Wish We Never Started

4

Diego turns the barber clippers on and they start buzzing.

I'm sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, it's 12:32 am, and everyone is either drunk or high or some combination of both. There's eight people left, including Sadie and Shannon.

The sound of the clippers grows closer as my hands instinctively grip the sides of the chair, like I'm on some fun, twisted amusement park ride.

"Just the sides, Diego," I remind him, because sometimes he gets carried away. Creativity is one of his biggest loves, after all. The last thing I'd want is for this to end in a buzz cut again.

Diego momentarily moves the clippers away from my head, "yeah, I got you. Don't worry, please."

He brings them back and starts shaving.

I watch some of my hair start to fall to the ground, the whole thing starting to feel like some sort of ceremonial practice.

It takes just a few minutes and a lot more hair than I thought, but I feel lighter and more balanced when it's finished.

Diego comes around and stands in front of me, his pointer finger placed over his lips in thought. He studies his work and his eyes look like they're welling up with tears.

"It's perfect," he says, tousling my hair a bit with his fingers, then stepping back to study my head again.

I reach up and run my hands through it myself to get a feel for what he did. Meanwhile, Diego disappears and tells me to hold on, his voice traveling as he steps into the inventory room.

He appears again and hands me a handled mirror, maybe more so I can see for myself that he didn't fuck my hair up.

But when I look at myself, it is so far from a fuck up.

"What kind of wizardry did you just perform?" I ask him jokingly, but genuinely curious.

As I'm checking my hair out in the mirror, I peer over the top and catch Sadie's eyes for a brief moment. She's staring at me. We both quickly look away and pretend it didn't just happen, but I know it did.

"Thank you, it really looks nice," I tell Diego while standing from the chair. Little pieces of hair fall from my shirt, and I brush them off.

Diego looks so proud as he grabs a broom to begin sweeping up the hair that fell. "This is my biggest honor this month," Diego says to nobody in particular, but the message is received.

I venture over to get one more drink, and just like before, Sadie appears next to me. I saw her follow me out of the corner of my eye.

"I think your hair looks really nice like this," she tells me as she reaches up to touch the part Diego buzzed, "that's what I was looking at back there."

It feels like she doesn't even touch me. Her hands are so slow and gentle, I barely have a moment to feel them.

I then realize she's talking about the eye contact. Or, rather, when I caught her staring at me.

"Uh huh," I say cautiously, "sure it was."

"It really was," she says again, glancing down at the floor.

I try to read her body language, aside from the pink blush spreading across her cheeks now.

Tonight, she seems a little anxious and timid. At work, she is more outgoing. This isn't the same Sadie I first met.

"Okay," I say, trying to match her serious tone, "I believe you."

Sadie glances up at me when I pop open the tab to my next drink.