and kisses me.
Love is a painful emotion, I’m realizing. It cracks open the walls around my heart. Demands honesty of me. Courage. Vulnerability. Humility. It is not a light, frilly, easy, storybook thing, where the hero and his lady can ride off into the sunset together. The lady must be a warrior as well, willing to face the darkness with him; she must be brave enough to face the demons and dragons alongside her hero if she wishes to see sunrise, let alone the sunset.
FOURTEEN
My heart is in my throat, thick coil of black hair in one hand, scissors in the other. I blink and let out a breath, stare at myself in the hairdresser’s mirror, at Logan’s reflection. He’s standing behind me, hands in his pockets, watching. His friend, Mei, the stylist—who actually owns the entire salon—has my head in her small, delicate hands. Holding me steady. Soothing. Stroking nimble fingers over my scalp.
She understands, I think, even though I’ve told her nothing of myself, nothing of my story. I told her only that I needed to change my appearance drastically, and she met my eyes, stared at me knowingly for a long moment, and just smiled at me. Sat me in her chair, stroked her fingers through my hair, fanning it out, billowing it, pulling it back severely to assess the shape of my face, folding it up and under to get an approximation of what I might look like with shorter hair.
And then hands me her scissors. “You make the first cut,” Mei says.
Despite having been moments from shaving it to the scalp mere hours ago, now that I have my hair in hand and scissors ready to make the first cut, I’m having a moment of doubt. Of hesitation.
Logan says nothing. Just watches.
Mei takes the scissors from me. Moves to stand in front of me. She is short and slight, hair dyed lavender and clipped close on the sides, left longer on top, twisted and pulled back over her head. She speaks English fluently but with a pronounced Asian accent. “It’s your choice. You do it, you don’t do it, only one who matters is you. But I think you want to do it. We donate it to Locks of Love.” Her fingers run almost compulsively through my hair again. “You make first cut, I make you beautiful. Make you more beautiful. You already beautiful.”
She hands me the scissors again, lifts my hair bound between her fingers in a thick rope, a small gap between her two hands. “Cut between hands.”
I breathe out. Snip the scissors open and closed—snicksnick-snicksnick—and then, before I can second-guess myself any further, I open the scissors wide and cut between Mei’s hands. I feel weight float free from the column of my neck. My head feels lighter. Mei takes the scissors from me and moves around to stand in front of me, blocking my view of myself in the mirror. I shake my head, and the sensation is bizarre. No thick sheaf of hair waving at my back, no long strands tangling around my ears, draping over my shoulder. There is nothing. I want to cry, yet also laugh. I’m not sure which.
“Let me see,” I say.
Mei just shakes her head. “Not until I’m done. Close eyes.” I close my eyes. She spins me around, pats me on the shoulder. “Okay, open, but no peeking.”
She buttons a black cape around my neck, and her fingers run through my hair several times. Oh god. It’s short. So short. There’s so little up there for her fingers to even move through.
And then she starts cutting. Snick . . . snicksnicksnick . . . snicksnick. I feel bits of hair flutter down and land on the black cape, on my shoulders and sliding down to my lap. A bit here, a bit there, my hair going shorter and shorter and shorter. Her scissors are so fast, moving unerringly, never hesitating. As if she has a vision and knows exactly what to do to make it reality. Like a painter utterly sure of her brushstrokes. I’m staring at Logan, who is just standing in the middle of the deserted salon, legs spread wide, arms crossed over his broad chest, eyes on me, on Mei, watching intently. His expression is inscrutable, which makes me nervous. What does he think? Does he like it? Hate it?
What will I think?
I have no idea. I like the way it feels, though. Loose, light, free. Everything I want to be, everything I’m striving to be.