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A Friday Morning in Late September, 1984
“It’s still wild to me that you really did it, Nance—do you like it?”
“Yes, I like it.”
“You don’t think you’ll get bored of it?”
She gently shakes her head side to side, looking at her reflection in the glazy car window. “No, it feels better,” she insists. “Lighter.”
He shuts his door and walks around the back of the luxury car to stand at her side. “You know, I guess it’s growing on me, too,” he brushes off her shoulder affectionately, “you’ve kinda got the whole Michelle Pfeiffer thing going on? Scarface? Just need the bangs and some bleach.”
She considers it. “Really?”
Steve’s laugh echoes around them, rich and resonant, which completely catches her off guard. “Yeah, sure? But you’re out of your mind if you think I’m letting you get your mom’s Clorox anywhere near that pretty little head of yours.”
Earlier that morning (as in: before-sunrise early), eight inches of her hair got sliced off at the height of an existential crisis. She had been tossing and turning in bed for hours, long hours, that gave her too much room to be alone with her thoughts. The emotional breakdown she’d been repressing for ages couldn’t wait. She couldn’t repress anymore, so the dam burst, and she cried until sunup. After that, she needed a change, a chop, an event. Something had to happen or she’d have forgotten which dimension of the universe she was in—or, worse, analyzed the fact that there’s ones out there other than this one.
And now her boyfriend’s looking at her funny.
She follows his lead as they head toward the front of the school together. The fall breeze pecks at her skin and makes her shiver. In retrospect, she probably shouldn’t have worn such a short skirt today.
“Oh. Well, i-it’s just hair. You don’t think blonde hair is pretty?”
“I think I like brunettes a lot better,” he quips. Impressive timing.
What she doesn’t understand, though, is why it has to be a laughing matter. Would she look that ridiculous as a blonde? Just because she’s bookish and straightforward and serious doesn’t mean she has to have a certain look, does it? That certain look is what she had when he decided he wanted her, wanted her over all the other fish in the sea. She was special, and she’d never been that to anyone before.
They come to the main entrance of the school and, casting aside her simmering annoyance, she crosses the threshold while he holds the door open for her. “Hmm, flirting with me when I haven’t even given your French paper back to you…”
“Shit! It’s due this morning—”
“And here it is,” her fingers find the edge of her folder and slip out his paper, “500 words in all their foreign glory, and I think I got your handwriting right this time. You’re welcome.”
His widened eyes relax, and he swoops down to kiss her, deeply. There’s a bit of a…contraction, in her chest. That’s only because he’s just cut off her oxygen supply. Only. Definitely.
She pushes him lightly until he moves away. He begins spewing his palliations, rapid-fire style. “I love you you’re a princess I’m gonna buy you a milkshake today you’ll never have to do this for me again I promise I—”
“Will find the time for your next one? Yeah, you will.”
“Nancy, I’m seriously sorry. Coach has been strict with us all week, freakishly strict, I really didn’t have time to work on it.”
“I get it.”
“Okay.” Another kiss from him. “Good.” One more. “Just…be thinking about what you want me to get you for this because I’ll get you a whole damn castle, I will. Whole swimming pool full of bleach.”
She smiles. “Would you shut up about the bleach?”
“Yes! Yeah, I’ll even do that! Hey, I’m serious about the milkshake, though. You and me? After school? What do you say?”
“Okay.”
Essay in hand, he starts out for his class, and she won’t see him again until the lunch bell.
God, she’s gonna be rethinking her stupid haircut all morning, isn’t she?
Her first couple of classes pass by slowly, slower than usual, and she spends them both entirely inside her head. Her thoughts spiral like crazy in the cold and colorless classrooms, leaving stress to settle as dead weight on her shoulders. It doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t even feel tolerable. No matter how many factors in her life she tries to change, whether it’s her hair or her clothes, everything seems intolerable. She realizes that she has no choice but to deal with it all for now, but she hates that she has to. Hates medicating her anxiety with schoolwork and milkshakes and dissociation. That shit is killing her.
When History ends (at long last), she rushes to leave and move on to the next claustrophobic stress-trap of a room. Stopping her in her tracks, the teacher calls her out: “Nancy, I need to see you for a minute.”
Fantastic.
She rolls her eyes and pauses, turning to face him. “What is it?”
“Skirt length,” he notes.
She raises her eyebrows.
“I need to check your skirt length.”
She’ll state the obvious for him. “I have to go to class.”
“And it will just take a second, Miss Wheeler. Come here.”
