Find Her, Fix Him

27 | Move on

27 | Move on

~LILO~

Del does my hair on the night of the play.

Matt wanted to do it, but Del kicked him out of her room within minutes of his arrival. Or maybe I should say our room- I've been top-and-tailing with her for the past two weeks. Del and I have been friends for years, but these fourteen days have caused our relationship to blossom into something more sisterly. I cry sometimes, in the middle of the night when I can't get to sleep. I cry for my Dad, who I haven't been able to bring myself to visit for fear of what I'll be met with. I cry for my Mum, and the baby in her belly who she will always love and look after and never leave. I cry for how uncertain my life has become, and how I don't even properly have a home at the moment and I don't know how long I can go on like this before-

One time, I cried so hard I gave myself a headache and my face was all raw and snotty and my whole body was burning up. I wasn't sure what it even was I was crying about. I think it was everything. My parents, Khan, and everything. I tried to be quiet, but I must have been louder than I thought because I woke Del. For a few seconds, she just looked at me. Then she got out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom. Moments later, she reappeared with a cool, damp flannel, and placed it over my forehead to stop the fire inside my skin. She sat beside me and held the flannel to my temples, just being there. Existing with me. It was like applying balm to a deep wound.

The pain was still there, but in the moment, it felt less significant.

Del has emptied all of her hair cosmetic products onto her bed, and has sat me down on the carpet as she swings her legs from her mattress behind me. Her fingers are hot as they sweep through the strands of my hair, wet with various products and lotions. I have her phone in my hands, and am flicking through different hairstyles on Pinterest at her insistence.

"Del, no one is going to see me," I say for the hundredth time, and I hear her exasperated sigh above my head. "I'm going to be in the tech box, behind all of the rows of seats. Scotty Leprechaun probably won't even want me to go onstage at the end to bow."

"Oh, hush," my friend silences me, "It's not about whether or not you'll be seen, it's about how glam you feel. You can't create razzle-dazzle lighting without looking razzle-dazzle yourself."

"I think I can, actually."

"It's all about the mind-set you put yourself into, princess! If you tell yourself- No one is going to be looking at me, I'm unimportant and irrelevant- that's how you're going to feel. And the lights will suffer. Cymbeline will suffer. Scotty Leprechaun will suffer. Do you want to bear the weight of that responsibility, Lilo Lasting?"

I allow myself a laugh. Del has begun to put elastic bands into my hair. "Don't think I've forgotten about the mess you made of my hair on the night of the party."

Thinking about the party feels like reliving a distant memory. It's one that I don't like to relive. It brings up a recollection of green eyes in my mind, a recollection that I don't want.

Khan and I destroyed whatever we had together. I don't even think it was that night in the kitchen alone, when he shouted at me that I'd never understand, so he couldn't be with me. Because despite how much his words hurt, and how much I hated him and hated myself for them the first few nights following- he was right. He still is right. How can I ever understand him? Khan has lived as two versions of himself ever since he came to England. I still don't know which version I told myself I was in love with.

But I'm not going to be the Lilo I was for two years after Matt and I fell apart. I'm not going to be weak and believe myself to be unworthy. I'm going to rebuild, and it's going to be with the help of my friends rather than the help of a boy. And I'm going to start by doing an absolute bomb job of the lighting for this stupid, inconsequential school play.