“Wait,” I say, and my voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else. “Can I just…”
Patricia pauses. Looks at me in the mirror.
“One second,” I manage. “I just need one second.”
I need to say goodbye to the woman who still knew how to bake cookies for a mobster and come in court.
She sets the scissors down. Steps back. Gives me space.
In the mirror, Stevie Reeves looks back at me for what might be the last time.
Dark brown hair. My mother’s color. The one thing about me that never changed, even when everything else did.
Mermaid hair, she once called it. Said I could probably breathe underwater with hair like that.
Spoiler alert: I can’t.
I try not to think about Dario. But my brain is an asshole and it’s already there. Him watching me from across the restaurant. That slow-burn smile. The way he looked at me like he saw too much and liked it anyway.
Did he notice my hair?
Probably not. Men don’t unless it’s wrapped around their dick or stuck in their food.
But still, I want some part of me to exist in his memory exactly as I am right now, before Patricia turns me into someone else.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay. I’m ready.”
I’m not ready.
Patricia picks up the scissors again.
The first cut sounds like something dying.
I know that’s dramatic. I know it’s just hair. I know it grows back. Except it won’t grow back, not like this, not as Stevie. Whatever grows back will belong to someone else.
Patricia works quickly. Efficiently. She’s not doing this to hurt me. She’s doing this because it’s her job and she’s good at it and there are probably a hundred other witnesses who’ve sat in this chair before me.
Dark strands fall onto the cape. Onto the floor. Each one a piece of me I’ll never get back.
I should be focused on my existential crisis but instead I’m watching Saul’s reflection and wondering if he’s as good with restraints as he is with reassurance.
He hasn’t said a word, but something about the tension in his jaw makes me wonder if this part still hurts him too.
That jaw.
My identity is dying on this floor and I’m thinking about whether Saul’s stubble would leave beard burn on my inner thighs.
Patricia finishes the cut.
My hair’s shorter now, falling just above my shoulders in layers I don’t recognize. It’s still brown. Still technically me.
Not for long.
“Color next,” she says, mixing something that smells like it could dissolve a body in a bathtub. “This might sting a little. The developer is strong because we’re going several shades lighter.”
Sting. Right.
She starts applying it with a brush, painting it through sections, working from the back forward. The smell is sharp. Medicinal. Nothing like the salon I went to in high school when Katie Martin convinced me to get highlights for prom.