She approaches his desk, and he takes the wooden ruler off the chalk ledge of his board. He holds the end of it against her kneecap, measuring the distance from knee to hem.
“You’re cutting it close…I suppose there’s no reason to make you change, though. Would you pull it down a little bit please, before you go into the hall? It’s hardly appropriate.”
She huffs. “Sure thing.”
“Thank you,” he says as she exits, “that’s a nice haircut, Miss Wheeler.”
Is there a way to just fucking...grow it all back? Every time she touched it, she got flashbacks to it being matted with tree portal sludge, but it turns out sludge is so much better than It’s growing on me and Nice haircut, Miss Wheeler.
She must be hallucinating. Jonathan Byers. Locker. Jonathan, at his locker. He is never at his locker.
But the stars have aligned, and the few extra seconds she spent getting a skirt check have bought her a rare opportunity to catch him before their shared English class, not after. She doesn’t know what possesses her, but she practically sprints across the corridor to get to him. She taps him once on his left shoulder then quickly moves around him to stand on his right side. She leans sideways against the lockers, grinning as he glances back in the opposite direction, his brows pushed together and his lips stuck in a puzzled pout.
“Hey there.”
He glances her way this time, mumbling, “Oh, hey.”
Clearly, he didn’t really look at her.
“Why are you at your locker? It’s quiz day, you don’t need any books.”
His body and eyes face forward. “Unless I finish early and wanna read?”
“Ooh, what are you reading?”
He closes his locker and finally angles his body toward hers. He does a double take then, making her fight a smile. Tough fight to win.
“Uh, I…you—your hair? You got it cut?”
She looks off to the side. Runs her hand through it, especially casual. “Oh, kinda, yeah. I did it myself.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm. This morning, I mean, I woke up, it looked so unhealthy. I didn’t like it, and the scissors were right there, so…I chopped it.”
“How did you do it so perfect?”
“It’s pretty easy,” she answers. Waiting for him to actually say something about it. The anticipation is making her face so hot, she can’t believe it. A definitive opinion would be nice, really nice.
“Looks cool,” he decides, with the faintest tremble in his voice. What is that about? Not satisfying, Jonathan.
“Does it look…good? On me? I liked it at first, but I’m not sure anymore. I know it’s just hair…” She looks down, down at her skirt, in an attempt to pull his eyes to a point on her thigh. She’s fishing for a compliment and attention; what? Why does he make her get like this? Why does every interaction with him feel like such a fever dream? His presence is a shot of straight impulsivity to her. It’s like she can say anything or do anything around him—and yet nothing will change. No reactions, no consequences.
“No, yeah. Yeah, it looks good on you,” he confirms, “it looks good.”
She loves when he takes her bait. Not that it matters if he likes her hair.
He does, though. That is beyond satiating because the haircut really did prevent (delay) a fit of insanity.
“Thanks. The change feels good, you know? Sometimes I feel like I’m living…I don’t know, like…”
He leans his shoulder on the lockers, mirroring her body language as he softly thumbs the dust jacket of the book in his hands. The Two Towers? What is that? Oh, okay, it says Lord of the Rings; he’s reading it for Will. The boys have loved the series ever since they could read chapterbooks, but maybe Jonathan never tried them. She never did, either, for the sake of originality. She didn’t mind playing D&D with her little brother’s friends (actually, she enjoyed it a lot growing up), but she had too much pride to read all the same books as him. Jonathan never cared about making such a separation between himself and Will. It’s so cute that he—
“Like you’re living the same day over and over?”
Yes.
She nods. “I don’t know if this makes any logical sense, but I guess making myself look different is my way of tricking my brain into thinking life is…restarting? Like last year didn’t happen?”
He chews his lip, staring vacantly past her.
“Paying for that by having Mr. Walker poke at my leg with his ruler,” she mutters. Her old Good Girl Skirts certainly didn’t raise any questions.
That confused pout settles again on his mouth. “What?”
“Nevermind…there’s nothing wrong with change, though, right? Now that I cut my hair, I almost wanna do more. What do you think I would look like as a blonde?”
“Like your sister, probably,” he predicts. With a quickness that lets her know he’s teasing her.
She smiles at him, and he looks at the floor. His long bangs fall in his eyes. She’s noticed that they hit right at his eyelashes when his head’s straight, so he’s obviously been allowing his hair to grow out, like she was prior to today. He doesn’t brush it down anymore, possibly because he spends more time rubbing out the bags beneath his ever-cloudy eyes (she can relate), but she wonders what it would look like if pushed back some. If it was a little—lighter, for him.
