Hair
“Never cut your hair.” He says as he caresses your young head and runs his fingers through your long blonde locks, common actions from your Daddy that send chills to your bones. These words are normal to you even at an early age. Spoken by your Daddy, this sentence is as familiar as the weight of the long hair that grows to your waste. For only being seven, you know girls are only pretty if they have long hair. You have already seen the horrors of short hair on your sister Mary, who at nine mistakenly let the hairdresser leave her with just a small cap of blonde hair on top of her round face. She endured being mistaken as a boy so often she had to wear bright clothing which was hard considering her favorite color was and still is blue. Combined with the restless teasing she took every night at dinner from Daddy, she now grows her hair carefully, never letting a hairdresser touch her again. René, too, suffered the short hair blues at a young age when she got a bob instead of the trim Mommy asked for. Though not as severe as Mary’s hair loss, she still cried and complained for months until it reached at least shoulder length. Melody and you have lucked out somehow. Other than a mishap when you were younger and a curious seven year old Melody found some scissors and, taking advantage of your Mommy being at church, cut her bangs to her scalp as well as completely relieving you of one side of your hair to your neck. But, for all that your Daddy preaches about long hair and its beauty, your Mommy never seems to have it. It wavers between shoulder length and chin length, never reaching the length your Daddy desired on all the women around him. Maybe that was why Mommy and Daddy don’t kiss anymore.
You hate your long hair. Every morning and every night your Mommy tries to run a brush through your needlessly long locks and then holds you as you cry afterwards because it hurts. It is either always in your eyes or always in your mouth, making eating a hairy affair. Yet you keep it long, because Daddy likes it long and he makes sure you know you would look ugly with it short.
“You ready?” She asks, holding the electric clippers a few inches from your head, waiting for you to chicken out before she has already taken a chunk from your hair. Most sixteen year old girls don’t even know what electric clippers are. Yet here you are, about to have them used on you.
“Do it.” The words sound more like a resolution than affirmation, but she merely shrugs and attaches the correct clip and begins to shave the right side of your head. It’s a weird buzzing feeling, the cool plastic pics of the clip grazing your skull as another hunk of hair falls to the ground like the first. Like a hyper bee trying to pluck honey from your head. A nervous excitement builds deep within you in tune with the humming coming from the clippers. It starts in that tiny place you hid in all those years drowning in your long hair. Dad is gone, the restraining order your Mom helped you get is in place, keeping him at least 500 feet from you at all times. The divorce proceedings are getting nasty, but your mom is doing her best to take care of you and still fight for what’s hers. With hair showering down around you, you shed that scared and bullied little girl. You peel away the remains of the victim he made you. All those years as a confused child, not truly understanding the attention was not the right kind, only to realize it from the sick feeling in your gut screaming “No!” at the top of its lungs. This is a big moment of transition for you. Away from the loneliness left behind by the sisters that now hate you. Away from the depression that sinks you, pulls you deep with each crashing wave on the beach of your mind. Away from the mental hospitals and medications and therapy appointments just to get over what your Father considered “love”. You are bringing on a new course for your life. This is you claiming this body as yours, with the right to say no.
Jackie continues to buzz the right side of your head, making sure it is even and short. A smile spreads across your lips. There is no one better to help you progress into a new person than the first girl you ever love. You haven’t told her yet, you’re still technically dating Alec despite his controlling tendencies and his mean side. But you love her, you know you do. All those fluttering feelings and dreams couldn’t be for nothing. As she pulls your head up with a finger under your chin, you stare up at her with all your loving adoration pooling in the mud puddles of your eyes.
“Ready for the other side now?” She smiles down at her work, nodding a little to herself at a job well done as she turns your head a little in each direction.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” You respond nonchalantly, regardless of the buzzing and humming you have going on internally. Jackie hacks away the other side of your hair. She leaves you short bangs and enough hair on top of your head to flop down and cover the now shaved sides, keeping it long in the back, about up to the top of your spine.
“You look like the girl from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” You both smile at each other as she brushes loose hair off your shoulders.
You are your own now. You say to your refection, a new girl with a shocking and abrasive hair style. You don’t look the same, but then again, that’s what you wanted.