HairWriter
Ava was poor, lonely, and downright miserable, but at least she had beautiful hair. Her waist-length ebony tresses were silky, straight, and downright gorgeous. Whenever she walked down the street, no one noticed her threadbare clothes and shoes that were falling apart. The only thing they looked at was her stunning mane.
It was the first of the month, which meant only one thing: rent was due. Ava was sitting in her tiny apartment, combing through her beloved hair as her daughter napped in her crib. Her daughter was nearly a year old. It’d been nearly two months since Ava’s boyfriend, Brad, walked out of her and his daughter’s life, and Ava was having trouble coping with the breakup. She wanted to cry every time she looked at her daughter. She would have to grow up without a father just as Ava did. The cycle was repeating itself.
Every man that entered Ava’s life took interest in her hair, but Brad went even further: he was enamored with her flowing locks. He used to run his fingers through her hair and tell her she was a queen. Ava had been poor all her life, so being compared to royalty made her feel special.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Ava jumped up from her chair and answered the door. It was the landlord.
“Rent is due,” he muttered. “You didn’t pay last month, but I let it slide because you’re a young mother. If you don’t pay by midnight tonight, I’ll have no choice but to throw you out.”
Ava tried to hide her fear. “But –”
“No buts,” he snapped. “Midnight. $1,200. Make it happen.”
He slammed the door, leaving Ava to feel more alone than she ever had before.
Ava paced back and forth as she tried to figure out what to do. Her car had broken down last week, and after paying to fix it, she was left penniless. Everything in her life was falling apart. Ava laid on her bed and stared at the ceiling with a blank expression as she tried to accept that she and her daughter would be homeless by tomorrow morning.
Then she remembered something.
About four months earlier, she’d received a weird message on Instagram from a local salon owner. He’d offered to cut her hair and pay her for it. Ava had politely declined and forgotten about the ordeal. She held her hair in her hands and sighed. Losing a few inches wouldn’t be so bad…right?
She picked up her phone and messaged him.
Hey! I know I said I wasn’t interested, but I’ve changed my mind. I need $1,200 by midnight tonight. Do you think you can pay me that much?
He replied less than a minute later.
Yes, $1,200 may be possible. Please come down to the salon and we’ll discuss this in further detail.
Ava scooped her daughter in her arms and exited her apartment. Ava was grateful it only took a few minutes for her to drive to the salon so she didn’t have to think about what was about to happen. Ava entered the salon with her daughter in her arms. A bald man approached her and offered her a warm smile.
“I’m Tristan. You must be Ava,” he said. “Your daughter looks just like you.”
Ava forced a smile. “She’s a handful, but I love her to death.”
Tristan motioned for one of his employees to come over. “This is Missy. She used to work in a daycare center. She can watch your daughter while we cut your hair.”
Missy smiled and gently led Ava’s daughter to a children’s play area in the waiting area of the salon. Tristan pointed to a chair in the corner of the salon. “Your throne awaits.”
Ava nervously sat down. Tristan draped a cape over her shoulders. It’d been so long since she’d had a haircut that she’d forgotten they used a cape to keep the hair off her shoulders.
“So,” Tristan began, “you need $1,200.”
Avan nodded shyly. “Rent is due.”
“I see…”
Tristan combed through her hair. “You have at least three feet of hair here, maybe even four. It I cropped it at the chin right now I could give you $900 for it.”
“Only $900 to go all the way to the chin?” Ava cried. “I thought you’d only take a foot of hair off.”
“I won’t make any profit that way.” Tristan said with a shrug. After a moment of contemplation, he said, “I’ll tell you what. I have a customer who’s looking for a certain type of video of a girl getting her hair cut. I can give you $2,000 if you let me make the video and sell it to him. How does that sound”
“How much hair will you cut?”
“That part is a secret,” he said. “The only rule is that you can’t protest no matter what happens. If you say a single word during the haircut process, he won’t want the video, and I won’t be able to give you any money.”
Ava took a deep breath. There was no way she could turn down $2,000, and Tristan knew it.
“Fine,” Ava said. “I’ll do it.”
Tristan set up a camera and hit record. Ava kept a straight face as Tristan began brushing through her hair. She hid her agony as he began to cut. Each snip stabbed her soul. When Tristan was done, he threw her hair to the front side of her body. It was still well below her breasts. Ava breathed a small sigh of relief. Yes, it was a lot shorter than what she was used to, but it wasn’t actually a short hairstyle. She’d still get plenty of admiration for her hair.
It was at that moment Ava realized Tristan wasn’t done. He combed the hair to the front of her face and began cutting thick, blunt bangs. Ava’s heart sank. She hated bangs almost as much as she hated being poor. When the final snip was done on the bangs, Ava stared at her reflection. The bangs went past her eyebrows and concealed her entire forehead. It looked terrible, but Ava hid her true feelings.
