The Dress

He couldn't take his eyes off her dress. It was a perfect shade of champagne with ivory detailed stitching, smooth and slender, wrapped around her lithe frame. The satin was pressed in delicate folds falling from her waist, and the straps over her shoulders were flat soft strips extending halfway down her arms.

He remembered when she had seen this dress hanging on display in a storefront months ago, how her eyes lit up and her smile meant that she thought it was the most beautiful piece of clothing anyone could own. And he couldn't agree more.

But he dared not drift his gaze upwards towards her face and kept his eyes strictly on the pure blank color of the dress.

Baskets of huge white lilies were to her right and left, the perfumed scent almost overpowering but he did nothing to suggest he thought so. He simply stared at her. The pink tinted bulbs in the ceiling shed a soft ethereal light on her skin, almost matching the pale rose nail polish on her fingertips. She had painted them herself two days prior, and the color was still smooth and unblemished.

Her hands were clasped together in front of her and he noted how the pallid complexion of her skin nearly blended with the immaculate color of her dress. A tiny glint of silver on her finger gleamed like a drop of metal in an ocean. Such a plain piece of jewelry seemed out of place in comparison to the grandeur of the dress, but he wouldn't want to see it on anyone else's hand. He allowed his eyes to slowly march upwards.

The neckline of the dress was a simple shallow v-shape, conservative in a way that dared imagination to venture further downward, yet his mind was no where near such thoughts. For a second, his eyes settled on the shallow recess beneath her throat. He had always thought her neck to be especially alluring and had the faintest desire to touch his fingertips against the bare skin of her neck once more but it was just a fleeting moment.

He did not truly want to touch her and know that she was real. He would prefer her to stay in this dream, locked in that beautiful dress.

At last he glanced at her face.

He could not recognize her under the layers of makeup, though he knew it was her. Sickly reddish dark spots under her eyes were badly concealed with pasty smears of some oily imitation of human skin tone. Her lips were painted a red that she would have never worn.

The dress lay absolutely still around her, and he was beginning to wonder if it had been the right choice. She had wanted it, after all, but now that he stood before her, staring down at it, he thought it resembled a wedding dress more than anything. Maybe that was why she had stopped in the window and gasped aloud, declaring her interest in such a dress. Maybe it was a hint that he never caught, and that buying it for such an occasion as this was entirely inappropriate. Yet he had done it anyways, and now the damn thing was draped around her and all he could think of was a wedding.

Her sleek dark hair was spread out across the light purple pillow, combed straight, framing her face in a way that only seemed to accentuate the complete lifelessness of it all. He could only look at her closed eyes briefly. She did not look as though she were sleeping to him, as some others had tried suggesting. Her stillness was unnatural, her complexion fake, her entire posture cold and rigid. He could take no more and closed his eyes. It was not her anymore.

His mind retreated back, further from the dress, from the lilies. He remembered coming downstairs to find her lying on the tiled floor of the kitchen, motionless. A deep heavy haze had settled over him ever since.

"There was nothing anyone could've done," he had later been told.

He turned away in silence, feeling the hard stares of others who had attended the funeral. They had gathered at a safe distance, both eager and horrified to watch his reaction. He had been the last one to arrive and now he would be the first to leave. Behind him, he heard someone close the coffin, and the finality echoed around him.

"It's a beautiful dress," she had said to him months ago, adding with a wink, "Maybe one day I'll wear it."

Author's note: In my mind it's Cloud looking at Tifa, but the two can really be whomever you wish.