L is for .....

L is for..... Looks

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I was right of course. My mother just screamed as she saw me and my new hair style. She immediately made an urgent appointment with the hairdressers. As I brushed my teeth after my shower I finally saw properly, as the condensation fell away, the reason my mother had flipped out. Massive chunks were missing in my odd looking hairstyle. I wore a hat all the way and kept my head down in the car. The hairdresser didn’t laugh as I had expected her too, she just set to work touching up the places the hair dye hadn’t reached and reshaping my hair into a layered cut.

When finally I opened my eyes I couldn’t believe it was me. I decided to stay in town and do some shopping in the chance that someone I knew would be around. I waved goodbye to my mum telling her I would walk back. My first stop was to my favourite make-up store where I bought a whole raft of new shades to match my new look. Then I went into nearly all the clothes shops trying out different styles. 3 hours and many bags later I went to a cash point to check my balance.

‘Shit’ I thought as I saw I had spent the equivalent of 2 months allowance which I was saving up for a summer vacation with my friends. ‘Oh well, at least I felt good’ I contemplated.  Then I realised I had to haul all my bags back home.

After a quick stop for a much needed coffee, I hit the foot path. I had to admit I loved living by the sea, the salty air made me feel so alive.

It took me another whole hour to get back with a lot of rests and stops on the way. After dumping all the stuff in my room, ignoring the mirror that still lay on the floor, I decided to go for a walk. As I wandered across road towards the cliffs I breathed in deep, taking in the salty sea air and letting the wind whip through my hair.

The cliffs weren’t high and they gently slopped off to the left until it was at beach level. Boulders had been placed there as a flood barrier and as a child I remembered fishing in the rock pools left behind by the falling tide.

I had taken to coming here whenever I wanted to be alone, ever since my father had........ well, left was the wrong word. Forced to leave would be more appropriate. He had been violent whenever he came back from the pub. In the end my mum couldn’t handle it anymore, I could tell. At the age of 10 I had called the police after one bad night. I told them everything and he was given a perimeter ban.

He wasn’t allowed to come within 2 miles of the house or 20 metres of us. My mum had told me she could get through it, but I didn’t believe her. I worry occasionally, I see in my eyes that she blames me. He was the one she loved and even though he was ‘difficult’ as she put it, he was still hers and I had taken him away.

It’s not like I don’t feel some regret when I see other people with their dads, looking the way we used to before he lost his job. Maybe that was why I couldn’t keep a boyfriend, not because of my paranoid feelings that they only wanted me as a trophy, but because I don’t feel I can trust anyone. I never cried as much as I did that winter’s day when the police dragged him kicking and screaming into the night and me being taken to hospital to have a bruise on my head checked out. I still have nightmares about it, flashing lights, shouts, screams…and faces…many faces.

It wasn’t just the wind that made me shiver then. I haven’t cried since. The stupid councillors my mum had taken me to told me that it was because I felt I had to be tougher with my father figure being taken and that I was trying to fill the hole in the family. £60 a session just to be told I’m trying to fill a gap, anyone could have told you that.

I walked further along the cliff and saw someone already sitting in my place on a particular boulder. It reminded me of last night when I thought I’d seen someone here. I tried to keep quiet as he seemed to be in deep thought. Well of course that didn’t last long. I stumbled, skidding on a stone and closed my eyes tight preparing for the pain of hitting the ground. Only it didn’t happen, instead I felt the strong arms of someone preventing me from falling. I looked up to see a boy slightly older looking with deep pooling blue eyes that seemed to mesmerise me. He made sure I was steady, then without a word her turned and jumped nimbly over the boulders and ran along the beach.

“Hey,” I called, “HEY.” I shouted. I realised he wasn’t about to stop.

“THANK YOU.” I called and all I got in response was a hand in the air, acknowledging my thanks.

I was in a daze as I sat on the rock he had sat on just moments before, all previous thoughts long forgotten. Those eyes. I’m sure I didn’t recognise him so he can’t have gone to the local secondary school. Then again I knew nearly everyone around here, having been invited to so many parties and I hadn’t once seen him. You would have thought that guy, looking like he did, would have been one of the populars, the jocks, the icons all girls worshipped. Of course I didn’t class myself as ‘all girls’, I just happened to be liked by them.

Then again,  I wonder what will happen tomorrow at school since I’ve refused Simon. He was the ‘big time’ in our school. It could go either of two ways. Either one of his mates would try to fill the place Simon had left, or, I would be cast out of the popular realms and onto…wherever.

I wondered how Lizzie, Tess and Dana would take me being down graded. Few who actually went out with Simon stayed at the top. Lucy, who he’d dumped me for, would be allowed to stay for two reasons. One, she was a slut and two, she never really went out with Simon. They had a one-night stand. It doesn’t count.

Thats just how it works, seems almost sick. Don't you think?

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