Her hair is black at the roots but the ends fade into a warm brown because in the spring she dashes into the rain in sandals to fetch the mail every day, with her hair down. Because in the spring showers sometimes the sun will peek out through a cavity in the powder-grey clouds and the light will fall on that thick dark curtain, Because that girl loves to, in the rain, raise her face to the sun's rays and warm her cheeks and the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed, smiling to herself.
Her hair is long because when school was almost out three years ago her mother chopped it to her ears and she swore to never have it short again, even in the baking summer heat, because she wanted that feeling you get when you pull it back into a long ponytail, or when you let your hair cascade down at night, or when you sit, legs crossed, on the floor as your friends braid your hair. She wanted the feeling of long hair, for as long as she could have it.
Her hair is dry and brittle even though it is dense because in the fall she can't wake up for school so she yanks back the curtain when the sun rises and burns her skin and her hair and her nightmares with a hot shower. In the fall she showers twice a day, every day, and her hair dries up.
But now it's winter and she clamps her hair in a roll to study for exams, and it's longer than it was in the summer, and it's more sleek than it was in the fall because she doesn't need a hot shower when she has the stress of cramming to wake her each morning, and the roots of her hair have become black as a starless midnight because it's been so long since she's put on her sandals and dashed into the spring rain, to fetch the mail, and to feel the sunlight...
