A few minutes later, I find myself standing in the bathroom,staring down at the electric clippers and a pair of kitchen scissors on the counter.
“You can do this,” I murmur to myself. “It’s just hair. You can let it go.”
I swallow as the waters of shame rise in my chest. This fear, this dread, is exactly the problem Sol sees in me. I’m too attached to this material form. And to my past.
I remember getting my hair done at the salon before my first homecoming dance; I didn’t have a date or anything, but looking in the mirror, I felt truly pretty for the first time. I remember my childhood best friend sticking butterfly clips in my hair during sleepovers. I remember my dad helping me tie rainbow ribbons into my hair for my first Pride parade. I remember that his hair was the same pale gold as mine.
None of that matters now, though.
I pick up the scissors and close my eyes as I grasp the braid Lily did for me this morning in my other hand. I hold the scissors to the base of the braid. I have to do it before the shame of this attachment fills my lungs, before it drowns me.
I begin to chop.
I keep my eyes closed, knowing it doesn’t matter how uneventhe cut is. It’ll all be gone soon anyway. My hands don’t feel like mine. Like someone else’s hands manipulating the scissors. I don’t feel connected to my body at all, actually. The cutting takes time—these aren’t scissors meant for hair, after all—but after a moment, I feel the braid I am holding in my left hand become loose, swinging free of its former confines.
I drop the handful of silky locks to the floor before I can look at it.
I have to open my eyes for the shaving, though. There is no way around it. I turn the clippers on, their steady buzz like a swarm of wasps closing in. I press the blade to my scalp, just above my right ear, and begin to shave. Pass by pass, section by section, I shear off my newly short and jagged hair.
When it is done, I try to do another pass, try to clean up the areas that are uneven or patchy, but after a moment or two, I give up. It doesn’t matter anyway. This is the point of the trial. It isn’t about having a nice, even buzz cut—it is about not caring. Letting it go.
Pulling the weeds.
I turn off the clippers and set them down. My eyes fall on the pile of blond hair at my feet. “See?” I mumble. “Done. That wasn’tso bad.” But there is a lump forming in my throat. It only gets bigger when I look up, inspecting myself in the mirror for the first time.
It isn’t that the girl staring back at me looks bad. She doesn’t. If I saw her on the street, I wouldn’t think twice about her super-short buzz cut. I might even think she’s cool.
That is the problem, though. She doesn’t look like me.
I turn away from the mirror when the girl looking back at me begins to cry. That’s when I really know she is a stranger.
Kneeling down, I grab the dustpan from the lower cabinet and sweep up all the hair that has fallen onto the floor. My cheeks are warm and wet as I dump the cut locks into the trash.
But at least it is done now.
At least now it isn’t holding me back, and I can stay in the sunshine.
IRIS
“Ilike it,” Zinnia says, bouncing a little on the end of my twin mattress. “It’s different, but good different.”
“Thanks,” I murmur, running a hand over the fine buzz of my hair.
By the time I returned to the attic the night before, the other girls had already fallen asleep. Admittedly, this was somewhat on purpose. I’d hidden in the bathroom, avoiding the mirror, until Violet had come demanding I leave so that she could shower. She’d looked at me, with my newly shaved head, and smirked before shutting the door behind me. I’d crept around the cabin for a while, hiding from everyone, not ready to acknowledge the change in my appearance, until the house fell silent. Only then I snuck upstairs and curled up beneath my blanket.
It is morning now, though—the same time we rise everyday—and, of course, the first thing my three roommates notice is my missing hair.
“What made you decide to do it?” Poppy asks. She’s fixing her own hair while we talk, pulling it up into a tight, curly ponytail on the top of her head.
I shrug. “It was getting too long. I got sick of it being in my way.”
The lie tastes bitter on my tongue.
“Ugh, I feel that,” Zinnia says. “I hate dealing with mine most days. Maybe I oughta shave it, too.”
Poppy laughs. “You ain’t brave enough to do that.”
“I am so!” Zinnia bounces up onto her feet, hands landing defiantly on her hips. “And I bet I’d look real good with a buzz cut, too.”
