Cut To Pieces [Complete]

Cut

I smiled into the bathroom mirror, my entire being shaking with what I was about to do. I flipped the cold metal over in my hands and gripped it tight as I brought it up to my shoulders. I gripped tight and sliced. I let out an excited squeal as I watched inches upon inches of hair fall to the floor. I pulled the rest of my hair over my shoulder and cut through the locks with the scissors. I couldn’t stop laughing as I cropped my hair, which had always reached my hips, to my shoulders. This was it, I was doing it. I was finally breaking away, acting out, refusing to be used as a doll. For as long as I remember my hair was always one way, long and brown. I had never been allowed to cut it and the length was strictly regulated. I couldn’t dye it, there wasn’t really a lot I was allowed to do.

“Carla!?” I froze as the name was screamed from downstairs. “I have your present downstairs!” I wasn’t ready for this. I quickly fixed up the uneven edges of my new haircut and mentally prepared myself for the shit I was about to get into. “Carla!” I sighed and quickly swept up the hair on the floor, chucking it in the bathroom bin, and slowly made my way down the stairs, extremely happy with what I’d done, but also extremely worried with the aftermath. I peeked around the corner to see my father standing in the kitchen over bags of groceries. He looked up and smiled at me as I walked in the room, my newly cut hair tied up shoulders so he wouldn’t know I had done anything straight away. “Happy 18th kid!” He smiled, handing me a box. I grimaced as I took it into my hands, worried what was awaiting me. I flicked off the lid, and pulled back the tissue paper to find a wad of dark blue material underneath. I ran my fingers over it, flicking my eyes up to see my father’s jaw dropped and his eyes becoming increasingly upset. I could feel strands of hair covering my ears and quickly tucked the hair which had fallen loose of the tie behind me. “Carla.” My father began, while I quickly put the lid back on the box and clutched it to my chest. “Carla, what did you do?” I started to back out of the door as he slowly moved forward. When I had decided to finally cut my hair I knew he was going to be angry, but I hadn’t fully prepared myself for the situation. I took the stairs two at a time and flew into my bedroom, chucking the box on my bed and leaning against the door. “What did you do?!” He screamed from the other side of the thick wood and I tried to slow my breathing as I began to panic.

“I’m not her, dad!” I cried out as I struggled to keep the door shut. “I’m not mom!” I had never known my mother. She had died a week after I was born and I had a perfectly brilliant life up until I turned 12 and began to look increasingly like my mother. My father slowly began to unravel and began to slowly give me my mother’s belongings as birthday presents. My clothing was strictly similar to what she would have worn and my hair was exactly as she had it, waist length and a light chocolate brown. I loved my father, and had spent six years of my life trying to be the perfect daughter he needed, the replica of my mother he craved. So I did what she did, I cooked, I cleaned, I took the same classes she did in high school and passed them all with A’s like she did. I wore the same style of clothing and I kept my hair the same. But lately he was slowly becoming more and more obsessive. If something was wrong he would lash out, I spent a lot of time tip toeing around the house in case something I did upset him.

“Carla! Come out now!” I could feel the tears brimming as I recognised how much worse my father was getting.

“I’m not Carla!” I yelled. The last thing on this earth I wanted to do was to hurt him, but he had fallen over the edge last week when he had taken to calling me Carla, my mother’s name. “She’s gone! Dad, Carla is gone. I’m not her.” His fist banged against the door and I jumped at the violence of the noise.

“CARLA!” His screams were getting louder and I could hear the murmurs of the neighbours on the other side of the wall. Shit, I needed to shut him up, they were going to call the police. I moved away from the door and slowly opened it, letting my father spill in. “Carla.” He stared me down and grabbed a handful of my now short hair. “What did you do?”