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“Okay,” I say, the pulse in my wrist that I grip with my other hand feeling thin and threadlike.
He gently pulls the brush through my hair in sections. I grew my hair long after we ran into the Wolfe brothers. It was a small thing I could control because I didn’t have much control over anything else. He pulls a pair of grooming scissors from his leather men’s toiletry bag resting on the countertop and leans into me. “My beautiful, brave Evie. Ready?”
“No.”
‘Don’t you dare let the past control your life,’ Hope says. ‘Take a chance.’
Screw indecision. I grit my teeth. “I mean, yes. Do it.”
He cuts.
The slice is crisp, precise, surgical, but no one’s administered anesthesia and I shudder. A hunk of thick wetness smacks my shoulder, tumbling awkwardly down my breast. Fire grips my chest at the same time numbness settles around my ribs.
It is a cold winter day. I am thirteen years old. Mom is manic again, tossing all kinds of crap into our SUV. I am panicking, but I’m not allowed to panic. I have to hold it together for my sister’s sake.
He cuts.
Chunks of hair drop chilly and wet onto my thigh. I shiver and peer down.
I wear mid-calf length galoshes with dangling laces. I focus on the laces. If they can stay attached, I can too.
“Breathe,” Dylan says, lifting a section of hair, tugging it toward him, angling the scissors.
He cuts.
Mom throws the car in drive and we pitch forward. Thick clouds bump across the open skies open, like the heavens unzipped them.
Nausea rises in small tsunamis inside me and I gag. “Dylan… I don’t know…”
“You’re in control,” he says, kissing my cheek, the stubble from his chin brushing my face, its gritty scratchiness grounding me. “Just tell me if you want to stop, Lucky Charm. I only took off six inches. We can end this now. Not a big deal. Not a big change.”
The heavens spill out a sloppy mess of snow. Fat flakes hit the windshield harder. Colder. Meaner.
I glance down. Broken pieces of hair litter my legs, knees, the floor. Broken like the Wolfe brothers. Broken like Dylan used to be. “Keep going,” I say.
He cuts.
A wet hunk of hair slaps my hand and I wince.
The car pitches forward and I fly back into my seat.
He cuts.
A thick piece of hair dives and I flick it away, my fingers trembling. What will my fingers do when I no longer have all this to hide behind?
Ding-ding-ding the approaching train shrieks. The gates close in front of us.
He cuts.
Faster now. Split ends, ragged pieces, flutter around me, cover me, damp, wet. The sounds blur, the cut-cut-cuts coming faster. I close my eyes.
I am thirteen years old. The disco ball hanging from the gym’s ceiling spins panes of light across the room and I stare up at Wyatt Wolfe’s beautiful, pale face. His mean dad and my crazy mom twist our lives into tangled webs, and yet together, Wyatt and I make it bearable. Our future lives beckon, bright and promising, spinning like the light off that ball. Wyatt bends his head, touching his lips to mine. I always thought that one day I would marry him but I’ll never marry him because we ran him over and I broke him.
Mom’s latest boyfriend, Kyle, is strange. My lips burn like I brushed them against hot sauce – the kind of hot sauce Kyle liked on his chips on football game day. Kyle scares me. Mom is broken.
Easton lies – his limbs twisted and tangled – staring up at me with hatred blazing through his eyes. “Fuck you,” he says. Easton is broken.
Wyatt’s lips turn blue and he slips away from me. The muffled shriek of the ambulance, red lights blinking in contrast to the white against all the snow take him away. Did we break him for good? Did we break him forever?
