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WINNIE
People always assumethat my full name is Winifred. But it’s not, it’s Winsome.
As inWinsome (adjective): generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence.
Honestly, who in their right mind saddles a child with those kind of expectations from the day they’re born?
At the moment, though, I look slightly less winsome than usual. My silky smooth, ridiculously long blonde locks have been replaced by an edgier brown bob. It’s nearly impossible to go from bleach blonde to a healthy looking, glossy dark brown in under three hours, but my hairstylist is a magician.
She’s also the only person in all of Birmingham who knows that I’m about to disappear off the face of the planet. But I trust her to keep that to herself. Carly keeps more secrets than just mine and she’s never let me down in the three years I’ve been going to her salon.
I thank God every day that I managed to convince my mom to let me switch hairdressers. I said it was because Maureen, the woman who’d been doing mom’s hair since she was twenty, wasn’t trendy enough for me to post about her on social media. She also kept toning my hair a putrid shade of yellow.
But in reality, I just wanted a place that was all my own. I wanted to go somewhere that my mom had no influence—somewhere where the hairstylists didn’t let mothers sit and gab andjudgethroughout the entire appointment.
“There,” Carly says, turning the blow drier off and spinning me around to face the mirror again. “It looks perfect.”
“It does,” I agree. “I barely even look like myself.” I finger the brown ends that reach just past my chin and grin.
“No one’s going to recognize you like this,” Carly says. “And I’m planning to keep it that way. I packed you a bag of supplies to keep up with the color.”
“One day I’ll be back to my natural brown completely.” It’s a color I haven’t seen since I was ten.
“I tried my best to match it to your roots,” Carly says, fiddling with the layers in front of my face once more.
“Thanks, sugar.” I flick my hair one last time in the mirror and sigh. “I should probably get going now.”
“You sure you don’t want me to curl it?”
“I’m going to be in a car for the next week. What my hair looks like doesn’t matter for once.” I grab the navy ball cap out of the purse next to my chair and slap it on my head. I can tell Carly is just nervous to let me go—for me to put the final stages of the plan we’ve been working on in motion.
“You’re right,” she says. “Keep me updated.”
“I’ll use my burner to call you when I can,” I say standing up.
Carly nods, and pulls me in for a hug. “I’m so proud of you, honey,” she whispers into my neck.
“You’re going to make me cry,” I choke out. “And I’ve barely even done anything yet.”
“Hey,” Carly says, pushing back to look me in the eye. “That is not true. You’re getting out. We planned this meticulously and itwillwork.”
I give her a shrug and a weak smile, and try to remind myself of all the preparation I’ve done.
I told my mom I’d be going for a long run this morning and then getting my hair touched up. This made her happy because she’s always telling me I need to exercise more (four days a week is not enough, apparently). I drove here at 6:00 a.m. before my parents woke up and handed my car keys to Carly’s boyfriend. He helped me load my stuff into the rental car I’ll be driving to Montana, and then he took my car and parked it in the public lot, and walked back to the salon. Carly made sure not to book any other clients for this morning, so the salon has been empty aside from me.
At 2:00 p.m. the social media post I scheduled will go live, and everyone will know that I’ve quit. Yesterday, I went to the police station and spoke to a female officer and informed her that I am leaving town of my own free will and that I am not a missing person—I even put it all down in a signed letter. It’s not a crime for an adult to move to another state by herself.
At least, that’s what I keep repeating to myself.
It’s not a crime.
It’s not a crime.
I am not doing anything wrong.
The thing is, the police are the least of my concerns. It’s my parents who I’m really wary of. They’re going to do everything in their power to drag me back to them. I’m positive that by this time tomorrow, they’ll have hired a private investigator to track me down. I’m sure they’ll ignore my carefully worded email to them. I’m also pretty sure that they’re going to try and sue me for theft, though they won’t have much of a case.
