NOVEL WEB Chapter 7: The Dress
The apartment was quiet. That kind of quiet that isn't peaceful, more like stale air in a room that hasn't been lived in. June stood in the doorway of her closet. She hadn't opened it in a long time. Most of her clothes were thrift-store basics: hoodies, jeans, shirts that stretched or sagged in all the wrong places. All of it muted. All of it forgettable. But pushed to the side, beneath a coat she never wore, was something else.
A dress.
She almost didn't recognize it at first. Pale lavender, soft like sighs. It had thin straps and a flow to the skirt that brushed the tops of her knees. She touched it carefully, almost like it might crumble. It was still intact, though wrinkled and smelling faintly of dust and something older.
She stared at it for a long moment.
And then, without knowing why, she took it out and pulled it over her head.
The fabric felt foreign against her skin, delicate, clinging in places she usually kept hidden. The neckline scooped a little lower than she was comfortable with. Her arms felt bare. Vulnerable. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and for a second, her breath caught.
Not because she looked beautiful.
Because she didn't recognize herself.
Her hair was a mess, she hadn't brushed it since yesterday, and her face was pale, jaw tight. Eyes hollow, like she hadn't slept properly in years.
But the dress...
The dress had been worn once. A party, years ago. Some classmate's birthday. She remembered standing in the corner the whole night, nursing a warm drink, pretending to laugh when other people laughed. No one had really talked to her. No one had really seen her.
Back then, she had hoped that maybe the right outfit could make her feel real. Like she belonged. Like someone worth noticing.
It hadn't worked then.
It didn't work now.
She turned slightly, studying her profile in the mirror. The way the fabric hugged her waist. The way it swayed when she shifted her weight. She tried to imagine what someone else might see. If a stranger walked into the room, what would they think?
Would they see someone worth saving?
Would they see a girl trying to pretend she wasn't broken?
Or would they just see another body taking up space?
June's throat tightened. Her eyes burned.
She wiped them quickly and sat down on the edge of her bed. The dress pooled around her like wilted petals.
She stayed like that for a long while. Breathing in the scent of mothballs and old perfume. Listening to the silence. Letting her fingers trace the seams of the fabric. The delicate stitching. The tiny zipper at the back.
Her eyes flicked to the drawer in her nightstand.
She opened it.
Inside was a pair of rusted scissors. The cheap kind with plastic handles. The kind that never really cut straight. The kind you used for craft projects in school, if you were still a kid with dreams.
She held them for a second. Weighed them in her palm. The coldness of the metal bit into her skin.
Then, slowly, deliberately, she raised the scissors and started to cut.
Snip.
The first slice was jagged, uneven. Right at the hem. She tore upward, the blades catching on the fabric. She kept going.
Snip.
Across her thigh.
Snip.
Over her hip.
The fabric gave way, reluctantly, as if protesting.
She didn't stop.
She cut the dress to ribbons. Each snip a sentence she couldn't say out loud.
Snip.
"You thought this would make you feel pretty."
Snip.
"You thought someone would love you if you wore this."
Snip.
"You thought dressing like a girl would fix something."
The skirt fell apart first. Then the bodice. Then the straps.
She kept cutting, even when the scissors struggled. Even when the fabric twisted and tangled in her lap. Until it was just threads and tatters and scraps of memory.
Until there was nothing left but her in her underwear, breathing hard, surrounded by pieces of what never was.
She dropped the scissors.
They landed on the floor with a dull thunk.
The room was silent again. Still. Except now, the quiet felt heavier. Thicker. Like it was pressing down on her chest.
She didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She just sat there, hands trembling, looking at what was left of the dress.
No prince had come to dance with her.
No mother had told her she looked beautiful.
No friend had ever taken a photo of her and said "You look amazing."
She was alone in a room with a mirror that didn't lie.
And for once, she didn't lie to herself either.
She didn't try to pretend the world would notice if she disappeared tomorrow.
She didn't imagine a rescue, or a change of fate, or a story that ended with redemption.
She just whispered into the quiet...
"No one's ever going to see me anyway."
She cleaned up the fabric later.
Put the pieces in a trash bag. Tied it shut. Left it by the door. Not out of anger. Not out of some dramatic gesture. Just because there was no point in keeping it.
Some part of her wanted to hold onto it. Maybe as a reminder of what she used to want. But another part of her knew better.
It had never been her dress.
Not really.
It had been a symbol. A costume. A fantasy of another version of herself, one that smiled, laughed, danced, kissed. A version that hadn't been swallowed by the gray.
That girl had died a long time ago.
Or maybe she'd never been real.
June changed into her hoodie and sweatpants, clothes that didn't ask anything of her. Clothes that didn't pretend. She brushed the hair out of her face and looked back into the mirror.
This was her.
Not someone beautiful.
Not someone ugly.
Just a shadow.
Background noise.
She didn't hate what she saw.
She just didn't see anything worth looking at.
The kind of face you forget in five seconds.
The kind that passes you on the street and vanishes.
And maybe that was okay.
Maybe not being seen meant you couldn't be hurt.
Maybe invisibility was a kind of freedom.
She didn't know.
She didn't care.
She turned off the light and left the room.
And the mirror, now faced with only shadows, reflected nothing at all.
"No one's ever going to see me anyway."