My Sister's Cruel Birthday Gift Left Me Speechless, But an Old Prom Dress Helped Me Get Even – Story of the Day

On my birthday, my sister gifted me a novelty plate with the cruelest messages about my weight printed on the rim. My fiancé was furious, my mother brushed it off, and I sat in silence, humiliated. I knew then that it was time I gave my sister a wake-up call.

I was sitting at my parents' dining table for my birthday dinner, feeling pretty good about myself for once.

"Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?" Jack, my fiancé, whispered, leaning in close.

"Yeah, five minutes ago." I grinned at him and drank in the loving look in his eyes.

I'd been going to therapy for about six months at that point, working through some pretty deep stuff about body image and self-worth.

Dr. Garcia had been helping me understand that the voice in my head mocking my weight and telling me I wasn't good enough sounded suspiciously like Beth, my sister.

She waltzed in at that moment, fashionably late, with a 1000-lumen smile and a gift bag.

"Looks like I got here just in time to liven things up," she declared, giving me a once-over as she sat. "Remember senior year when Coach made me captain of the cheer squad even though technically I wasn't supposed to repeat? He said no one else had my spirit."

Here we go, I thought. The Beth Show was officially underway.

Jack squeezed my hand tighter. He'd heard these stories before; we all had. Beth had peaked at 17, and she'd been coasting on those fumes ever since.

"You've always been a ray of sunlight, sweetheart." Mom smiled at Beth as she set down my birthday cake.

Jack and I exchanged a glance.

Beth, a ray of sunlight? More like a solar death ray.

Beth suddenly stood and held up the gift bag. "Oh! Before we cut the cake, I want to give Lena her gift."

"Careful," she said, passing it to me with a predatory grin. "It's fragile."

My family watched as I pulled out tissue paper, then lifted out a white ceramic plate. For a second, I thought it was just a regular plate, then I saw the writing around the rim.

"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

"Do you really need that second helping?"

"You'd be so pretty if you lost a little weight."

"Have you counted the calories?"

The words cut me, but I couldn't stop staring at it. Heat crept over my cheeks.

"Now you have the perfect plate to eat your cake on!" Beth declared, throwing her head back with laughter.

"That's not funny," Jack snapped.

"Come on! Stop being so sensitive. It's just a joke. God, Lena, you used to be able to laugh at yourself."

Beth rolled her eyes. As if my willingness to be the butt of her jokes was something I'd lost instead of something I'd chosen to leave behind.

"Beth, that's enough," Mom said, but she was already reaching for the cake server, ready to move on.

I glanced from Mom to Beth. Six months of learning to love myself and recognize my worth, to understand that the voice telling me I wasn't enough was learned, not true.

And Beth had just undone it all with one cruel gift.

No. I'd worked too hard to get where I was to let Beth drag me back down.

I set the plate carefully on the table and stood. "Thank you for the gift, Beth. It's very thoughtful."

Her eyebrows shot up. She'd clearly been expecting tears, or anger, or one of my old defensive responses.

"You're welcome, Sis."

"I think I'm going to head home now." I leaned down to kiss Mom's cheek. "Thank you for dinner."

Jack was already standing. We said our goodbyes and left. The tears started the minute we were in the car, and were flowing freely by the time we reached the end of the street.

"Don't let her get to you," Jack murmured, reaching across to place his hand on my thigh. "You were great in there."

"No, I wasn't." I sniffed and wiped my eyes. "Great would've been me telling Beth that she's a toxic witch, that my doctor says my BMI is healthy, and that I'm currently around the same size she was during her precious high school golden era."

Jack chuckled. "Can you imagine the look on her face?"

I could, along with the dramatic tears, and Mom sternly telling me not to be so cruel to Beth. I sighed. Beth would never change, not without a wake-up call.

***

Three days later, I had a lightbulb moment while blow-drying my hair. I knew exactly how to knock my sister off her pedestal.

I drove to my parents' house that afternoon. Mom was in the living room working on her embroidery.

"Hi, sweetheart," she said. "What brings you by?"

"I wanted to go through some of my old stuff. You know, for the wedding. Jack and I want to include some nostalgic elements."

"Of course. All the old things are probably in the attic."

I nodded, but I already knew I wouldn't be climbing into the attic. What I was looking for wouldn't be shoved in a box with broken toys. No, Mom would have preserved it like a holy relic.

I headed down the hall to the storage closet. Behind a row of winter coats and garment bags, I found exactly what I was looking for: Beth's prom dress.