Next, Tristan cut Ava’s hair to her shoulders. That’s when the grief of losing her hair really start to hit her. All those years of growth and care were gone in a matter of seconds. Still, she soldiered on and maintained a still expression. Perhaps this was the end of the haircut.
Much to her dismay, Tristan then cut a horrible blunt chin-length bob to compliment her horrible blunt bangs. By this point, Ava looked like a totally different person, and she hated it. It couldn’t possibly get any worse…right?
That’s when Ava heard a terrible whirring noise. She knew that noise well from when Brad used to cut his hair in the bathroom of the apartment. Clippers. She shuddered as Tristan slid the terrible device up the nape of her neck. He moved to the side of her head and moved the clippers until her ears were completely exposed. The hair on the top of her head was snipped to only a few inches. At least the blunt bangs were a thing of the past.
Ava had never felt more ashamed as she examined herself in the mirror. The person staring back at her was an ugly, short-haired freak. She expected Tristan to remove the cape and free her from haircut hell, but little did she know that the experience was about to go from bad to downright torturous.
Tristan removed the guard from the clippers and took a big chunk of hair off the crown of her head. Before Ava had time to process what was happening, she was left with only tiny patches of hair scattered throughout her scalp. Tristan brought over a bowl of water, a straight razor, and shaving cream.
Ava held back tears as Tristan wet her head and applied shaving cream. The straight razor was cold and unforgiving as scraped away what little hair she had left. After Tristan wiped off the remaining shaving cream, Ava was left to deal with her new reality. There was no denying it: Ava was bald. She was really, really bald.
At long last, it was over. Tristan turned off the camera.
“We’re done,” he said bluntly. “I can pay you up front.”
He tore the cape off Ava without much care. Ava stared down at the graveyard of her hair. She placed her hands on her head and was greeted with cold, damp skin. A wave of shock ran over her and she began to sob.
“Get over it,” Tristan snapped.
Ava continued to cry as Tristan handed her an envelope with $2,000 in it. It was enough for rent, groceries, and even some new clothes, but at what cost? Ava’s own child looked at her like she was an alien as she loaded her into her car seat. When Ava got back to her apartment, she pulled up her hoodie, entered the landlord’s office, and shoved the $1,200 into his hands. She walked up the long flight of steps to her apartment, put her daughter to bed, and let the grief wash over her.
She stood in the bathroom for nearly an hour, staring at herself, crying softly so the neighbors wouldn’t file another noise complaint. There were so many things she’d never realized about her scalp, her face, and her ears. She had a tiny freckle above her right ear and her eyes looked further apart without any hair. It was a strange sensation to see herself fully for the first time.
The next morning, Ava had no choice but to leave the comfort of her apartment and go to the grocery store with her newly bald head. She pulled her hood up and kept her head down as she filled her cart with the essentials. As fate would have it, she noticed a fellow bald woman near the checkout line. She looked radiant and beautiful with her bare scalp, the exact opposite of how Ava felt. When the stranger turned to the side, Ava saw that there was a beautiful ivy tattoo running down the right side of her head and onto her neck.
Ava cautiously approached the strange woman. “Excuse me,” she said. “I just…how do you do it?”
The woman gave her a confused look. “How do I do what?”
Ava pulled down her hood and lowered her head. The stranger’s annoyance was replaced with instant compassion. “I just have one question for you,” she said to Ava. “Who are you?”
“Oh, my name is Ava.”
“I don’t mean your name,” the stranger said. “Who are you deep down? I shaved my head because I knew it would allow me to let go of all the lies I used to tell myself. I’ve been bald for eight years now.”
“Eight years?” Ava asked in shock.
“Yep, and I’m never growing my hair out again.” The stranger said. “Oh, and by the way, you look incredible even if you don’t think so. Baldness suits you.”
The next morning, Ava woke up and painted an array of flowers on the side of her bald head before taking her daughter to daycare. She got a lot of stares, and they weren’t the kinds of stares she was used to, but Ava was okay with that. Gradually, she began to accept that her hair had been holding her back from who she truly was. Her grief was replaced by a feeling or rebirth, and it was invigorating.
Time went on and Ava’s hair began to grow back. When it reached about two inches in length, Ava purchased her own pair of clippers. The device she’d once hated became her new best friend as she shaved her head bald again. She went to the nearest tattoo parlor and had a large floral piece permanently inked onto her head and down the sides of her neck.
The tattooed, bald woman who greeted her in the mirror wasn’t a stranger. It was who Ava truly was. Her hair had controlled her opinion of herself for too long, and Ava was never going back to who she once was. She finally loved herself.
THE END
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