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She didn't think it was childish. She thought it was beautiful.
It was pastel green, and the poofy skirt hit above her knee. There was a light spattering of gold over it, and the top was modest. Sure, it looked like a fake princess dress, but she loved it.
"Why don't you wear a black dress?" Abbie scrunched her nose. A black dress? That didn't scream plain and boring at all, did it?
"I like the green one."
"Abigail," she said tightly. She could picture her mother pinching between her brows like she so often did when Abbie was annoying her. "Just this once, I'd like you to not embarrass the family. Some of your father's colleagues will be there, and you can't look like you're playing dress-up. You need to look like an adult."
Thing was, she didn't much feel like an adult. Why should she try to look or act like one?
Her phone vibrated against the table, but she forced herself not to look at it. If she did, she knew she'd get too distracted and end up agreeing to whatever her mother said.
Not that she'd disagree. Her mother always got what she wanted.
She couldn’t take it anymore. Her gaze shifted and she stared at her phone, wondering if it was someone responding to her Gregslist ad. She hoped so.
Now that she was living on her own, she wanted to date. She'd never been on a date before, or had a boyfriend. Actually, she'd never had a boy interested in her at all. Or a friend, really. And her neighbor didn’t count.
A sharp pang of sadness settled in her tummy.
"Are you listening?" her mother cried. Abbie blinked, shaking herself as she turned her attention back to the phone call.
"What? Yeah. Of course."
"What did I say?"
"You said..." She trailed off, trying to think of something her mother would say. She had a handful of insults she cycled through. It shouldn't be hard to figure it out.
"I told you to wear your black dress," she snapped.
"It doesn't fit," Abbie lied.
There. A perfectly reasonable excuse to not wear it.
"You really should go on a diet," her mother said disappointedly. "Anyway, I think you have an old dress in your closet here. It should fit. It's from before you lost the weight, but I'm sure you've gained it all back."
Abbie's hands clenched into fists. She wasn't big. She was short and her doctor said she was an average weight, maybe a bit chubby, but nothing to be worried about. But compared to her mother, she looked like a behemoth.
Her mother was tall and thin, not a single ounce of fat on her body. Except for the filler she had injected into her cheeks and lips. Was it even fat? Abbie didn't know.
The point was, despite the softness to her belly, and the fact that her thighs touched, she liked the way she looked. And she didn't understand why her mother made her feel so terrible about it.
It had taken her years to come to terms with her body, and to ignore her mother's body shaming comments and projected dysmorphia. She didn't hate her body the way her mother did—well, actually, she didn't hate most things the way her mother did.
Which was everything.
Her mother hated everything.
"The green dress?—"
"No," her mother snapped, cutting her off. "Do something with your hair. And put on normal makeup. Nothing outrageous like you usually do. Just something pretty and soft."
Abbie didn't think her makeup was outrageous. So what? She liked glitter, sue her. Was it a crime to glue rhinestones to her face or slather on fun-colored lipstick?
She didn't think so.
"Right," she breathed, rubbing her forehead. Her phone buzzed again, and her stomach twisted. Two notifications in a few minutes. It had to be a response to her ad. She never got any notifications.
