Unhinged (Splintered, #2)(40)
Jen rotates the dress back and forth so the flower-petal edges swish. I feel a pang of something I haven’t felt in years: the thrill of playing dress-up.
“Uh-oh. We’re in trouble,” Jen teases, picking up on my unspoken reverence. “Is that excitement I see? Alyssa Gardner, looking forward to wearing a gown and tiara and hanging out with her peers? Definitely a sign of the prom-pocalypse.”
Smirking, she spreads the dress out on the bed and shakes a netted periwinkle underskirt out of a plastic bag. It reminds me of the iridescent mist that lingers on the horizon after a storm, just before the clouds clear and the sun emerges.
“Gotta tell you, Al. I’m really glad you’re not backing out.”
She’s wrong. I am backing out. But not because I want to.
None of this is helping my frazzled nerves. I’m worried about my mom, my blood mosaics, and Red … I’m worried about telling Jeb the truth and leaving him alone to spend time with Ivy instead of me. I’m worried about everything.
The last thing I should be doing is pining for a silly dance.
I can’t just keep pretending everything’s normal and okay.
“So, let’s see those boots,” Jen says, referring to the pair of knee-high platforms I found online about a month ago.
Moving mechanically, I drag them out of the closet. After stripping down to bra and panties, I tug the underskirt over my head and arrange the elastic at my waist. Then I step into the dress, and Jen zips up the back.
Seated on the mattress’s edge, I slip my left boot into place over my tattooed ankle and run my hands along the synthetic leather. It’s the same faded blue-gray as the dye on the dress, with three-and-a-half-inch soles and utility buckles that run the length of my shin—the perfect foil to all things princess.
“What do you think?” I ask Jen halfheartedly once I get both boots secured and my periwinkle fingerless lace gloves pulled up to my elbows.
Her smirk is both proud and conspiratorial. “I think all those poser frog-princesses are going to hatch tadpoles when they get a load of you.” She bursts into a fit of laughter while helping me stand. I do my best to fake a carefree laugh, but it feels flat and transparent.
Jen adjusts the clear elastic bra straps she sewed on to keep the bodice in place and sets a tiara made of artificial forget-me-nots and baby’s breath on my head. She was meticulous down to the last detail, even draping fake spiderwebs along the flowers to hang over my neck and upper back like a veil.
When she turns me to face the mirror, my breath catches. Her admiring reflection over my shoulder says she’s every bit as impressed.
The dress looks exactly like I hoped it would, yet even better because she modernized it by scalloping the front hem so it would touch the top of my knees and spotlight my boots. With the addition of the netted slip, the back of the dress barely drags on the floor so I won’t trip while dancing.
Or I wouldn’t trip, if I really was going to prom.
I drag Jeb’s locket from my bodice. The key necklace catches on it and pops out, too. Studying them both, I’m struck by how the chains are tangled together, inseparable, like my two identities have become.
Jen repositions the tiara. “Now tell me what you think.”
I’m determined not to disappoint her, knowing I’ll be leaving her soon, that all her work was for nothing. So much of her time went into this masterpiece, and so much of her affection for me. “You’re a genius,” I whisper. “It’s perfect.”
She fluffs out the back. “Just wait until you’re wearing the mask.”
I glance at the half mask of white satin laid out on the bed, airbrushed to match the dress.
“You’re going to look like one of Jeb’s dark fairies come to life. I wouldn’t be surprised if you two end up being crowned king and queen.”
Her words take me back to a time I wore a gown dripping with jewels while translucent butterfly wings sprouted from behind my shoulders, a time I was crowned as a real dark fairy queen. I can’t decide which title—the high school or netherling one—comes with more prestige, scrutiny, and pressure. That moment in Wonderland changed my future and my past … who I am in the present. I thought prom night would be just as life altering. Jeb and I were finally going to be together in every way.
But it was all a lie. He doesn’t know the real me—he only knows half of me. I haven’t made peace with the other half yet. Until I do, how can I hope to truly connect with anyone?
I have to stop wasting my time, craving an experience that feels so far out of reach now.
“How’s Jeb’s tombstone tux coming along?” I ask, trying to keep myself from spiraling into a funk. I’m supposed to be distracting Jen, after all.
“Just needs a little more distressing,” she answers with a comical lift of her left eyebrow. “And to think you used to say you wouldn’t be caught dead at prom. Now you’ll have to eat those words because you guys are going to be the hottest dead couple there.”
In the mirror, I notice that the red strand of hair has caught in the spiderweb veil, looking too much like the blood sword I used to free Jeb’s cocooned corpse. I bite back the whimper climbing my throat.
Pinning a pleat next to the zipper to tighten a small gap in the waist, Jen peeks around me in the mirror’s reflection.
“This M thing is weird,” she says, digging through her pin box. “I thought you didn’t know anyone in London. And he never mentioned to Jeb at the storm drain that he knew you. Yet he’s a family friend.” She clamps her teeth down on some straight pins and continues to mold my bodice to my waist, taking pins from her mouth as needed.