Those highlights were three shades too orange and I cried in the bathroom for an hour. My mom said they looked beautiful anyway, even though they didn’t.
I wonder what she’d say about this.
Probably nothing. She’s been dead for six years. She doesn’t get a vote.
The processing time stretches. Twenty minutes, Patricia says. Maybe thirty. Depends on how my hair takes the color.
Twenty to thirty minutes sitting here with chemicals eating my identity and Saul Bennett standing six feet away looking like emotional support wrapped in denim. My brain has nowhere to go except directly to his belt buckle.
She sets a timer and steps back. Adjusts something on the counter. Gives me space again, like she knows I need it even though I haven’t said so.
Maybe she does know. Maybe that’s part of her training too. How to give people room to grieve while their hair processes.
I count ceiling tiles. Then floor tiles. Then the ways I could probably convince Saul to bend me over this chair if I wasn’t currently dissolving into someone else.
He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t checked his phone, hasn’t wandered off to do something more important. Just... stays.
“You don’t have to be here,” I say quietly. “I’m fine.”
The lie tastes like the chemicals seeping into my scalp.
“I know I don’t have to,” he says. His voice is low. Private, even though Patricia can definitely hear us. “I want to.”
I don’t know what to do with a man who wants to witness something hard just so I don’t have to go through it alone. My pussy knows exactly what to do with him. She’s got a whole presentation. Slides. Diagrams. A thesis on load-bearing capacity.
I stare straight ahead. Try not to cry. Try not to slide off the chair and crawl into his lap. Try not to imagine him pressing those big capable hands into my hips while whispering you’re doing so good, sweetheart, while I fall apart in a way that has nothing to do with hair dye.
Timer dings.
Patricia moves me to a sink. I close my eyes and pretend it’s a spa. Pretend I paid for this voluntarily. Pretend I’m not one heartbeat away from sobbing into the drain.
Her fingers in my hair feel professional. Competent. I’m imagining Saul’s hands doing this. Less professional. More possessive. Gripping while he…
God, Stevie, get a grip.
She wraps me in a towel. Leads me back to the mirror.
“Ready?” Patricia asks.
No. Absolutely not. Not even a little bit.
I open my eyes.
The woman in the mirror’s a stranger.
Every ex-boyfriend’s rebound. Blonde. Not like fun blonde. Not like slutty blonde. Like... safe blonde. Wealthy-divorcee-who-volunteers-at-shelters blonde. She has good credit and seasonal allergies and doesn’t fuck criminals.
She looks like she gives good head because she read a book about it, not because she’s feral and has something to prove. She doesn’t eat gas station sushi at 2 AM. She eats grapefruit and says ‘refreshing.’
I hate her.
The cut’s different too, now that it’s dry. Layered around my face in a way that makes me look younger. Softer. Like someone who doesn’t notice things she shouldn’t, who doesn’t memorize the jaw movements of strangers in restaurants, who doesn’t send cookies to men she testified against.
I don’t recognize myself.
That’s the point, I guess. That’s the whole fucking point.
“It looks good,” Patricia says. Professional. Assessing. “The color suits you.”
