I turned her toward me, focusing on the bangs. “Yes, it did.”
A few minutes later, I had finished with her new haircut.
“You look beautiful.” I took a step back and admired my work. The once long golden waves were now at shoulder-length with layered glossy blonde strands.
“Let me see!”
I turned the chair around and watched her bubble over with excitement. “I love it! I was so scared to do this, but since my best friend is the fucking bomb, I knew you would make me look good!”
I chuckled. “I’m just happy you like it.”
“What’s not to like?” Randal asked. “Come, sit over here, and I will do your nails.”
She checked her phone. “I would love to, but Luca’s been calling non-stop. He’s got a shift at the ER, so I have to get home to Lance. Next time?”
He pouted, which was comical in itself. Randal was an older man with squinty brown eyes, ruddy wrinkled skin, and neatly-combed snow-white hair. “Fine, next time it is. But, I will come to find you if you don’t come back. You’re a new mom. You should be pampered.”
“He’s right, you know. Give Lance a big hug from Auntie Eve.” I undid the tie-dye cape from around her neck, and she got to her feet.
“You know I will.” We went to the register and I rang her up before she left.
After cleaning up my station, I toyed with a red curl that hung over my eyes.
“And when exactly are you planning on settling down, Eve?” Randal asked, sitting backward on the chair at his station.
I chuckled, catching my reflection in the mirror. My hair was a natural vibrant red with loose curls. I’d grown it out so it was halfway down my back now. A light dusting of freckles littered my face. Hesitant honey-brown eyes stared back at me behind thick-rimmed glasses.
A year ago, I had escaped from an abusive relationship with Mags’ cousin. Gerald had transformed my life into a world without joy. I had been isolated from my friends, family, and my work. Whatever made me feel powerful, he had diminished into worthless tufts. Looking back, I could see the mechanisms of control. I noticed the disapproval, judgment, and withholding of affection. His lies were the bars of an invisible cage, and when I was caught within it, the last flicker of my soul extinguished in the nuclear-winter we had become.
He grabbed me at the resort we were staying at for my other best friend’s, Faith’s, wedding. It was the first time he’d put his hands on me, and Luca had witnessed it. It was a shit show. I finally gained the courage I needed to leave him, but he snapped. He beat the hell out of me, and Faith took me to the hospital.
He ended up being arrested and serving a year in jail. The restraining order I was granted lasted for two years, so I had a year left before I had to renew it. I didn’t know when he was supposed to get out, but I knew it would be soon.
My chest tightened at the thought, and I swallowed the lump that began to form. “Oh, Randal. Dating isn’t for me.”
“I know the last one was an abominable monster, but it doesn’t mean you should close yourself off completely.”
I shrugged, gathering my supplies and placed them in the alcohol to sanitize. “I know they aren’t all bad.” Flynn’s perfect face flashed in my head, but I shook the vision away. “But, every time I try, I end up burned.”
His eyes softened, and he went to say something else but the ding of a bell interrupted him as one of his clients walked in the door. He gave me a look that said the conversation wasn’t over before he started gushing over the client.
It wasn't that I didn’t believe in love. I loved my high school sweetheart with everything I had, but I didn't like love. Any encounter with that emotion on a romantic front had been a bad one. My body learned to reject the feeling, like a foreign germ. I still had love in my heart for Flynn, the teenage dirtbag that up and left me without a word, but I had suffered from the heartbreak of losing him. The one time I tried to get over him had ended worse than I thought possible.
I wasn’t open to finding love again, and that was okay.
It was fucked up, being here again after swearing I’d never come back. It didn’t matter how long I'd been gone, I remembered every fucking detail about the hellhole of Violet Ridge. The small town where everyone knew everyone’s business. But what was more ingrained into my memory was Rockwell Farms, the farm I’d grown up on.
The decrepit farmhouse set amid the wheat, golden ears moved with the unseen wind. It had walls like a prison, painted white with window frames of mahogany. The old hay barn to the left of the house had stables in the front with half-doors. Fallen leaves scattered the dirt path, covering it in reds and oranges. They crunched under my boots as I made my way to the door, the uneven path making it difficult for me to walk with my damn prosthetic leg as I dragged my luggage behind me. I raised my fist and pounded on the door.
A flower pot to the right of the door was filled with pink and yellow chrysanthemums, the soft tinkling of the wind chimes reminded me of summer afternoons I spent with the girl who claimed my heart in high school. Being back here slammed me with bittersweet memories of her.
The door opened slowly, and Ma's round face peeked out. Her misty gray eyes welled up as she embraced me in a tight hug. My shoulders tensed, and I took a step back.
She hesitated before grabbing the suitcase and ushering me inside. “I’m glad you’re home. It’s been far too long.”
“Not long enough,” I muttered.
The living room had always been small and stuffy. Dusty roller-blinds hung in the windows with a red brick wood-burning fireplace in the center of the room. It was dimly lit with the vintage wall sconces that hung on the nicotine-stained walls like earrings. Thick velvet blue curtains were pulled to the sides, showing a glimpse of the pastures. An antique loveseat stood on the opposite side of a different antique couch from the hand-woven rug in front of the fireplace, accompanied by rich velvet armchairs that matched the curtains. The faded tapestry panels on the walls seemed to blink at me like they wondered why the fuck I was back.
