Chapter 1 - The Boy in the Red Dress
The laughter began before Aaron Mitchell reached the center of the stage.
Laura heard it spreading through Westbridge High School’s auditorium like a wave.
First whispers.
Then giggles.
Then open laughter.
Six hundred people were watching her eighteen-year-old son cross the graduation stage in a bright red formal dress beneath his graduation stole.
Laura couldn't breathe.
Two weeks earlier, Aaron had shown her the dress at two in the morning.
“I'm wearing it to graduation.”
She had nearly dropped her coffee.
“No.”
“I have to.”
“They'll destroy you.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Aaron had looked at her with the exhausted determination she'd been seeing more often since his father, Michael, died eight months earlier.
“Because I promised.”
“Promised who?”
Aaron wouldn't answer.
Now Laura sat in the third row watching that promise unfold.
Aaron reached the principal.
Someone shouted:
“What is WRONG with that guy?”
Laughter exploded.
Aaron's face reddened, but he accepted his diploma.
Then Brent Calloway stood near the front.
Brent had tormented Aaron since middle school, but this time there was something almost frantic behind his cruelty.
“What are you supposed to be?!”
He exaggerated Aaron's walk.
More laughter.
Aaron tried to ignore him.
Then Brent grabbed the hem of the dress.
Hard.
Aaron stumbled.
Something inside him snapped.
He kicked Brent away.
Brent crashed backward.
The auditorium gasped.
Aaron immediately walked toward the microphone.
Laura stood.
“Aaron.”
He looked directly at her.
“I kept my promise to them.”
Them.
Not her.
Not Michael.
Them.
Laura's stomach tightened.
Then Aaron turned the collar of the dress.
There was embroidery inside.
Old.
Faded.
He read it aloud.
“Rebecca.”
Laura screamed.
“DON'T!”
Silence swallowed the auditorium.
Aaron stared at her.
“Who is Rebecca?”
Laura couldn't answer.
Then Brent stood.
His face had gone completely white.
Aaron noticed.
“Do you know her?”
Brent backed away.
Laura began crying.
“That dress…”
Aaron waited.
Laura whispered:
“That dress was buried with her.”
Aaron looked down at himself.
For the first time, he seemed frightened of what he was wearing.
Brent whispered:
“No.”
Everyone turned.
His father, Principal Daniel Calloway, rose sharply from his seat.
“Brent. Stop.”
But Brent stared at Laura.
“Rebecca wasn't in that coffin.”
Aaron's voice shook.
“Then who was?”
Brent looked at his father.
May you like
And Daniel Calloway silently mouthed one word.
Don't.
