Chapter 1: The Dress in the Fire
“Don’t look at me like that, Aaliyah. You’re sixteen, not six.””
Brielle Carter said it with a smile, but it wasn’t the kind that carried kindness. It was the kind that made the people around her laugh because they were afraid not to.
I stood there barefoot on the sand behind our beach house, watching my pink dress disappear into flames.
The dress I had worked all summer to buy.
The dress I had imagined wearing when I turned sixteen.
The dress I had saved every dollar for while waking up before sunrise to clean tanks, feed injured turtles, and scrub equipment at the sea turtle rescue center.
And my stepsister was burning it like it was nothing.
“Brielle, stop,” I whispered.
My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to.
That was the part I hated most.
Not the fire.
Not the dress.
Not even Brielle.
It was the fact that after years of being told my choices were embarrassing, childish, and wrong, I had started believing it.
Brielle leaned closer to the fire pit, holding the end of the dress between two fingers like she was throwing away a piece of trash.
“You were really going to wear this?”” she asked.
“To your birthday dinner?””
I looked at the flames climbing up the soft pink fabric.
“Yes.””
She laughed.
A sharp, cold laugh.
“Aaliyah, you’re almost an adult. You can’t keep dressing like you’re trying to be a princess at some little beach party.””
I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t trying to be a princess.
I just wanted one day where I looked in the mirror and saw someone I liked.
Someone who wasn’t being compared.
Someone who wasn’t being corrected.
Someone who didn’t feel like a guest in her own home.
But Brielle had always been good at making me feel like I needed permission to exist.
She was three years older than me, louder than me, more confident than me, and somehow always certain she knew what was best.
When she cut her long dark curls into a trendy style, everyone said she was brave.
When I wore my hair naturally and kept my curls the way I liked them, she said I looked like I didn’t care.
When she bought expensive clothes, they were investments.
When I saved for one special dress, it was childish.
And Denise, my stepmother, always found a way to agree without actually saying she agreed.
That was her talent.
She could hurt you without raising her voice.
I looked past the fire and saw her standing near the back door.
Watching.
Not shocked.
Not angry.
Watching.
“Mom,” I said.
I hated that my voice cracked.
“Please tell her to stop.””
Denise folded her arms.
“Aaliyah, Brielle is trying to help you.””
Help.
That word had become something I feared.
Because in our house, “help” usually meant someone else deciding what I should want.
“She destroyed something I bought with my own money,” I said.
Denise sighed like I was being difficult.
“It’s just a dress.””
Just a dress.
That was what everyone saw.
A piece of fabric.
They didn’t see the mornings I spent biking down the coastal road while everyone else slept.
They didn’t see my hands aching after hours of caring for injured turtles.
They didn’t see me counting every paycheck and putting money aside.
They didn’t know that after my mother died, I had started collecting small moments that felt like she was still somewhere close.
The ocean.
The sea breeze.
The colors she loved.
Pink was one of them.
My mother, Elena, used to tell me that pink wasn’t weak.
“Pink is the color of people who survive,” she would say.
I was seven when she died, but I remembered that.
I remembered her voice.
I remembered her hand holding mine.
I remembered my father, Marcus, promising me that no matter what happened, I would always have a home.
Back then, I believed him.
The flames snapped and the last piece of the dress fell into the fire.
Something inside me went quiet.
Brielle looked satisfied.
“You’ll thank me someday.””
I stared at her.
“No, I won’t.””
The smile faded from her face.
Maybe she wasn’t used to me answering back.
Maybe she thought I would cry.
Maybe she thought I would apologize.
But I was tired.
I was tired of apologizing for liking things.
“I worked for that dress,” I said.
“You didn’t have the right.””
Brielle rolled her eyes.
“You don’t understand what’s happening.””
“What’s that supposed to mean?””
She looked toward the beach house.
Then back at me.
“You really think Dad coming home tomorrow is about your birthday?””
My stomach tightened.
“What are you talking about?””
Brielle stepped closer.
“You haven’t noticed?””
“Noticed what?””
“That everyone is acting weird because you’re turning sixteen.””
I said nothing.
She smiled.
A different smile this time.
A dangerous one.
“You really don’t know.””
The wind moved across the beach, carrying the smell of smoke.
For the first time that night, the burned dress didn’t feel like the biggest problem.
“What don’t I know?””
Brielle opened her mouth.
Then Denise interrupted.
“Brielle.””
The warning in Denise’s voice was quiet.
Too quiet.
Brielle looked at her mother, then back at me.
“Nothing.””
But it wasn’t nothing.
I knew that.
I had spent my whole life feeling like people were talking around me.
Like there were rooms I wasn’t invited into.
Like everyone knew a story about me except me.
That night, I went to my bedroom and sat on the floor beside my window.
The ocean was dark outside.
I thought about my father.
Marcus Carter.
The man who called me every Sunday when he traveled for work.
The man who always promised he would make it home for important moments.
The man who missed more birthdays than he made because of business trips, but always said he was doing it for our future.
Tomorrow was my sixteenth birthday.
I should have been excited.
May you like
Instead, I was wondering why my stepsister had burned my dress.
And why she looked like she already knew something I didn’t.
