Flowers of Despair

Chapter 8

Tammy doesn't waste anytime. She sits me down at the sinks and begins washing my hair, talking all the while. After the wash, she takes me to a barber chair and begins trimming my ends, taking 4 inches off. She tells me she's doing a V-cut, what ever the hell that is.

When she finishes cutting, she puts something in my hair. "What I'm doing right now is putting heat and frizz protection in your hair." She runs her figures through my hair, over and over again, massaging it in as she goes.

She lets my hair air dry, which takes a long time. When my hair was wet, it was just above my butt, but once it's dry and curly, it only reachs my waist. "Okay," Tammy says, "I'm going to curl it so it's not going crazy. Then I'm going to run my fingers through it to break apart the curls, giving it a more natural look."

I don't say anything, just let her do what she needs to and watching so that I can do it again. It takes about an hour to get it all curled and pinning each individual curl so that they aren't in the way. Once Tammys done curling and pinning the last one, she hair sprays them and let's them cool off.

It takes another 15 minutes to pull all the pins out. When Tammy begins running her hands through my hair, my mind begins to drift back to that warm summer night in the basement.

~҉~

We were both breathing hard, trying to catch our breathe. My head was on Max's chest and her was combing through my hair with his warm hands.

"That was--" he starts but stops. His heartbeat grows fast under my hand.

"It was," I say and smile, looking up at his face. He smiles back at me and continues to run his fingers through my hair, even the very bottom that brushes just above my pants when it's curly.

We lay there on the floor together, listing to the songs that mean happy, summer nights. Someone switched CD's awhile ago, but our song is on all of them. He's humming along, the vibrations in his chest tickling my check.

The party is still going strong. "I don't want this to end." I can't help the sadness that's laced trough my voice.

"Maybe it doesn't have too."

I can hear the hope in his voice and sit up so I can look in his eyes. "Promise?" I feel like I'm begging but I don't care. How could someone like him, a handsome 17 year-old, want someone like me, an inexperienced 15 year-old.

"I promise." He kisses me lightly and pulls me back down, so that I'm laying on his chest.

He said always, but he didn't mean it. Good things always come to an end.

Right?

~҉~

"Ta-da! Done." I'm snapped back to the present by Tammy, who's cheerful voice shatters my memories and blows them away on the wind. When I look in the mirror, the girl I see isn't me. Her hair is flat but voluminous with no frizz. It cascades in beautiful curl down to my waist, looking natural even though it's not.

The only way I know it's me is by the way my cheekbones jut out with hollow below them, making them look share as razors, and my collarbone and shoulder blades and elbows. They way my body has been carved to show off the bones throughout me.

"Do you like it?" This is Annie. She sounds nervous and I don't blame her, I haven't said a word yet. And still, I can't, I only nod.

I can't believe this is me. I've never really tried to make my hair look good, only presentable. But now, God what have I been doing all my life? Most days I just threw it in a ponytail and call it good.