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Anytha. Anytha put them on as gracefully as possible, and stood up to inspect herself.
    The hem of the dress hit Anytha mid-thigh, and highlighted her long, muscular legs beautifully. The heels made her calves form chiseled, but feminine, round lines. The dress hugged around her torso, and the velvet bodice ended like a strapless dress, with a sweetheart shape on her chest. Snugly around her neck was a strip of velvet in the shape of a short turtleneck, about two inches wide. Connecting the bodice to the collar was see-through black mesh, forming a triangular shape from the neck to the bodice. The mesh formed the same triangular shape in the back from the neck to the top of the bodice. The dress did, in fact, look as if it was made for her. She felt covered enough.
    Anytha smiled at her reflection. She decided that the dress was adequate enough and told the clerk that she could wrap it up. The clerk unzipped the top of the dress for her, and Anytha headed back to the dressing room to get changed.
    “I’m pretty jealous that you picked the first one you even tried on! Why is it never so simple for me?” Delah asked as she passed Anytha, this time wearing a stiff red taffeta dress.
    As Anytha pulled on her skirt, she realized that she hadn’t even looked at the price tag on the dress. For some reason she knew that her mother wouldn’t care how much it cost if she approved of it. She hung the dress on the hook, and flipped the tag around. It was 3,100 rands, much more than she thought that the dress was worth, but she knew it was around the price her parents were expecting to pay. She flicked the tag, slipped on her t-shirt, and walked back into the store.
    Anytha sat and watched her mother try on dresses for another forty-five minutes, and with each one, the compliments flowed from the staff. Delah finally decided on an off-the-shoulder blue taffeta dress with one strap, which hugged her tummy and hips in all the right places. She decided to put it back on one more time before she bought it, with a pair of silver heels. She tousled her hair, pinched her cheeks and pouted her lips in front of the mirrors, finally giving the saleswoman a reassuring nod and a wink. This was the one for her.
    They walked up to the counter together and laid their bags and boxes down.
    “Your total comes to 7857.57 rands,” the cashier said, unswayed.
    Delah swiped her credit card with confidence, and looked over at Anytha, who rose up onto her toes, half-smiled, and raised her eyebrows.
    A few more months and the day would come and go. A few more months and it would all be over.
    C h a p t e r  2
    Tabitha could tell that the sunrise was going to be breathtaking this morning. The gray sky was fluffed with clouds overhead, and she knew that they would be stunning drenched in the morning light. She couldn’t wait to make it out to their spot this morning, and take a moment to sip the sky—to drink in the few minutes of the week where she felt free from the concrete walls of the compound.
    She had left her room a half-hour earlier than normal, not really knowing why she had awoken so early, but excited to take the hike out to the rock where she and Marguerite could talk without worry of anyone listening. It had been their custom for two years to sneak out to the dam long before the other residents were awake and sit among the boulders under the overpass, skipping rocks on the Vaal, and observing the water levels as the seasons changed.
    Her sandaled feet clung to the rocks along the pathway that she had beaten through the small patch of trees just beyond the concrete wall, as her flashlight lit the way down to the river. Tabitha reached their meeting place an hour before sunrise, and knew that Marguerite wouldn’t be arriving for half an hour.
    Marguerite was intelligent and fascinating, and Tabitha loved her as if she was her own sister. Tabitha didn’t mind waking up hours before sunrise just to have a few minutes alone with Marguerite, to