“Hey, Jonathan?”
“Yeah?”
“You wanna let me cut your hair?”
“Uhh…”
“Come on, we cut our hands together already,” she whispers. “This is the same thing, just without any pain.”
“I don’t know, Nancy…”
“It’s gonna look so good, though! And I have nothing fun to do tonight, I already finished all of Steve’s homework.” She says it like it’s a joke though not far off from the truth. “Please?” she begs sweetly, trying to convince him with her eyes.
“I…don’t know if I can…”
Why does he sound so scared?
“Sure you can, just stay when you bring Will over for the boys’ movie night.”
“They’re going to the arcade tonight, I thought.”
Now he’s just lying to her. She loves Lying, she’s Lying’s biggest fan, she’s having an affair with Lying. But recieving his shameless fibs fucking sucks.
“No, uh, no arcade. Dustin got his hands on The Slumber Party Massacre somehow, so…”
“Doesn’t sound like their kind of movie?”
“Maybe not your brother. My brother is very excited to see a bunch of teenage girls run around in their pajamas until they get murdered one by one.”
“Oh…”
She can see him thinking about it all. About how Mike and Will are thirteen now. Not babies anymore, not small. It is sad in a way. It’s gonna shatter Jonathan’s heart into a million pieces when Will eventually and inevitably starts caring more about the actresses in movies than the elements of fantasy or horror. She herself can’t imagine him feeling that way about girls, now or in the future.
The bell rings suddenly and brings them both back into the moment.
“It’s settled then.”
“Oh, it is?” he counters.
“Yes. It’ll be fun, I promise.”
He smiles for a split second, not with his teeth (that’s for very special, specific occasions), then sticks his tongue in his cheek to reset his expression. “For me or for you?”
“For both of us,” she promises, “now come on, you’re making us late.”
The vanilla malt Steve orders for her after school is way, way, way too much milkshake to finish all by herself, so they share it. It’s like their first date—double date. Her and Steve, Tommy and Carol. Weirdly enough, the pair made things better between them at that time. Their relationship was so ostentatious, unstable, stupid; it made her feel like what she had with Steve was serious by comparison. Rare, truly. She was sure no one else in the world could possibly understand their love because: he wasn’t supposed to love a girl like her, yet, he saw past her plainness and chose her. Chose her over the dozens of other girls desperate to be his.
She isn’t insecure like she was at fifteen.
(Like, she’s not plain, right? Okay, sure, she didn’t get romantic attention before Steve asked her out and, yeah, was a late bloomer. She doesn’t have a super bubbly personality. She has been told she’s bossy her whole life. Boys tend to be scared of her competitiveness and, to her knowledge, it’s not a “that’s so hot” kind of thing, more of a “what is her deal?” thing. A lot of people believed it when Steve painted her as a cheating slut, but it’s fine. Who cares? She’s smart and pretty. A good person. Good, loyal. Not a slut.)
Anyway, she’s not insecure.
So it’s a bit unpleasant to think about how lucky she felt to be noticed by him. There’s an imbalance there. Why should it have taken luck for her to be chosen and wanted by someone?
She’s deserving of attention, of love. She’s deserving of love. Probably. She’s deserving of love? Yes.
(No? She killed her best friend. She’s positive she did.)
Thankfully, despite the initial imbalance in their relationship, they really are in love with each other now. Would damn sure be awkward if they weren’t. But he’s so sweet, how could she not love him? He’s sweet and funny. The palpable desire in him to make her happy could…suffocate. Her.
It could suffocate her.
“Nancy?”
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“Mhm, why?”
“Cause,” he gestures to her hands, “you’re doing it again.”
She looks at her pale hands which rest next to their drink on the table, one scratching at the other. Trying to open her scar, disrupt its healing.
“I’m so sorry, that’s—really gross, I didn’t realize I was—”
“Hey, no, come here,” he soothes as he pulls her into a tight hug, “don’t worry about it.”
He holds her for a while like that…in the middle of the Dairy Queen. It feels great, he’s a great hugger. She is grateful for it. He starts whispering to her about how everything is gonna be alright and how he’s here for her. Sweet, again, even if he jumped the gun; she really was messing with her scar out of habit and nothing more. But they had an argument recently over him being insensitive about Her Trauma (she refused to go in his backyard because it reminded her of Barb cutting herself on the beer can, which is what attracted the Demofucker, as she hypothesized), and now he’s making extra sure to be sensitive and comforting in any and every case where she might possibly be experiencing a bad memory. Wow, it’s annoying how—
“What do you say we get out of here?” he suggests when he pulls away. “All done with your milkshake?”
