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“That right there, is a Luna-ism,” she informs, pointing at me with the comb. “I guess it rubbed off on me. But yeah, she’s pretty bomb,” she widens her eyes with the last word, and fuck. It makes my heart feel good.
“Does she always come to work with you?”
“No, today was unexpected,” she sighs, with a what can you do look. “She’s in basketball camp and they’re separated into small groups based on age and skill level and all that,” she explains, waving the still buzzing clippers around. “Anyway, the coach her group is assigned to decided to show off for the kids and attempt some kind of dunk and threw his back out, so her practice was cancelled for the rest of the day, and possibly tomorrow, while they figure out a replacement,” she finishes with a stressed out sigh, but quickly shakes it off.
“Oh, that’s a drag,” I feel my face fall as I look over at Luna who’s still coloring away at the corner table.
“Yeah, Luna’s bummed. I figure I’ll take her to the park near our house after this and try to shoot some hoops with her or something.”
“Try?” I ask, just before I’m cut off by her taking the blow dryer to my hair, and I’m once again treated to the feel of her fingers running through it.
“Yeah,” her shoulders shake slightly with a self-deprecating laugh as she shuts off the hairdryer. “She’ll probably clobber me and it won’t turn out to be much of a practice for her. An athlete, I am not. She must’ve gotten that ability from…” she catches herself, and for a second she looks a million miles away as she absently dusts me off, but quickly snaps out of it and unsnaps the smock from behind my neck. “You’re done!” she cheerfully announces as she whips it off me like a big reveal.
I stand to study myself in the mirror and I’m hit with so many thoughts and emotions, the biggest of which is confusion.
My hair is close cropped on the sides with just an inch or so of length left on top; not exactly how I used to wear it, but if I were to throw on scrubs and a stethoscope right now…
Jesus.
I don’t know if I’m freaked out for real or just shaken up because I know I should be. I look like myself right before my own personal apocalypse, but at the same time, I don’t. I feel a large lump in my throat and I quickly turn away from the mirror and face Kasey who regards me with a confused look of her own as she grips the discarded smock in her hands.
“Is it okay? Do you not like it?”
“No, it’s great,” I say absently, and run a hand through the short thatch on top. “I just… I have to go.”
I focus on nothing else but putting one foot swiftly in front of the other and engage tunnel vision between me and the door, forcing myself not to look at the confused and possibly hurt look I’d be likely to find on Kasey’s face; the curious looks from her coworkers and other clients, and I don’t dare let myself look at the innocent confusion I know will be evident on Luna’s face when I pass the waiting area, yanking the door open and escaping into the muggy evening heat.
Chapter Eleven
Kasey
“Unwanted.”
That’s the bell ringer.
Through those difficult middle school and teen years, people would preach that you had to love yourself.Have self-confidence. Know your self-worth.Your brain can take those words in and know that they’re true, but it’s pretty damn hard for your heart to process it when everywhere you turn you’re getting rejected. You want so bad to be wanted that you fool yourself into thinking ifI just do what he wants for a while he’ll see me for the wonderful person I am andwantme.Even if it means showing him I’m not afraid to take some pills and get laced with him because we have a good thing going, and I’d hate for him to throw it away to find someone else who will.”
I’m on a rant, but fortunately, no one here minds. My fellow addicts know how cathartic it is to get all this off my chest, and not only are they not looking around the room or at their phones, but their eyes are on me, nodding; listening to every word. Including Michelle, who keeps her gaze locked on mine and nods her head encouragingly.
“Then after getting you nice and addicted and pregnant, he decides it’s been fun, but it’s time to move on,” I regale, my tone turning cynical. “So he leaves you to get sober and fight withdrawals on your own so that your little one can be born healthy, and when she is, you realize it was all worth it.
Then two years later, you realize you didn’t learn a damn thing because you turn around and make the same mistake again, only this time you’re putting not only yourself, but your innocent child in actual physical danger because you let the guy convince you that you’d been clean long enough and therefore you could handle yourself just one time… one time that turns into four times that turns into a fight that gets physical, and you lose the child you were trying so hard to be your best self for.”
My hands rest in the lap of my crossed legs, while I worry the bracelet Luna made me around my wrist as I recount my story that I’ve told hundreds of times. Some of these people have heard it enough to recite it, and some are hearing it for the first time. Only now I have a new chapter to add.
“A little while ago, I almost lost my daughter,” I reveal as I try to suppress a sob in my throat. “She almost drowned the morning after my brother’s wedding. Thank God a saint of a stranger was nearby and rescued her. Since then, I’ve been feeling so happy, relieved, blessed, but also shaken to my core. Like I’m being given a bitch slap of reality in the middle of all the post-traumatic bliss, and it’s… tested me.”
The conclusion of my tale is met with a round of understanding murmurs and sentiments of reassurance before the next person takes their turn to vent their most recent struggles.
Obviously, I didn’t revealeverything. I’m not feeling quite ready to tell them the stupid part where I developed an attraction to that saint of a stranger on both a physical and emotional level, only to have him tuck tail and flee my salon, leaving me feeling confused on a number of levels as well as, wait for it…unwanted.A feeling that is so familiar, yet I never get used to it.
After the wedding, I had already started to come to more meetings to deal with the anxiety, but having my hopes up about a new person only to have them squashed by rejection for the millionth time added a little more incentive.
I’m always seen as either a good friend or a good lay, but never someone’s end game; their happily ever after. And this… I don’t even know what the hell this was. I liked him, and was starting to feel like the feeling was mutual, I was giving him a haircut andbam, he freaked out and left with barely a look. I could go to my brother’s house where I know he’s staying, but one thing I have learned is when to leave it alone. I’ve attained enough self-respect in my experiences to at least do that much.
I’ll dust myself off like I always do, but at the moment, it stings, and has left me feeling, well, not great, and while I’m not running for the pills, I know only too well that not addressing the feelings will only lead to that happening eventually. So I’ve been making more appearances at meetings and putting more hours in at the gym afterwards. I also put a freeze on my dating profile because good God do I need a break from that.
It’s going to suck for a while, but like always, I’m going to suck it up and get past it. I have no other choice.
