“No.”
“No.”
“Absolutely not.”
“That one makes you look approachable, which is not the goal.”
Finally she produces a black dress from the back of her closet and holds it up with a satisfied little hum.
“This,”she says.
It’s simple, which makes it worse. Or better. Depends on your perspective. Black, body-skimming, low enough in the front to suggest without begging. Thin straps. Bare back. Hem that hits a little above the knee. The kind of dress that looks understated until it’s on a body, and then suddenly it becomes a weapon.
“I don’t know.”
“You do know. Put it on.”
So I do.
The fabric glides over my skin like a secret unveiled. When I step out of her bathroom, Sonny’s expression goes smug and vindicated all at once.
“Oh, that’s nasty.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if a man sees you in this and remains capable of coherent thought, he’s either gay or dead inside.”
I look at myself in the mirror over her dresser and almost don’t recognize the woman looking back. Not because she’s prettier. Though maybe she is.
Because she looks…resolved.
The softness has been dialed down. The uncertainty, too. What’s left is something harder at the edges. More deliberate. This is a woman who could walk into a room full of dangerous men and make them look twice before they remember to be cruel.
Sonny comes up behind me and adjusts one strap with gentle fingers.
“There,” she says quietly.
Our eyes meet in the mirror.
For one suspended second, I see both versions of myself layered there—the girl with motel fear still sitting in her lungs, and the woman standing upright over it.
I square my shoulders.
If Deacon is out there, I’m done waiting for him to find me.
Let him look.
Let them all look.
I passed.
Not elegantly. Not gracefully. One of the instructors acts like I personally offended him by existing in his vicinity, but I passed.
Certified. Official.
Allowed to climb into the back of an ambulance and boss grown men around without a single person being able to stop me.
Cal said he was proud of me, which was very disturbing. I almost checked him for a fever.