She nods, her mouth tight. Please, I’m tired.
She sits silently as he retrieves a few bills to leave as a tip. She reaches out and rubs his arm to make him feel cared for, too. To even things out.
Once they’re back in his BMW, his hand is on her thigh.
“Thanks for buying,” she says. “I probably don’t thank you enough for always paying for stuff.”
“No need to thank me.”
“Yes, there is! You don’t have to, but you do, and it’s sweet.”
“Come on, you kidding me? You’re the prettiest thing anyone’s ever seen, Nance, of course I’m—”
“Oh, here we go,” she teases.
“I said of course I’m gonna do that for you. I’d do anything for you. You’re amazing.”
She sighs. “Thank you.”
He looks pleased that she accepted his compliments.
(She doesn’t want his compliments about how pretty she is. There are a million other insecurities eating her alive much faster than the am-I-pretty-parasite; it is quite literally the only thing he talks about. The affirmations, as smooth as they sound coming from such a charming guy—her boyfriend—just don’t go much deeper than her looks and feel inaccurate when they do. It bites.)
“So, what do you wanna do tonight?”
Immediate confusion. She blinks at the vibrant stop sign that’s posted ahead of them. She couldn’t agree with it more. Stop, Steve!
“We can go to my house,” he squeezes her thigh, “my parents aren’t home.”
Oh. That’s what he meant? That’s what “what do you say we get outta here” meant? She was kind of thinking yes, let’s get out of here as in I have a warm bed to crawl into and a power nap to take before I cut Jonathan’s hair.
Well, she guesses it’s only fair to go to his place. They haven’t had sex in a long time. It’s bad of her to do that to him.
But she doesn’t want to go because she currently has no sex drive.
(Needing to touch herself in private doesn’t count, does it? It’s just easier to get turned on when she’s by herself. Nestled in her own bed, safe with her own thoughts, her own fantasies. Of course her fingers feel better than Steve’s, why wouldn’t they? That doesn’t mean anything. And, okay, no, she doesn’t think about him when she’s getting herself off, but it’s fine. She comes faster if she clears her mind, there’s nothing wrong with that. Except she doesn’t really clear her mind, she often thinks of boys from movies or books and, it’s crazy, sometimes they look similar to…someone…she…knows? Look, she only uses that as a last resort, so it’s not that bad.)
“Um.”
“If you have to be home for dinner, it’s okay. Just give me an hour, let me…let me take your mind off all the shit that’s been stressing you out, yeah? You’ve been worrying yourself to death, you need to let yourself relax—”
“I’m on my period,” she spits out. And she was, a few days ago. Now she’s not.
“Oh…kay. Okay. Jesus, you probably don’t feel so good right now?”
“No. It sucks. I’m sorry, I know it’s been forever since I’ve slept over.”
“No, don’t apologize. I mean, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Not totally true. Hypothetically they could…well, have sex. But she’s trying to get out of that.
Shit, it sounds horrible even inside her head. No, not horrible. Incriminating.
(She’s not trying to be horrible. She has no choice. Life has gotten really awful, and she has to spare herself the emotional exhaustion wherever she can. Her panic attacks consist of full-blown hallucinations, her body goes into fight-or-flight at the drop of a hat, she’s drowning in her own anger every minute of the day, and she no longer remembers what it feels like to not be on the verge of crying. After all that, what strength is she left with to get her through a night of sex with someone who she isn’t…in love…with? Her feelings for him are deeper than casual friendship, yes, but she’s not in love with him at this point. She has grown to love him in a nonphysical, camraderie-rooted way that makes sex with him weird and exhausting when it doesn’t just make her numb. She doesn’t want to be his girlfriend, but if she tells him that, she won’t be anything to him. So she does want to be his girlfriend. See how tricky it is?)
“But I am sorry, can I sleep over next weekend? I wanna come over then.”
Liar.
“Of course but, I mean, you should still come over today. We can just hang out.”
She sighs.
“Or not,” he concedes.
“I’m sorry. I just need to go home, okay? It’s been a long day.”
He pulls into the very next driveway, an auto shop parking lot, to turn the car around. To put them in the direction of her neighborhood rather than his. “Whatever you say, Nance.”
Yeah, Steve. Whatever I say.
