a waste.

Then my phone lit up. The photo was already on ScholarNet.

Under it, someone had written:

Trying so hard to look like she belongs.