The royal blue taffeta rustled as I lifted it from the hanger. Not a single crystal bead was missing from the bodice. It looked like it had been bought yesterday.

I remembered Beth spinning in front of the mirror that night while Mom clapped and cooed, "My beautiful queen."

I'd stood in the corner, wishing Mom would tell me I looked beautiful, too. But she'd been too busy admiring Beth, taking picture after picture, making sure every angle captured her perfection.

I held the dress up. It would be a snug fit, but I could make it work.

I smiled as I slid the gown back into its garment bag, stuffed it into the trash bag I'd brought, and tucked it under my arm.

On my way out, I called to Mom, "Found what I was looking for!"

"That's nice, dear," she replied, still absorbed in her embroidery.

Once I was in my car, I sent Beth a text: "Dinner at mine tomorrow? 7 p.m.?"

Her response came back almost immediately: "Sure! See you then!"

***

I was already waiting by the door when my doorbell rang the next day. I steadied myself with a deep breath, then tugged the door open wide. Her jaw dropped when she saw what I was wearing.

"What do you think?" I asked, giving a little twirl just like she used to do.

Beth's face flushed red.

"I think you had no right to take my prom dress! I was crowned Homecoming Queen in that dress!"

"How could I forget? You never stop talking about it. Do you want to know why I took your prom dress?" I asked, stepping aside to let her in.

"I don't need to ask. You've always been jealous of how I look."

"No, Beth. I got to thinking after you gave me that plate on my birthday, and I realized something. You've picked on me my entire life. When it wasn't about my weight, it was my hair, or the way I laughed, or how hard I studied. You were never happy unless you were making me feel small—"

"Small?" Beth interrupted, pointedly looking me up and down. "That's an interesting choice of words for someone like you."

"You mean someone who fits into the dress you wore when you were 17? Do you think this dress would still fit you, Beth?"

Beth's face turned red. For a moment, I thought she might leap on me and we'd end up fighting in the hall the way we used to when we both were little. Then, her lower lip quivered, and tears sparkled in her eyes.

"How dare you?" she whispered. "That dress is sacred. It represents—"

"What? Your best days being behind you? Beth, you're in your 30s, and you're still talking about high school like it happened yesterday. Don't you want more than that?"

She looked at me with a vulnerability I'd never seen before. For a moment, I thought I'd actually gotten through to her. I reached out, but she curled her lip and twisted away from my hand like it might burn her.

"At least I had the best days," she spat. "I was Homecoming Queen! And I dated the captain of the football team. I was the prettiest and most popular girl in the whole school, and you were just a freakish little nerd."

We stared at each other in silence. Beth was crying freely now, tears running down her face.

Looking at her, I began to wonder if I was wrong; maybe Beth was so stuck in the past that nothing could snap her out of it.

Still, I'd invited her here to get years' worth of bottled-up emotions off my chest, and I wasn't going to let her leave until I'd had my say.

"Beth, I wore this dress tonight because I thought it was the only way I could prove to you how ridiculous you are, but there's just no getting through to you, is there? I spent my whole life letting you make me feel like I was too big, too much, but somehow never enough. I'm done with that now."

I closed the door and leaned against it, my heart pounding.

A soft round of applause sounded behind me, and I turned to see Jack stepping out of our living room. He'd been hiding back there like we'd planned, ready to intervene if things got too heated.

"You were amazing!" he said.

"Thanks, baby. Now, can you please help me out of this dress? I feel ridiculous."

Jack obligingly worked the zipper down my back, his fingers gentle against my spine. For the first time in my life, I'd been able to hold a mirror up to Beth and force her to see what it felt like to be belittled and mocked.

I shuffled to the bedroom to change. When I stepped back out into the hallway, Jack was waiting for me.

"I've got something for you," he said. "I thought you might want to break it."

Jack pulled out the plate Beth had gifted me on my birthday. I took it and read the hurtful words printed on the rim once more.

"I can't imagine why anyone would make something so horrible," I muttered.

"That's why it belongs in the trash, in as many pieces as possible."

I smiled at him, then took his hand and led him outside. I raised the plate over my head and threw it down on the drive as hard as I could.

It broke with a satisfying crack! Ceramic shards skipped across the drive.

Jack let out a whoop and pulled me into his arms. I laughed as he spun me around.

Jack whispered, "You're beautiful, Lena, inside and out. And I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you."

Dr. Garcia would probably tell me that confronting Beth wasn't the healthiest way to handle the situation, and she'd probably be right. However, the healthy approach isn't always what you need.

Sometimes you need to put on your sister's prom dress and show her exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end of her cruelty.

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