That power nap she was drooling over is, ultimately, too powerful; for three straight hours, she is a motionless little hill beneath her blankets, dead to the world, and unprepared for Jonathan’s arrival. Once she is awake, she is groggy and dedicates an additional ten minutes to laying in bed—until she checks the clock. 6:55pm. Slumber Party Massacre starts at seven sharp, so she has got to get up.
The truth is she has no idea how to cut Boy Hair (or her own; she was literally just fucking around with the kitchen scissors this morning), and the only reason she begged him for permission to do so was because after she got the idea, it was way too tempting to let go of.
It can’t be hard, right? In comparison to other ventures she’s taken on? He will look cute even if she messes it up—
In the bathroom, she spends a moment making some careful product selections. She definitely wants the detangling spray, it’ll keep his hair damp for cutting. And for styling? Maybe some leave-in conditioner. For good measure, she grabs a pair of metal shears that certainly appear to be meant for grooming, a couple of towels, and her own Conair Pistol dryer that she uses every day.
When she catches herself in the mirror, she frowns. Her eye makeup is all smudgy, her powder has begun to separate from her skin. She washes it all away, cleans her hands, then hurries back to her room to change clothes. As she unzips and sheds her skirt, delighting in the elimination of constriction, the sound of the doorbell makes her jump. She slips into the first pair of pants she finds, puts on a comfortable shirt, and goes downstairs.
Looks like she’s not gonna beat Mike to the door.
“Hey, I want to answer that!” she shouts while he runs in from the kitchen.
He ignores her and flings open the door. A few seconds too late, she comes up beside him, wedging herself between him and the doorframe to make herself seen. Still he ignores her.
“Will! Hey!”
“Hey!”
She barks out her brother’s name in a way that draws it out and shows her exasperation: Mike-cuh!
“Leave us alone,” he snarls and subsequently directs his attention back to the smaller Byers boy, pulling him inside the house, toward the basement stairs. “Come on, we’re about to start the movie!”
The boys disappear down the stairs, leaving her alone with Jonathan who has since come out from where he’d tucked himself into the shadows, standing off to the side of the welcome mat.
With crossed arms, she keeps her head turned over her shoulder. “I said I wanted to answer it, asshole!”
Silence.
“So fucking annoying,” she mutters to herself. Then she relaxes her body, easing the tension in her muscles or hoping to, anyway. She turns to look at Jonathan. He seems spooked, to say the least, if not entertained.
“Uh, hi?”
“Sorry, hey.”
“Should I…come in?”
“Yeah, duh.” She pulls the door open wider for him as she hops back from the sill.
“No, I mean, really—should I? You seem kind of mad, I don’t know if I should subject myself to you and your scissors right now.”
So she’s not allowed to call her own brother a mean name? Now who’s being annoying?
“I’m not—”
Okay, she yelled that.
“I’m not mad…” That was better. That was calm.
Jonathan’s skeptical expression brightens up into something sly yet smiley and sympathetic that shuts her rage off fast. Though she should be used to all his complexities, used to the surprising combinations of hidden traits that make him Him, her joints begin to buzz. She could be wrong about this one, but she senses flirtatious energy all around him—regardless of his tight jaw and tense body. His sleeves might as well be sewn to his belt loops with the way he’s sinking into himself, trying to keep his anxiety from falling out of his pockets. He may be aiming to minimize himself visually, but it’s not exactly working. Sure, his waist is tiny, teeny tiny, but those shoulders are broader than anything. Especially under the light color of his henley. Newsflash, we can see you. And we want to see you.
“You doing okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” she sighs. “Just stop looking at me like that.”
Stop looking at me like you don’t know about your perfect shoulder-to-waist ratio.
He follows her up to her bedroom, which doesn’t look too terribly untidy, though the bed is unmade. She has laid out some large bath towels around the legs of her desk chair and neatly lined up her supplies on the desk. She gestures for him to sit before correcting herself—“Wait, wait, wait”—and spins the chair around so it's facing away from her mirror. He crosses his arms. A flimsy display of protest, perhaps. She grins. “Okay, now, sit.”
She won’t be swayed. If he watches her, she won’t be focused. This has got to be a blind haircut.
When she goes to close her door, he does sit down, as instructed. Such an obedient customer.
“Does that work?” he asks, arm extended out to a record player that sits on the floor beside her white drawer chest.
