She was beautiful.

Not her dress, even though her dress was perfect. It was the way that the dress left her shoulders bare, the way that it complimented her figure, the way that it just showed off the most beautiful features that Stacy had always forced herself to ignore.

It was her eyes, those deep midnight eyes, wide and round and gorgeous, that she had only yesterday been able to avoid gazing into, but with that dress, with that jewelry putting everything out in the open and making her into an object of beauty, it was hard to see her otherwise, hard to push the dreams and fantasies out of her mind.

Stacy blinked and thought she felt tears escaping, but thankfully or infuriatingly Candace didn't notice.

"How do I look? Do you think Jeremy will like it?"

She tried to answer with her dry throat but found no voice. She coughed quietly and forced out, "Well, this is Jeremy we're talking about."

"Well, I know, but it has to be perfect! This is really important. Not school-dance or restaurant-night important, either."

"I-I know." Stacy cursed her inability to force the stutter out of her voice. She looked at the dress again and said, "It's a bit showy." It was a lie. She just didn't think she could force herself to survive through her wearing that dress, thatperfect dress.

"Yeah, I guess. I'm gonna put it to the side, though, it's probably my favorite so far."

Stacy nodded absentmindedly, looking at the ground.

She was sitting alone in her first grade class, looking at the ground. She was the new girl, after all, so it wasn't like she had expected to get a partner. She hadn't gotten partners back at her old school, either, so she didn't spend more than thirty seconds feeling sorry for herself. She looked at the blackboard for the steps before quickly recognizing them as the steps for making a paper crane. She smiled that at least the project was something easy and took the paper and folded it over itself.

Finished, she looked around to see the other kids struggling to even begin. She grinned and took another couple of papers to make a few more and quickly folded another.

"How did you do that?" she heard an incredulous voice behind her say. She turned around to see a girl with orange hair and wide blue eyes.

"It-" she forgot the word and paused, trying to remember, "it easy."

"Yeah right! This paper is too thin. It keeps ripping!"

She giggled into her hand before mulling over a sentence in her mind, making it and trying to put the words in the right order. "I…can show you…"

With no further warning, the girl sat down next to her, leaning on her shoulder in order to look closely as she slowly folded the crane so that the girl could see.

"I'm Candace," the girl whispered almost like a secret as she watched her hands move with fascination.

"Stacy," she replied without looking up.

"Stacy?" startled out of her trance, Stacy looked up and blanched.

She'd thought the other dress was perfect.

"I really like this one! I think I'm gonna take it!"

She tried to force herself to find a contradiction but her mind went blank as Candace twirled around and she saw her back. Unable to think of anything else to say, she filled her voice with false cheer and said, "It's perfect."

Candace grinned and, for a moment, Stacy could force herself to forget why and enjoy her happiness.

"There's my beautiful bride!" came a voice behind her, and with the word all of Stacy's happiness rushed away.

"And there's my gentleman of a groom!" Candace said with excitement, turning to kiss him passionately.

"I love you so much," he said.

Stacy held her tongue.