Color Me Pretty

window.
    “It was my mother's,” he says, and he doesn't elaborate.
    “When did you get it?” I ask, noticing suddenly that Emmett has beads of sweat trailing down the sides of his face.
    “I've always had it,” he says with a smile. “I was just saving it until I found you.”
    “You're ridiculous,” I tell him as he comes to me and kisses my forehead with gentle lips.
    “Is that a yes?” he asks nervously. As I could ever say no to you.
    “It's an absolutely.”

When I wake up the next morning and find a freaking ring on my finger, I almost have a heart attack. First, I try to talk myself out of it because I'm too young and I haven't really explored life as a single person and blah, blah, blah, but then I think of Emmett and I realize that I don't give a crap. I love him. And I think I told him about a million times last night when we made love. Good for me. At least it's out there. I rub my hands down my face and try to wipe the stupid grin off my lips. I was buzzed as shit last night, but I ended up making the best decision of my life. And I ate a whole plate of food. At least 500 calories worth, probably more. I feel better than ever when I rise to my feet.
    Then I remember that Emmett is at work and I have nobody to talk to about this. I'm not fucking old school or anything, but let's just be frank. When a girl gets engaged to be married, she kind of wants to talk to people about it. Like her mother. Or her sister. Or her best friends from third grade. Instead, I call Kylie, but she doesn't answer and it goes straight to voice mail.
    I walk into the living room, buck naked and end up with a plate of last night's chicken in one hand and a fork in the other. I eat it without even realizing that I'm doing it, just because I'm hungry, just because that's what people do. It isn't until afterwards that it hits me and my stomach gets tight.
    I do not throw up; I do not obsess over it.
    Instead, I sit down and I sew like a girl possessed.
    I have to pause every now and then to look things up online, to figure out how to make a certain shape work or connect a sleeve to a bodice, but I figure it out, and as the day stretches on, my garment starts to come together, to actually form into something memorable. In the middle of all of this, I get the urge to hit pen to paper and end up finishing the poem I started at the clinic.
    [Search and find me with your/Warm/heat/strong/lips/ and become a part of me/Until you leave a brand new whole where love lives and pretty breathes.
    All of this because I finally love you enough –/ will always love you enough because I finally/See how much that I believe in you.
    Up, up, up I was flying/Up and even higher into me until I had climbed too far/To fall and I wished I had never doubted so deep and the sun/Warmed my skin and I took my first breath and in that moment/I had my epiphany.
    Love, / Me.]
    When it's finished, I flip the page and start to draw again. This only lasts so long as I can keep my shaking hands still, and then I'm up again and attaching buttons and ties and zippers. I bleed a little because I don't hold the needle right, but that's okay, the pain is worth it. The blood is worth it. I forge on and I breathe life into my creation, pulling her out of nothing, twisting her into something.
    When I'm done, or at least when I think I'm done, I pull the dress over my head and march into the bathroom, flicking on the light and pausing to stare at myself.
    It's the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. I have finally colored myself pretty with my own shades, blended my own joy and my own desire into something palpable. Tears race down my face, but I just decide to accept them because they may never stop, and that's okay. That's alright. I touch my hands to the mirror and I look at myself standing there, just a little healthier, just a little heavier, but a whole lot stronger.
    I don't know why I decide to do what I do next. I think it just feels like the most logical course of action to take, like somehow by moving backward a bit, I can move forward. I style my hair the way Kylie recommended, slash clear gloss across my lips, and slip into a pair of Emmett's flip flops. I am not going to do what I'm about to do because I'm looking for sympathy or redemption or anything like that. I am not doing it because I just got engaged last night. I'm doing it because I have to do it to make things right. That's just the way it has to be.
    So I call a cab and sit outside,