“Oh, yeah, what do you wanna listen to—”
“W-whatever you want, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Bad liar. Bad! He must think she can’t see the truth. Little does he know that his habit of hiding himself and preempting vulnerable situations is what pressures her to pursue his secrets. There is so much about him that is a secret to her. In fact, this is the first time they’ve hung out together, outside of school and alone, since last winter.
But music taste isn’t that revealing. Not in the same way that your biggest phobia is revealing or your test scores are revealing or your miniskirt is too revealing for your History teacher. That being said, a chance to play whatever she wants is a chance to play whatever she wants; she grabs a Blondie record.
“Okay, you’ll love this,” she promises, putting on their debut album. When she returns to her DIY salon setup, he’s nervously tapping his foot against her laundry basket. The sound is quiet but annoying. She doesn’t think he’s aware of what he’s doing.
The nervousness is adorable, so she won’t tell him to quit it.
Her hands fold the smallest bath towel in half and drape it around his neck, as if it were a scarf, to protect his shirt from the clippings. “How was your day?” she asks politely.
“Interesting, I guess,” he murmurs.
“Oh yeah?”
“Mhm. How about you?”
“Pretty boring, up till now.” She rounds the chair to stand in back of him and picks up the bottle of detangler. “Wait, before I start…do you trust me?”
“You do realize my mom cuts my hair, right? And her hands are always shaking ‘cause of coffee and cigarettes? Trust me, I trust you. You’re much more capable.”
“Okay, good,” she giggles. She begins spritzing his head, but the nozzle doesn’t give her much control. It may get his hair too wet. Problem Solving Time. She sprays her hand and tries threading her fingers through his hair to add in the moisture. It’s impossibly soft, it practically feels like a little kid’s. The discovery is so fascinating that she opens her big mouth about it. “Woah, your hair is soft.”
“Uh, thanks?”
“No, sorry, it’s just—softer than I’ve ever felt. I guess I’m so used to my own and mine is thick plus I damage it with heat and hairspray.” She explains this quickly and leaves out the detail that her boyfriend’s hair is also completely dead from product. “I’m jealous, what shampoo do you use?”
“I don’t know? We go through a lot of it, so we get the cheapest.”
She leans down before she can stop herself. Brushes her nose against the part of his hair that’s still dry, breathing him in.
“Well, it smells good, whatever it is.” It's clean and lemony.
Okay, now stop sniffing him. Jesus.
But it is really nice hair. And such a pretty color, too. Looks golden, but brown, but fairly light, but like his eyes, but like honey, but like—
“Thanks…”
She plays in his hair for a bit longer, getting it damp. Touseling, not tangling. Now that she’s touching it, she feels more confident. This will be a breeze. She did a pretty good job on herself, after all.
She swaps out her spray bottle for her comb. “Look down for a sec,” she requests, pressing on his jaw with her index finger. His skin is warm, and he bows his head immediately in response to the touch. She combs down a section of hair at the nape of his neck, then places it between her index and middle finger, sliding down to leave the ends, which she snips carefully with her shears. Yeah, that seems to be a good length. Shorter, but not short.
“I like this song.”
“Hm?”
“This song, it’s not bad, I like it.”
Man overboard
Throw him a line
…
He gave it all for love
“Me too. This is side B. The other side is even better, though.”
They lapse into silence for a little bit as she makes the judicious first cuts. It’s not awkward, just chill. Cozy, like a nice library.
He keeps accidentally straightening his neck, and each time, she gently tips his head back down for him. Otherwise, he stays very still. In practically no time, she’s done evening out the length of the back, so she moves on to the sides. She sticks to her technique, pulling the hair tight and flat between two fingers and then trimming the ends, angling her shears to keep the cuts light-handed.
“I kinda wanna make the sides a little shorter than the back, okay? But I’m gonna leave the top pretty long.”
“Yeah, no, you can do whatever. I don’t…really care.”
She grins. “Is that true?”
“You’re the professional here. You get creative freedom.”
She passes her comb through his hair and snips more. She tries thinning it out by closing the blades of the scissors only partially, letting the hair slip through them. It worked well for her this morning, and it works well now.
The task is therapeutic. She feels sleepy watching his hair fall back into place after being let go of. Like a lazy silken cascade. It’s weird how small things like this have the power to sweeten her mood when other small things drive her crazy. Weird, but not to be complained about. It’s Friday night, she’s got her hands in some Soft Boy Hair, and she’s content. As she finishes up on the opposite side, she steps back to examine the big picture. The left side may be choppier, to some degree, but get real—she can’t make him look too good or she’ll fail English.
