Bald And Badass With A Bucket List

Chapter 5

"My dad has a razor in the back shed. I'll go run and grab it." Aria nods and I run down the stairs and Frog barks at my heels. He follows me out the back door onto the porch and into the yard. The leaves, that have already begin to change and fall, crunch underneath my feet and I breath in the fresh autumn air. Frog bounds through the hole in the fence and I squeeze through the hole after him. We always keep the back shed door unlocked because our property is fenced in (with the exceptions of the hole I had just walked through) along with the fact that the shed is just big enough for one work bench and the load of shit piled up in the one corner. I rifle through the said pile and emerge with the razor 5 minutes later while Frog tries to catch leaves that had already fallen to the ground.

"C'mon Frog!" I call and he perks his ears up. "Frog!" He lifts his head and bounds over to me, his tongue lolling out of his mouth like a big, pink, floppy wad of bubblegum. He playfully jumps around me and bites at my heels before disappeared back again through the fence into his own yard. I duck through the fence and head into the house and up to Aria's room where she waits, sitting on her stool.

"Are you ready?" She nods silently, slowly closing her eyes and not opening them for when seems like forever. My hands are shaking as I fail to try and plug the razor in. Suddenly, a knock comes from Aria's bed room door and her mom quietly lets herself in.

"What are you two up to?" She asks, poking her head into the bathroom. I'm pretty sure now that we're teenagers she constantly thinks that whenever we hang out alone we're hooking up. She scans the room looking for abandoned clothes when she sees the razor in my hand. Her eyes widen. "Aria?" Her voice becomes higher, a known sign that she's about to go off.

"We're cutting my hair," she looks at her mom through the mirror.

"You mean Noah's cutting your hair. Don't you think it would be best if we went to an actual hair salon?" She sounds like she's just sucked all the helium out of a balloon.

"I want Noah to do it," she says, unaffected by her mother's offer.

"I'm okay with doing it," I butt in but she just waves me away.

"Aria, you haven't even started chemo yet. You don't know how much hair you're going to lose, if you're going to lose any at all. Don't shave your head yet. Everyone at school then will know-" Aria cuts her off.

"What Mom? Everyone at school will know I shaved my head because I'm sick? Because I have cancer? Everyone will know that I'll die sooner than they will? Everyone will know to be thankful that it's me and not them?"

"Aria stop," I reach my arm out for her. Aria's mom, Jenny, is reduced to making little squeaking sounds as tears well up in her eyes. She's just trying to help. I understand because I have been where she has already a dozen times this week and there's going to be hundreds more.

"Get out," Aria continues to stare ahead at her reflection, is the reflection of me and her mom and I watch too as Jenny's shoulders slump, defeated, as she leaves. She begins to walk away, pauses and backs up. Aria tenses but Jenny simply shuts the door quietly and continues on down the hall and down the stairs. I break the silence after a minute, "Do you think we need garbage bags?" Aria runs her hand through her hair and looks at it. The amount of pain and sadness in her eyes would make her a pretty good contestant for a protagonist in some divorced and drunk guy's novel.

"Probably," I then go through the dangerous task of having to maneuver through the Coleman household without coming face to face with Jenny who will without a doubt try to convince me that this is a bad idea. I hear her fumbling around in the kitchen, her sniffling concealed by the banging of pots and pans. I slip out into the garage and find a Costco box of giant black garbage bags. I grab 3 and silently make my way up the stairs without being detected, or at least being called out, because I am not the most graceful when it comes to climbing any kind of staircase. I ended up fumbling with the garbage bags and stubbing my toe on the third last stair. Muttering some things, I pull myself back up and continue on my way.

"Put this on dah-ling." I had cut a hole into the first garbage bag, making it a poncho that hairdressers use. Aria laughs at my hair dresser impression. I rip the second and lay it flat on the ground underneath and around her chair. She does and sits back down, facing the mirror once again. I grab her garbage can, which is conveniently empty and put the third giant black bag in that.

"There's scissors on my desk. That might be a good start." She pointed to a pair of green scissors that are tucked in a clay jar she had made in 9th grade.

"You're probably right." I say and grab them. Aria had thick, brown hair that grew to just above her waist. I cut a bunch of different hair styles which every single one ended up looking cute on her. The first one, we experimented with bangs which she loved. Second was a very layered shoulder length cut. Next was a bob that would have been perfect if she was in The Great Gatsby and finally a pixie cut which I refer to as the Hazel Grace. I then unpacked the razor and plugged it in.

"You sure? I, myself think you are totally rocking the Hazel Grace hair." She sighs.

"Do it." I hold my breath and let the razor buzz to life. It takes a total of 15 minutes because 1. I am not a hair dresser and 2. I wanted to make sure I got everything. The entire time I shaved her head, she had squeezed her eyes shut tight.

"Done," I say, brushing off some fuzz on her neck. She opens one eye at a time. I bite my tongue and try my best to read her but her face betrayed no emotion. "I don't know about you but I like it."

"I look like an egg," is all she says.

"Well, if you think you look like an egg, then you're a hard-boiled egg cause damn girl you're looking hot."

She rolls her eyes at me but no one could deny the small smile that had crept across her face, slowly growing bigger.