Chapter Text
April 17, 2006
Eden, MD
6:00 pm
The dress is older than anyone she knows. It’s off-white, yellowed with age. Ribbons and bows and ruffles and lace adorn the fabric. It’s hideous, but she has to wear it. Every girl in their little town has to. It’s just a fact of life in Eden, Maryland. The sky is blue, every girl gets married off at the age of sixteen, and of course, she has to wear the ugly, lacy, ruffly dress on the day of her wedding.
The girl sits in the pews, staring at the hideous fabric in her lap. The cheap plastic crystals sloppily sewn onto the neckline seem to stare back. She doesn’t want to wear the dress. She doesn’t want to get married. She doesn’t want to sign her life away to some dumb boy who probably chews with his mouth open and has a stupid, ugly mustache. She doesn’t even want to be a girl anymore.
It doesn’t matter what she wants, though. She has to silence her sinful thoughts of being anything other than what God created her to be. She has been sixteen for two weeks now, and the high priestess says that it is part of God's plan for her to marry. So of course, the wedding is tonight.