Three weeks before I had tried to kill myself I had cut my hair; all of it. It was a pixie cut, and when I went into the hairdresser’s she was unsure if she should do as I asked or not.
“You have a lot of hair as it is now, sweetheart,” she said slowly, putting the cloak over me so no hair would stick to my clothes. “Are you sure this is what you want? It’s going to be a lot different.”
She picked up a lock of my mid-back length brown hair. People had always complimented me on how neat and shiny it looked for it being so long. It was my best feature my friends had said. Now it was all going to be gone.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I had told her. “Need something to change it up.”
Giving me a leery look she grabbed her scissors from the counter in front of me and quickly pulled the upper layers of my hair to the top of my head. Then she snipped the first piece off. I closed my eyes trying not to watch my hair slowly drift to the floor at the feet of the hairdresser. It was as if a piece of myself was being cut away and thrown to the floor.
A half hour later all my hair was gone. I was left with a short pixie cut and I looked like a new person. My jaw line was now visible and more defined, my cheekbones looked higher, and I had bangs going across my forehead. I looked at least three years older.
Quickly I paid the hairdresser leaving a generous tip, and left the hair salon with my new do. It felt weird not having the feeling of a light breeze blowing my hair away from my face. My neck was now bare and the wind made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because of the unknown feeling.
When I got into my car, I looked at my hair and ruffled it around. It felt weird, but it felt good. I felt like everything that I hated about myself was gone. My long hair had been holding me back and now with my short hair I could be someone different.
Driving home, I thought about what my dad and Leigh would say. Leigh would probably say some stupid remark about me looking like some old time movie star and my dad would ask me why I did something so drastic. It didn’t matter to me though. I felt relief with my hair like this and that was all that mattered.
Pulling up onto my driveway I turned off my silver Chrysler Intrepid and got out, grabbing my purse before I left. Swinging it over my shoulder and across my chest, I headed up the porch steps and shoved my house keys into the front door.
“I’m home!” I yelled at the top of my lungs and slammed the door behind me with my ballet-flat clad foot. I threw my keys on the hook by the door and hung my purse next to it. There was shuffling from the kitchen then my dad poked his head around the corner.
“Hey sweet--”he stared at me his eyes wide open and mouth hanging slightly open. “What happened to your hair?” he choked out.
Leigh popped around the corner a few seconds later and had the same dumbstruck look on her face. “Oh my god.” Her hand went to cover her mouth and she stared at me.
“I got a haircut. Don’t you like it?” I asked, doing a pretend flip of my nonexistent hair.
“It’s beautiful!” Leigh gushed walking over and circling me, looking at all the angles of my hair. I kept my eyes away from her staring at my dad, waiting for him to make some comment.
“Why did you do that?” he asked, walking over and wiping his hand down his chin. “I thought you liked your hair long. It was like your mother’s.”
Shrugging nonchalantly I walked away from the circling Leigh and made my way towards the stairs. “I felt like I needed a change. Thought I’d had the long hair long enough.” I paused and cocked my head to the side then laughed at my unintentional pun.
“You look lovely, hon!” Leigh called after me, sounding so pleased with my new hairstyle.
Entering my room I flung myself on my bed and leaned over and opened my nightstand drawer. In it was a box cutter, one I had lifted from my dad’s workshop. I stared at it for a long time, thinking about if this is what I really wanted.
“Not now,” I mumbled to myself and shut the drawer slowly, watching the knife disappear from my sight.
For three months I had been thinking and rethinking my decision. There wasn’t much to it. Do I cut my wrists and end my life, or do I not cut my wrists and keep living in a world that I couldn’t stand?
What if I did kill myself? What would happen to everyone else? If I didn’t kill myself then I might be unhappy for the rest of my life. Ending my life I wouldn’t have to worry about that, but did I have the bravery to kill myself?
These thoughts haunted me day and night and some night the thoughts were so strong I could not sleep and went to school the next day exhausted and tired. I would fall asleep during classes and get detention slips. These thoughts were already ruining my life before I could ruin it myself.
My dad and Leigh hadn’t noticed any change in my behavior and in a way it hurt. They were too absorbed in their lovey dovey relationship they couldn’t see I was falling apart.
Then again, did I want them to see me falling apart? Did I want anyone seeing me fall apart? If I did wouldn’t I have made it more obvious of the thoughts roaming through my mind? Wouldn’t I reach out to someone that I wanted help? That I wanted someone to just noticed for once I wasn’t happy with the way things were going in my life and I was wondering about all the what if’s and the might-have-been’s? Didn’t anyone want to know what I was feeling?
YOU ARE READING
Falling Colors
Teen Fiction"The unfixable; the shattered; the torn; the broken. They all come here. It's my job to remake them, because once its broken there is no going back to the way it was. It must be remade." Six individuals. Six unique stories. Five exercises. One...
