by Sadie Allen
“Oh,” was the only thing I could think to say.
The door to my room burst open, and then a panting Blake stood at the side of my bed by our feet.
“Where did you go?” Elodie asked.
“I had to run out to the car to get this!” He thrust a bottle of something into the air like he had found the Olympic torch and was raising it for us to admire.
“What is it?” I squinted at the bottle in his hand.
“It’s the new you.” He lowered it and put it an inch away from my face.
“I still don’t know what this is.” I couldn’t read the label without going cross-eyed, so I didn’t even try.
“It’s champagne!”
“Um, no, it’s not,” Elodie told him flatly.
“Not the drink! It’s hair color.” He jerked it back to his chest as I felt my eyes widen. Hair color?
“Wh-what?” I spluttered.
“It’s time for a change, Sandy.”
“No.”
“Do you even know how to apply bleach? Because that’s straight-up bleach, Blakey.”
“Of course. I got this from my sister’s salon. Watched her do it a million times, Ellie.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I whined.
“Oh. My. Gawd.”
“Let me go back and read the instructions. Maybe I missed a step?”
I stared at myself in the mirror, hair wet and dripping on the floor. The room smelled of chemicals and possibly burned hair.
“Look what you did to her head!” Elodie yelled.
“Shh …” Blake tried to quiet Elodie, but it was too late.
The door to my room opening made an ominous sound amidst the ensuing chaos.
“Hey, guys, what’s that sme—” My mom abruptly cut herself off. Then I watched her face morph from mild curiosity to horror, the phone in her hand falling and clattering on the floor. “What did you do!”
“We were—”
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Elodie hissed.
I could only stare into my mother’s shocked eyes as she slowly reached down and collected her phone.
With one hand, she started pressing buttons, and with the other, she rubbed her back. Regret, shame, and guilt hit me like three consecutive punches to the gut. Had she been able to have her pain medicine refilled?
Once she was done with whatever she was doing on her phone, she flicked her hand toward me and said, “Grab a towel and a hat. Simone said she could fit us in before they close. You better start praying to Jesus now, thanking him for her having a last-minute cancellation. If she hadn’t, you’d be dead.”
I gulped.
“We’ll just, uh …” Blake started uncomfortably, but Mom speared him with her eyes.
“Oh, no. You two are coming along. Now, pack up and move out.” She turned around, hand still to her back, and half stormed, half hobbled out of the room.
We all looked at each other for a moment, and then got to moving.
The car ride to the salon in my mom’s Land Rover was awkward. Nervousness and fear practically vibrated the car off its wheels.
When we pulled into the deserted lot in front of Salon Cheveux, one moment I was looking at the graceful facade of the salon, and the next, I was staring at the back of Blake’s head.
“O. M. G.! I’ve heard of this place.”
Elodie gave his head a shove as Mom clipped, “Let’s go.”
Salon Cheveux was in a strip mall close to the mall-mall a couple towns over. The white bricked front stuck out amongst the other red bricked stores, and the black letters declaring the name was clean and simple.
We pushed in the glass-front doors and were greeted by a sea of white. White receptionist desk, white chairs, white seating area, white shelves holding white bottles. White, white, white.
“Mandy,” Simone greeted Mom as she strode out from the gap between two overlapping white walls that separated reception from the workstations.
Simone was a statuesque blonde dressed in a tight, black jersey dress and spike-heeled boots. Her hair, as always, was pulled back into a severe-looking ponytail. I was pretty sure that was why her face defied gravity.
A strangled noise came from beside me, but before Blake could make another noise, Elodie had her hand over his mouth, giving him a look that told him to behave.
I shifted back to watch the two women exchange air kisses, and then Simone leaned back, keeping her hands clasped to my mom’s biceps, as she asked, “How are you?”
Her tone made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and the concern on her face made my chest tighten.
Mom quickly cut her eyes to me, which seemed to snag Simone’s attention. Simone followed then jumped when she caught sight of my appearance.
“Honey, is that orange I’m seeing under that hat?”
When I didn’t answer, my mom snapped, “Yes, she and her friends decided to dye her hair.”
“It was for her role as Sandy in the Grease musical we’re doing at school,” Blake blurted, not able to hold back any longer. “And can I just say—”
Elodie again slapped her hand over his mouth. “You’re the reason we’re here, so you might want to keep your trap shut.”
He made big eyes at Elodie then scanned the room and noted the scowling faces of my mom and Simone. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, but he stayed quiet, even when Elodie took her hand away.
Simone tsked but didn’t say another word as she led us back to the workstations and motioned for me to take a seat in her chair. Once I was seated, she whipped a cape around my front and fastened it before tearing off my hat.
Her hands flew to her mouth, trying to cover her gasp, my hat falling to the floor.
My once shiny dark hair was now the color of a pumpkin.
“What did you do?” she asked as she pulled sections of my frizzy orange hair up and examined them.
I was trying to push the encroaching panic down and lock it away, but it was beginning to dawn on me how much I had screwed up. I shouldn’t have let Blake talk me into coloring my hair. What was Sterling going to say? I was going to be a laughingstock!
