Page 72 of Only Be Mine

The thought landed whole and certain, without panic or second-guessing. No internal debate. No list of reasons. Just knowing.

I turned to Gerry. “Can I try it on?”

She smiled like she’d been waiting for that exact moment. “Of course.”

Inside the small fitting room, I slipped out of my clothes slowly, carefully, like the moment deserved respect. The dress was light in my hands as I lifted it, almost fragile, and I found myself holding my breath as I stepped into it.

When I pulled it up and turned toward the mirror, something in my chest gave way.

It fit.

Not perfectly in the way gowns were supposed to fit - cinched and sculpted and altered - but perfectly in the way John fit into my life. Without force. Without convincing. Like it had been shaped around me instead of the other way around.

My shoulders relaxed. My breath deepened. I stood straighter without trying.

For the first time since we’d set a date, since boxes had been packed and apartments emptied and words like forever had started circling too close, I didn’t feel like I was stepping into someone else’s life.

I felt like myself.

My hand drifted instinctively to the thin gold chain around my neck. John believed in moments like this - chance encounters, quiet alignments, things falling into place without being chased.

This felt like one of those moments.

When I stepped back into the room, Amy’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Gerry didn’t speak at all. She just circled me slowly, adjusting nothing, searching for flaws she didn’t seem to find.

“It doesn’t need much,” she finally said, almost reverent. “If anything.”

I swallowed, my throat tight.

“How much?” I asked, though the number already felt irrelevant.

Gerry hesitated. “Seven fifty was what I had in mind… but for you…”

“That’s fine,” I said quickly. “I’ll take it.”

There was no hesitation. No bargaining. No waiting.

Because some things, once found, shouldn’t be questioned.

Afterward, Amy followed me home in silence.

The dress hung in the backseat, wrapped carefully in tissue and garment bags, like something alive I was afraid to startle. I kept glancing in the rearview mirror, half-expecting it to disappear.

John was waiting when I got there.

He looked up the second I walked in. “Did you find one?”

I nodded.

His smile was instant and unguarded. “I knew you would.”

That night, after he’d fallen asleep, I stood in the doorway of the spare room and unzipped the bag just enough to see the pale fabric inside.

I touched it lightly, like it might remember me.