When it’s time for the top, she takes her place in front of him. His stare is directed at the carpet.
Like before, she tilts his jaw herself, pushing upward with the pads of her fingers, her thumb resting against the corner of his mouth. Perhaps it’s rude of her, being this touchy with him. But since nothing gets much of a reaction out of him, she wonders what her limits are.
She reins her focus in, though there’s less work to do on these sections. She pulls a piece from the top, holding it at a ninety-degree angle, and cuts illiberally to preserve the length.
It’s surprising that she was able to make this whole thing happen. He’s hard to get a hold of at school and plays defense every time they have a conversation. It was way worse last year, around Christmastime. Then, he was a ghost; she only saw him when he wasn’t there. And he was never there. She imagined it.
She also waited. She waited for him to show himself and stop being an incorporeal chicken. (Yes, a chicken. A scaredy-cat. All synonyms apply.) He didn’t, and she went to Steve because she needed at least one friend. After that happened, she actually saw him more. Then a little more in the summer (but he worked a lot), and now, even with a gun to her head, she couldn’t tell you—she couldn’t tell you if they’re truly friends or if they’re truly not.
So she’s, what, his stylist? His English class partner? His enemy?
His creator? Did she create him? That monster could have bitten his head off in November (monsters must love chicken), and she could have been tripping on trauma this whole time, having visions of him. It’s morbid but—he can’t be real, can he? Who in the real world has the ability to make himself invisible whenever he pleases? And, oh, he pleases.
(The Top Five places in which Jonathan has somehow hidden from her include: at school when there was a mandatory fire drill, at school when there was a mandatory assembly, at her house when there was a New Year’s Eve party which he did attend, at his own workplace when he was working, and finally, at his house when his car was parked in the driveway. She was dropping off a gift from her mom. Fresh chocolate chip cookies. Conveniently, he was showering, or that’s what Joyce said. Who the hell has such bad luck that they happen to be in the shower when there are warm chocolate chip cookies being delivered to them? A very unlucky person.)
If she died, he’d probably hide from her at the funeral, crouching behind her casket.
“Nancy?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Blondie your favorite band of all time, or is there something else?”
“Well, I love Debbie Harry a lot—close your eyes—so they’re definitely up there.” She trims his bangs carefully and lets them fall down over his nose bridge, surely tickling him. “Why? You think they’re not good enough to be my favorite?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I mean, I thought it but—”
“Jonathan! You just said you liked it.”
“The music is kind of…confusing? The lyrics don’t match the sound which doesn’t match her voice which—”
“Stop it, her voice is perfect. Your problem is that you haven’t listened to enough of the music.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” she confirms, ruffling his bangs to gauge their thinness, “but if I had to choose someone other than her, I would say Stevie Nicks. I love Fleetwood Mac a lot.”
“Yeah, so does everyone.”
“Well I love them a lot more than everyone. Stop trying to insult me when I have scissors in my hand.”
He huffs, crossing his arms.
His haircut comes to an end, but after a quick blow-dry, she informs him that she’s not quite done with him. She wants to style his hair. Only slightly. Nothing dramatic.
He’s getting just a little bit antsy, like maybe he’s sick of being turned away from the mirror. She unscrews the lid off her small jar of leave-in conditioner and smells it, out of habit.
“Oh my God, I love this stuff.” She holds the jar under his nose to let him survey its scent. His brow furrows as he smells and vets it; he’s trying to connect it to a memory.
She uses it every day. Does he take notice of it at school? Me, that’s what it reminds you of. It smells like me. Tell me you like it.
“I like it,” the mind reader says, “it’s strong, though.”
Is he okay with that? Something that comes on a little strong? Strong personality, bossiness, competitive edge, ability to scare boys off…does he like those things?
“Peppermint oil,” she replies, “it helps your hair grow.”
She steps forward. Freezes in front of him while she contemplates. After a beat, she begins transferring the product from hand to head. She’s addicted to it now—playing with his hair. As she runs her fingers through it, short nails softly scraping his scalp, it feels smooth, like lukewarm water flowing over her skin. It looks so good already, different but not too different, as she pushes it around, shaping it how she wants. It’s cooperative with her as she strokes his bangs, pushing them off his forehead some. Giving them lift.
There, just like that. He looks handsome.
“Why do I feel like you’re taking this too seriously?”
