Chapter 6

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Chapter 6

Steven and I remained in my room for the longest time just laying in bed silently next to each other. The silence felt comforting; it helped calm my rushing mind and aching body. 

Steven suddenly ran his fingers through my buzzed hair. “Why do you keep your hair so short?”

Shrugging, I closed my eyes and inched closer to his touch. “It started to fall out and looked pretty bad, so I just grabbed a pair of scissors and hacked it all off.”

“Really?” He laughed as his fingers danced over my scalp. “I’ve never cut my own hair.”

I smiled, which slowly grew into a grin as I spoke. “Well, it looked absolutely horrible, and when my mom came home, she got so mad at me.”

“How mad?” Steven asked with his brow raised.

“Mad enough to go to Wal-mart and buy a pair of buzzers just to fix it.” I had no idea why that memory made me laugh as much as it did, but I couldn’t contain my chuckles. 

The ironic part of it all was the fact that at the time, it was the farthest away from being funny. I could still picture that day so vividly.

I stood alone in the bathroom. I still had to go to school in those days, and it had been a particularly stressful day filled with tests that I didn’t study for and people that I hated being around. 

My stomach howled at me painfully as I stared at my sunken features in the mirrors reflection. Blowing out a breath, I leaned down, turned the tap on, and splashed water onto my face. I took a moment to sip from the stream before straightening my back and running my damp fingers through my hair. 

I used to keep my blonde hair nearly shoulder length and wavy. Somehow, having voluminous hair made me feel better about having such a… frail appearance. I always received compliments about my hair even when I was a child. Everyone told me how they wished their hair was my shade or how they wished their hair wasn’t flat. 

My hair was my pride and joy. 

In reality, my hair was the only thing I truly liked about myself.

With that being said, to my surprise, horror, when I ran my fingers through my hair, large clumps of hair came with it. I held my breath as I stared down at my now shaking hands. My heart seemed to climb into my throat as I rubbed my hands under the running water. 

Horrified, I ran my hands through my hair once more. This time, even more hair came out.

Tears formed in my eyes as I sobbed, pulling at my hair, which continued to come out effortlessly.

In that moment, I hated myself more than ever before; I felt disgusting; I felt like an ugly monster.

Without thinking, I reached into the cabinet under the sink and withdrew a shiny pair of sheers. With my fingers in place, I began haphazardly hacking at my hair. Blond strands fell like snow around my frame in the bathroom.

With each snip, I felt just slightly better. In my mind, if no one knew that my hair had begun to fall out, they wouldn’t think I was a hideous monster. When I was finished, I may have felt better that no one would know about my hair problem, but I looked at myself with widening eyes.

There were tuffs of hair all over my head in various lengths. I looked like someone who escaped from a mental institute. My eyes were red and puffy which somehow made the greens of my irises glow brightly. 

I looked utterly ridiculous.

Collapsing on the floor, I pulled my knees against my chest and wept for what felt like both forever and not long enough. After an eternity and a simple blink of an eye, my mother stormed in and gasped as if she just saw a ghost.

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