I breathed deeply in and out like I had trained myself to do, but the panic was gaining ground.
“Can you fix it, Simone?” Mom asked as she appeared behind Simone’s shoulder, grabbing my attention, which interrupted my mental breakdown.
I braced myself for the worst, but when Simone answered, “Am I Simone?” I let the trapped breath whoosh out of my chest.
“I think, if I apply some toner and a deep conditioning treatment, it should be okay. She’s lucky that her hair wasn’t damaged,” she went on, still pulling sections of my hair up and watching me in the mirror. Her face was one of censure. I knew she would let me have it before I left.
“Thank God,” my mom breathed.
“She’s got good elasticity, and I’m guess this was virgin hair, so again, very lucky.”
“Well, I trust her hair in your hands. Me and these two will wait for her in reception.” Mom patted Simone’s shoulder then disappeared, taking Blake and Elodie by the back of the necks.
“What were you thinking?” Simone recriminated when they were gone.
“I-I—”
“You weren’t. That’s the only answer.”
I closed my eyes, not able to bear the brunt of her glare.
“If you wanted to go blonde, then you should have come to me. I should’ve been the one to color your hair for the first time. I’ve been cutting it since you were a little girl, so it should have been me guiding you into the world of hair color.”
“I know,” I replied lamely.
She reached for a pair of gloves and snapped them on. “This is going to take a while,” she muttered, looking through the cart at her side.
Hours passed, and I wished I had grabbed my phone before I had left the house. I was bored and caught somewhere between hope and panic. I didn’t know what Simone’s efforts would look like, b
ut it had to be better than pumpkin.
Tap … Tap … Tap …
My eye shot open, but I didn’t move. My hand instinctively went to my hair, and I undid the loose knot I had tied to the front of my head before bed. Simone had said that “pineappling” would keep my hair looking styled rather than flat when I woke up in the morning.
Tap … Tap … Tap …
Fear and dread ran through my veins like ice water. I knew who was at my window, but what if he didn’t like my new look? What if he took one look at me and burst out laughing? I hadn’t been able to snap him back earlier, so what if he was mad at me?
Tap … Tap … Tap …
B & E, Blake and Elodie’s new nickname that oddly enough my mother thought up, had assured me it was a good look. Blake had practically fawned over my “champagne” Sandy hair. I wasn’t sure I liked it, but Elodie had said that now that my hair was blonde, I looked more like my mother. My mother was beautiful, so I took that as a compliment, but blonde was still very different.
Sterling had sent me a Snapchat while I was at the salon, but I never replied. I was too freaked out over my hair when I got home to think of anything to say, but the picture of him and Jack doing a puzzle at the kitchen table had made me forget about my hair for a moment, to smile at the beauty of them. Jack’s smile was so big that it looked like it hurt, but even in a picture, he radiated pure happiness, pure joy. Sterling’s wide, happy one evoked a different response. His took my breath away. It wasn’t the practiced one he gave the world, but one that showed he was genuinely happy to be spending time with his brother. Where Jack’s shone with the purity of a child, Sterling’s made my ovaries quiver. The text band at the bottom had read, “His smile is reason enough to get up in the morn.” I had to agree, but I thought Sterling’s smile was enough, too.
The tapping stopped, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Then I heard the scrape and slide of the window opening. Did I forget to lock it last time? How could I have been so stupid?
I sucked in a breath and slid down farther into bed, bringing my comforter overhead.
“Ally?” Sterling whispered, and then I felt the bed dip beside me.
I screwed my eyes shut tightly as my heart raced a mile a minute. I prayed he would leave, thinking I was still asleep, but that just wasn’t my luck.
I felt the covers lift and cool air hit my heated skin. The jig was up.
I rolled over and blinked up into Sterling’s face.
“Who are you, and what have you done with my princess?” Sterling’s voice vibrated with laughter.
“I heard blondes have more fun,” I croaked.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“You don’t like it?” I whispered.
“It’s not that.” He reached out and brushed a curl off my face, tucking it behind my ear. The tender gesture made something that had frozen inside me at his words melt. Then, fingers still in my hair, he examined me from my hair to my face, and then down to my exposed neck as he said, “I just loved your brown hair, but I imagine I could get used to this new you. You could chop it all off, and you’d still be stunning.”
He loved my brown hair, and he thought I was stunning? My face went soft, and my heart soared. It was too soon to feel what was rioting inside my chest, but I was learning that love wasn’t something you could control.
My father had started the lesson, having been the first man to break my heart. Miles had killed my young love and faith in the emotion. Sterling? Sterling was teaching me something new. He wasn’t trying to control or manipulate me to get something in return. Sterling seemed to just … care. He cared about me—how I felt, what I thought. I wasn’t a body without a brain. I was a brain who happened to have a body. A person. Or, that was how he made me feel.
I lifted my hand and cupped his cheek that was rough with whiskers. I rubbed my thumb along the edge where they ended and the smooth skin began, staring into his eyes and trying to convey everything I was feeling as I said, “Thank you.”
The corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk, and it was so sexy it made my mouth go dry.
I licked my lower lip, and his eyes dropped from mine to the movement. He stared for a protracted second before leaning in and tasting it for himself, tracing his tongue along my bottom lip.
As my tongue came out to greet his, the kiss became languid, each exploring the other’s mouth, and so hot I thought I would melt into a puddle on my bedsheets.
Scooting closer, he moved his hand from the bed to my hip over the covers. I moved my hands to his hair, dragging my fingers through his dark brown tresses, lightly scratching his scalp with my nails. He groaned.
I didn’t know how long we spent making out on my bed before Sterling eventually pulled away, panting while I mewed at the loss of his mouth.
“We have to stop,” he breathed heavily.
“Why?” I panted, trying to lean back in for another kiss, but he just caught my lips against his cheek as he brushed it past mine. His whiskers tickled as they scraped against my skin.
His lips were right under my ear, their softness caressing the skin there when he whispered, “Because we’re in your bed, in your parents’ house, and I want to slide under these covers and do a whole lot more than kissing right now.”
I froze, my eyes got huge, and my heart felt like it stuttered to a stop, along with my brain. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
I just stared at him in complete shock. What did I say to that? I wasn’t ready to do “that” yet, but I wanted to at the same time … with him.
He stroked my hair away from my face then trailed his hand to the back of my head, cradling it. Sterling searched my face, looking for something. I didn’t know what, but he must have found it, because he gave me a small smile and muttered, “cute,” before he heaved himself off the bed and stood at the side. “Get dressed and meet me outside,” he ordered. Then he was gone, and I was still in bed, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened.
I did as I was told and was dressed and outside in about ten minutes.
“Do you need your crutches?” Sterling asked.
I shook my head. I was going to try to walk to his car without the instruments of Satan.
“We’ll go slow,” he stated, then grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine.
We went slow, as promised, and made it to his car that was parked in the same spot it was last time. He opened the door for me, and then jogged around and got in himself. After he cranked the engine, music filled the interior, and I couldn’t contain the laugh that seemed to explode out of me.
“What?” he asked, looking confused yet amused.
He took a second to listen then he started cracking up as “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee” serenaded us.
Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into the back of the gravel parking lot of the Lil’ Slugger tee-ball fields that was down the road from the high school.
“What are we doing here? I’m not sure I’m up to playing baseball.”
“You’ll see,” he replied. That dang smirk was back on his lips. The smirk that made me lose my mind and got me in trouble.
He again opened my door and helped me out. Then we were strolling hand in hand out of the gravel parking lot and away from the fields.
There was a playground adjacent to the tee-ball fields and behind the small community center. It was plunged in darkness, except for a single light pole on the edge closest to the community center’s parking lot.
He led me to a set of swings that were in the darkest part of the playground and gestured for me to sit in one while he took the other, facing me. I gripped the chains with both hands and watched as he did the same. Then we just stared at one another, swaying slightly because it was hard to keep yourself still in a swing. I had the urge to push off against the ground and start really swinging, but I was scared it would be too much on my leg. Another night.
“So, why here?” I asked, piercing the quietness of
the night.
He was watching his black boots drag through the gravel when he answered, “I used to walk here at night to think before I got the Chevelle.”
He was sharing another piece of himself, and I felt the privilege of that nestle in my chest.
“It’s peaceful.” I lifted my face to the sky and enjoyed the cool breeze on my skin.
Soon, the weather would turn, and the nights would be muggy and stifling. We had hit that sweet spot between chilly and warm, between winter and spring in Texas.
I had always associated this weather with track season. It was something I could feel on my skin and smell on the breeze. Most days, I dreaded the feel of it, and often wondered if I would still be leaping hurdles if it was solely my choice. The freedom of choice was something I had so little experience with, yet I savored more with each passing day. It was exhilarating yet intimidating, and I wondered if it would still be so if I’d had it my whole life.
“Have you ever wanted to start your life over?” I asked out of the blue, taking my eyes from the clear, starry night sky to watch his expression.
His lips twisted to one side as he seemed to consider my question, then answered, “No.”
“Not even to change some of the decisions you’ve made, or make some better choices?” My voice held a note of incredulity.
I would in a heartbeat. I wished I could go back and start over. I would do everything differently. I would make better choices, and it wouldn’t have taken me so long to start living my life for myself, to take control.
“Nope,” he answered, looking at me sideways.
“Why?” I just couldn’t wrap my mind around that. “Don’t you have any regrets?”
“Of course I have some regrets.” His eyes dropped back to his boots, but then they lifted. “Why do you want to start your life over? What are your regrets?”
I tightened my grip on the chains and dropped my head back to stare up at the night sky as I considered his question.
“I’ve always felt like I was an outsider … with my family, my friends, the people in their social circle—heck, even in my own life. My choices have always been made for me, from what to eat to what friends I could have, what clothes to wear, what sport to play, and lately, what college and career to go into.”