SUGAR

Fresh Start.

I watch her face flash with surprise, eyes widening as she stares at me over dramatically. "Trisha Louise Lockwood, what in god's name have you done to yourself?!"

I roll my eyes, biting my tongue so I won't accidentally say something I later regret.

"It's just a hair change Mum," I mumble, noticing how disgusted her expression is. She's leaning against my bedroom door frame, her long blonde hair falling freely down her shoulders. Her makeup is immaculately done as usual and she's dressed in a red figure hugging dress. Complete with laced up six inch heels. This is her dress attire. . . crazy, I know.

"What was wrong with the blonde?" She argues back, shaking her head in disappointment. I feel the anger brewing up inside of me as she sighs and mutters under her breath.

"I wanted a change! Do you not like it?" I respond, feeling hurt. Why couldn't she accept my decision and support me?

You know . . . like a normal Mum.

"The blonde is our signature look sweetie, you know that." Mum responds, dodging my question entirely. She doesn't act like a Mum at all. She's wild, crazy and basically an older version of myself.

Correction, the old me.

"That's the exact reason I wanted to do this," I mumble, playing with the strands of my dark brown hair. It's way shorter now but I like it, a lot. It took me courage to finally walk through the doors of the hairdressers and ask for a total makeover.

"You may be able to change your hair colour Trish but it won't change who you are." Mum says bitterly before spinning around and click-clacking her way downstairs. Her words hit me hard and I blink, eyes glazing over with a sudden glossy sheen.

Is Mum right? Did I change my hair colour for no reason at all?

I stand up and walk over to my bedroom mirror, grimacing at the bright pink walls. Everything in here is pink. Not the pretty shade of pink either. Eye watering, in your face bright pink that makes me want to hurl. I have no clue what I was thinking, the colour now makes me feel physically sick.

My appearance is completely different.

Instead of the thick blonde long hair falling almost down to my waist, it's now chestnut brown and short. The strands end just above my shoulders and frames my face perfectly. I can't help but feel relieved studying my appearance. . . The blonde was so exhausting. Every time I caught a glimpse of my hair, it reminded me of all the silly idiotic things I've done in my past.

Do you know how hard it is to look at yourself in the mirror and feel disgusted?

Feel like you've completely let yourself down?

Become someone you don't even recognise anymore?

That's what happened to me.

Where was the innocent little girl who loved to play dress up and Barbie's? The little girl who had boys that were best friends, not bed friends. I've lost all of my male friends through my own stupidity. Life lesson — don't sleep with your friends, any friendship you had before that will completely disappear. I learned that the hard way. My thoughts turn towards my first boyfriend and I clenched my teeth in anger. My hatred for him would always burn strong. He'd completely broken me, taking my innocence away with him as soon as he cheated on me. That's the point in my life where I became wild Trish.