“I almost didn’t come.”
I looked at him.
“My dad told me not to wear it. He said it was disrespectful. My mom said people would misunderstand and that I’d regret it. My sister told me I was insane.”
And then he glanced down at himself and said:
“But she gave me the dress anyway.”
A young woman near the back put her hand over her mouth.
Emma Vance. Twenty-one. I had barely noticed her come in and I could not have told you she was in that building, and she had driven down from Bowling Green that morning with a red dress in a garment bag for her little brother.
And then Theo looked at me again and said the thing that finished me.
“And I didn’t want to upset you.”
That Broke Me, Because He Had Been Sitting Ten Feet Away Terrified of Hurting Us While I Was Deciding Whether to Have Him Removed
