BLACK

(39) Wedding

EDITED

Knuckles tapped against the door gently.

"Come in," I said.

I yanked the comb through my curls again, successfully ripping out knot after knot. I rubbed at my side scalp, wincing. My arms were heavy and weak with exhaustion.

My mom saw all of this. "Let me," She said and took the comb from me.

I nearly moaned at the weight gone from my arms. She brushes my hair into a tail over my neck with her fingers, then begins to comb along my scalp. It was wet from my shower, but my body had since dried and been dressed. My size was so small I had to borrow Rosalia's clothes instead. And let me tell you, she did not like that.

My mom's eyes caught mine in the mirror as I stared at her, her beauty never aging. I wish I looked like her, and less like my dad. She has the lightest— literally white, hair, and sparkling meadow green eyes. All I got was her porcelain skin and button nose. Maybe her chin, but that was it. She looked like she belonged in a magazine, modeling highest fashions and flaunting her existence all over the world, but she wasn't. She was here, being my mom. Taking care of me, loving me.

She yanked at a tough one in the feet long tail, snapping my head back.

"Do something about it," I barely mustered since having not spoken in a while.

"What, baby?" She stopped, comb most likely stuck in the knot as she listens to me.

I clear my throat, "Do something about my hair." She looks at me funny. "Cut it."

"Oh, Noire." Her pale blonde eyebrows furrow together, very thinly trimmed.

Gosh, I wish I looked like her. Rosalia looks like her, every ounce of beauty poking and prodding her skin. And then there's me: rough, ragged, old.

"I don't like it anymore."

"Are you certain?" She asks. I nod. "Okay. Come to my room, then."

I trace her footsteps out of Rosalia's room, and into my parents. A nostalgic scent fills my nose, drowning me in lost memories. It's been forever since I was in here. Years of running into their room, jumping on their bed. Years of reading books with my parents together, each sibling on a different corner of their bed. Oh, what I would do to go back.

When I sit down on a stool, she wraps a large towel around my back and pins it in the front. I can see to my chest in the mirror, the last drops of moisture evaporating from my collar bones. There is still inch long blond strands dusted around the sink edge and over the floor. A bundle of torn materials stuffed into the trash can makes me internally smile.

"How short?" My mothers voice brings me back to reality.

Any emotion previously on my face falters. I hadn't really thought about it. I bring a lock over my shoulder, parting it as far as I could from my the knot, and even then it plunges past my chest and into my lap.

"A trim?" She suggests.

I find her gaze again from my lap, head shaking. My breath shatters, struggling to inhale steadily. "C-cut." One hand wrapped around the loop, I move it up towards the rest. Up, and up... up. I stop my hand at my sternum, wavering. My mothers hand covers mine.

"Here?" Her eyes ask mine in the mirror, and I can't help but nod. "Okay," She whispers, pulling my hand away.

As she sets up the razor, I place my hands under my thighs and sit on them. The buzzing turns on, and I close my eyes with an exhale. The first lock of curls is cut as the buzzing dulls with contact. Even beneath my thighs, I can feel the tremors in my hands. I inhale, deeply. Eyes squeezed shut, even though there's no pain.