She smiles, hands still in his hair. “I’m a professional…”
Her motions grow purposeless. She’s not really styling him anymore. Just doesn’t want to stop touching his hair. She slides her hands through the sides, slower than slow-motion, moving downward to smooth down the waves on the back of his neck. He is avoiding eye contact with her, she knows, because she is so close to him.
The silence is louder than it was before.
She shouldn’t stare at him, but that’s exactly what she’s doing now, hands fixed on either side of his neck and practically cradling his face. She tries to count the lashes which obscure his lowered eyes. With her eyes, she draws imaginary lines along the sharp angles of his cheekbones and nose. “You said it yourself that I’m a professional,” she murmurs quietly, spacing out, “and I promise, it looks good.” Her knee nudges itself between his legs, so subtle, and she watches for the quirk of his mouth. Is this the boundary? Is this it? React to me now. React. “It looks,” her thumbs softly massage both sides of his jaw, “super, super good.”
Finally, he swallows hard and dares to look up at her. Her heart is pounding, muffling the vinyl, and though she needs to look away from him, she can’t. A surge of affection comes and capsizes her center of gravity.
She’d be safer leaning over the edge of a precipice, about to fall headfirst into a pit of jagged rocks.
Their completely inappropriate eye-contact—completely inappropriate for stylist and client, for English project partner and partner, for enemy and enemy, for creator and creation—lasts for five more seconds, then…
A chorus of tween screams in the basement deafens her, echoing through the whole house. They both startle. The second her hands are back at her sides, she feels more sober. More in control of herself.
Apparently, the boys are really bad at anticipating jumpscares in horror movies.
“Jesus,” she whispers, moving round the chair, “they’re so loud.”
“Y-yeah…” He sounds terrified.
“Um, I-I’m gonna get these towels up, then you can see if you like it.”
See? Fever dream. And not a real person. What was he gonna do, just look up at her like a deer in the headlights forever while she undressed him with her eyes and massaged the hinges of his jaw? If she had given in, if she had kissed him, would he have even moved? Or was he just gonna sit there with his pretty hair and sharp cheekbones and let her get away with everything…
She ignores her racing heart and carefully folds up the towels on the floor, making sure to keep the hair clippings on the inside. She removes the towel from his shoulders, rolling it up to place on her desk. She would dust off his shirt, but she’s done touching him. “Okay, you can go look.”
As she stacks the other towels and lines up her tools in a neat row, he approaches the mirror. “Oh, okay, so you actually did good—”
“Jonathan!”
So we’re just gonna pretend we didn’t have a…moment?
“I couldn’t see what you were doing! You could have been trying to make me blonde, for all I knew.”
“First of all,” she joins him in front of the mirror, “you’re not that far from being blonde. And come on, I did great! I cut my hair perfectly, I cut your hair perfectly, I’m a professional now, so say ‘thank you.’”
He blushes. “Thank you.”
She studies their reflections. They’ve changed so much in a year. They look good together.
Tired, yes, but good together.
“Let me go put these in the wash, and I’m gonna tell Mike not to scream so loud. Hey, do you wanna watch something? In the living room? My parents won’t be home for another hour, we can be alone downstairs.”
He hugs himself tightly, probably waiting for his invisibility cloak to fly in through the window and save him. She can almost hear the excuse before he says anything. “Um, I can’t, I’m sorry.”
“Oh.”
“My mom’s getting off work right now, so I should really go make dinner for her.”
“Right, well that’s…that’s nice of you.”
“I mean, if I don’t, she may not eat, so…”
“Maybe you should tell her new boyfriend he needs to take her out to dinner more.”
She’s smiling, but Jonathan bristles at the mention of the guy. “Sure,” he mutters.
They say their goodbyes, and soon, she’s right back in her bed. Knees to her chest, pillow in her arms, and on the verge of crying. It was stupid of her: chopping off her hair today. She thought it meant everything, she thought it signified an internal change, but it didn’t. It was a faulty coping mechanism that followed bullshit logic.
She likes her hair like this, and she feels pretty with it, but when is she ever going to learn that self-medicating her PTSD with bullshit is only making her more depressed? She let her best friend die, and she has to do something about it soon. Bleaching her hair won’t make things better, buying tighter clothes won’t make things better, and kissing Jonathan? Extremely enticing—more enticing than a glass of water is in the middle of the desert—but it won’t make things better. Not right now. Not yet.
Doing anything besides helping the Holland family gain closure is self-sabotage.
And on Monday morning, when she catches Ashley from her English class undressing Jonathan with her eyes, she realizes that giving him a haircut was self-sabotage, too...