Magnetic

Chapter Twenty

"Can you go to the back room and restock all of the women's clothing racks?" Tesla asked me.

I nodded and rushed to the back room.

Tesla's newfound freedom quickly lost the rush it once gave her, but not before resulting in a new hairstyle.

A couple weeks ago, a woman with long, blonde had come in and climbed back behind the counter. That had happened a couple of times, people thinking they can do whatever they please. Ridiculous.

"Ma'am, can you please-"

"Ma'am? That's extremely formal."

I covered my mouth with my hand and gasped. The woman was Tesla.

I hadn't even recognized her.

Tesla naturally had chocolate brown hair that barely skimmed her shoulders. There was no way that her hair could grow that fast. And it was blonde.

Not my color blonde, a few shades darker, but blonde nonetheless.

A few months ago, I had read this article that a majority of women going through a bad breakup usually make some drastic change to their hair. I hadn't believed it at first, until I realized that I had cut bangs and dyed my hair golden after Tucker and I broke up. It almost made me angry how predictable I was. And now, Tesla was obviously suffering from a bad breakup, using her ability to change almost everything about her hair for herself to feel in control.

"Tesla? Your hair-"

"You like?" she squealed, gathering it all in front of her shoulder blade. It was wavy, and Tesla had pin-straight hair like me. She forbid the use of hot tools to change the look of your hair; she was a firm in her belief that natural hair is the perfect hair for you.

I was speechless. It was literally impossible for me to utter a single word.

Everything this woman had stood for -hair wise, at least- didn't seem to matter to her anymore. This was definitely not the strict Tesla that I had grown up knowing.

When Dominic walked in, he did the same thing I had, saying, "Excuse me, customers aren't allowed behind the counter." Until he realized that it was, in fact, Tesla, and not a customer.

"It's long," he said, reaching up a hand to touch his own hair, as if it could've changed by just looking at hers. "And blonde."

"Obviously," she said, running a hand through the bottom six inches of her mane. I was still in shock, trying to figure out if Tesla's hair on her looked either alright or absolutely horrendous with her complexion, and Dominic seemed to already be getting used to it.

"Well, we've got a huge donation as of about ten minutes ago. I'll need some help with it," he told her, tossing a small foam ball back and forth between his hands before shooting it towards the tall basketball goal in the center of the store. No rim, no backboard. Just nothing but net.

That had been a while ago, and it still startled me every time I'd see a blonde woman working beside me behind the counter. She had gotten sewn-in extensions and her whole head dyed a medium blonde. I felt like she was starting to regret it now, but I knew that she'd never admit that to me.

Dominic was reading from a new book that had been donated, lying on the permanent back room couch. He watched me come in and didn't say anything, just kept to his book.

There was a large box in the back, stuffed to the top with women's clothing. Tops, jeans, and cardigans overflowed from it. I folded as much as I could over my arms to carry back out onto display. It would've been way too heavy to carry out into the display room; it'd be much easier to just take multiple trips.