Ten of Me ✓

Twenty-Seven

MCKENNA

Four hours later, I found myself seated in Mom's salon chair again as she ran her fingers through my newly dyed hair. It was an auburn color that appeared more red-orange than brown and cascaded in loose, careless waves all the way down to the small of my back. As she added a flowery scented spray to it, tickling my nose, I sneezed.

"Careful, McKenna," she said, smiling as she capped the hairspray and set it down on the counter. "You don't want to ruin your new look."

I smiled in spite of everything. Even though my last transformation had been disastrous, staying Nicole had proved to be even worse, and I had been eager to escape from what had happened at school earlier that day. All I'd had to do was ask Mom, and she'd immediately ushered me into the back room of her beauty parlor with no questions asked.

I wasn't planning on going running to Noah again. That was over, and the truth was I couldn't stand his presence anymore, even when I was made over to look like someone else. I just wanted to ignore him until Saturday came around and I could get rid of him for real--because I wasn't going to let him be the one that dumped me. I wouldn't go to prom with him and I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of thinking he'd fooled me. The idea of his humiliation when he discovered exactly what had happened was almost enough to cheer me up.

It wasn't entirely enough, though, which was why I was sitting in the salon chair with the heels of my ballet flats catching on the slender metal footrest like they always did, listening to my mother's constant chatter. I didn't know where I was planning on going, just that I didn't want to be Nicole no matter what happened tonight.

"You're all finished," said Mom, unsnapping my cape as she interrupted her own story about a fussy client that frequented her salon on Saturdays. "Got any plans for the night?"

I shook my head as I stood, causing my newly styled hair to bounce over my shoulders. "I think I'm just going to walk around for a while, or maybe go shopping."

"Well, you know what? Why don't you run an errand for me, McKenna." Mom was sweeping the mat underneath the chair I'd just vacated even though there wasn't really any debris gathered there. "Can you go to the pharmacy and grab some shampoo and conditioner? The kind we use at home? We're almost out."

"Sure." I slung my purse over my shoulder and hugged her quickly before heading out into the sunshine, grateful I had some sort of agenda for the evening. I needed to keep myself distracted in order to best forget everything that had happened during the day.

The rest of the school day had been disastrous. After lunch, I'd dragged myself through my afternoon classes, completing assignments teachers handed me mechanically and barely speaking to anyone, even when I was spoken to. When Noah tried to talk to me after my final class, I'd skirted around him and hurried to my locker as quickly as I could--my fingers had been shaking so hard that I'd struggled to enter the proper combination and swing open the door. Luckily, my boyfriend had run into some guys from his lacrosse team and hadn't pursued me.

Once I'd gotten to my car after school, skirting around a group of girls who looked like they were planning on approaching me, I had gunned the engine and took off as quickly as I could, not bothering to look back. Tears had blinded my vision as I'd headed down the narrow road that connected my school and the posh subdivision that my divided family called home.

Nobody was home when I slipped inside the house after my new makeover and padded up our carpeted staircase to my bedroom. The silence in the house made the expansive hallways and high ceilings feel too empty, and I tried to focus on changing my contacts and clothes instead of worrying about everything that was happening with my family.