She saw me looking and touched her own hair. “Exactly. You don’t want to be like me.”
“I was actually just thinking I like yours,” I said. I’d spent so much time fighting, stubbornly clinging to the idea of having everything how it used to be, when maybe I should be adapting. Adjusting my hair around what had happened rather than trying to cover up the part I’d lost. I inwardly rolled my eyes at the obvious cheesy metaphor there, but I said, “I want it cut. Do it.”
She pursed her lips, studying me like she wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth. “Okay.”
Still, I held my breath when she pulled my hair taut for the first cut. That distinctive sound of scissors snipping was followed by the whisper of a lock falling to the bathroom floor. It was so much longer than I thought the cut part would be. It lay there on the tile, curled in a spiral. It hit like a punch. “Oh God,” I whispered.
“Too late now,” Elodie said.
“I know.” I watched the second lock fall. And the third.
Soon, Elodie stood in front of me, evening out the hair brushing my collarbones. I touched the freshly snipped ends, and they swung freely.
Elodie took down the clip with the next layer of hair. I swallowed hard.
“I don’t hate you, either. Just so you know,” I said, trying to distract myself.
She pulled a strand of hair between her fingers. “I know.” By the time she took down the top section, my head felt ten pounds lighter.
Finally, she ruffled my hair and smoothed it back from my face. My eyes were still shut tight, and I felt her arrange locks over my ears, then grab my chin and tilt my face up. “Open,” she said.
I did, and Elodie’s face was inches from mine. She actually smiled, and took my face between her palms. “Stop looking like someone died, or I’m not going to do the pink.”
I pasted on a smile that felt fake even to me, and she snorted but grabbed the box of dye. Then she looked me up and down and wrinkled her nose. “Please tell me those aren’t the same clothes you had on when we left Greece.”
“I haven’t exactly had time to go shopping.” I touched my hair, trying to sneak a peek over my shoulder into the mirror.
“No! Don’t look.” Elodie jumped in front of me and pointed at the partition at the end of the room that hid the shower stall. “Your hair needs to be wet, anyway. Shower, and I’ll have Colette bring clean clothes, then we’ll do the dye.”
Almost an hour later, I was showered, my hair was dyed, and Elodie produced a blow-dryer. She kept me facing away from the mirror, and I could feel her twirling my waves around her fingers. When she was done, she actually smiled. “Approved. You can look.”
I stood and smoothed the black sheath dress Colette had brought. She and I weren’t anywhere near the same size, but the dress was drapey, so it didn’t matter.
I took a centering breath and turned around.
I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
Elodie had cut my hair in a long blunt bob that fell to my shoulders. I’d wondered if the short hair would make me look younger, but I looked more sophisticated. Older, in a good way. Without the length of the hair pulling down, my cheekbones stood out more, and my eyes looked bigger, but somehow more proportional at the same time. I looked like me, but not.
And the color. If pink hair could ever look natural, this looked natural. It was bright—it was incredibly bright. It wasn’t just pink, it was magenta. But all the pink chunks were on the under layer, and Elodie had woven them in so they peeked through the curls on top. At first you only got a glimpse, but if I tossed my hair or turned my head quickly, it was a flash of neon.
“I love it,” I said. “I love it. You’re a genius.”
“I’m going to remember you said that and use it as blackmail,” Elodie said, but she looked pleased.
“I don’t look like me.” I did, but still different enough to walk down the hall at Lakehaven High without anybody recognizing me. “This will work.”
“We’ll have to put you in baggy clothes, probably, make you look bigger, but it’s a start.”
I nodded. “Anything. I’ll do anything.”
Between the hair and the dress, I looked so . . . together. Capable. Confident.
“Thank you,” I said. “I couldn’t have—thank you.”
“You’re not going to hug me, are you?” Elodie took a step back.
I felt a real smile creeping across my face. “I won’t hug you. But thank you. I like it.”
“Well,” she said, opening the bathroom door, “now we’ve wasted half the afternoon, so hopefully it was worth it.”
We headed down the stairs. Colette intercepted us in the hall and clapped her hands excitedly, then took my arm and led me into the living room. “What mischief have you all been up to while we’ve been gone?” Elodie said.
Neither of the boys answered. They peered around her, trying to catch a glimpse of me.
When they did, Jack’s mouth dropped open. I don’t think he’d believed I’d actually do it. Stellan looked just as shocked. All of a sudden, I felt far more self-conscious than I had a minute ago. Colette flipped the ends of my hair, and I chewed my lip. “Do you like it?” I asked Jack.
“Yes! Yes. Absolutely. Looks brilliant,” he said, snapping out of it. “Pink hair, then. That’ll make a good disguise.”
“You don’t like it.”
“Don’t be such an old person,” Elodie said. “She looks fabulous. S, tell her she looks fabulous.”
“Fabulous,” Stellan echoed, but he barely glanced at me as he toed the ground with one boot.
“Well, I like it,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster. This was about being able to leave the house without getting recognized, not about looking pretty. And I did like it.