Chapter Two: Lose Yourself
"Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity, to seize everything you've ever wanted, one moment, would you capture it, or just let it slip?" –Eminem
HAYLEY'S POV
I reached a finger up and touched my now-short blonde hair. Only yesterday I had asked my aunt if she could take me to have it cut. After our argument about her running out of work she was quiet. I didn't mind so much; I had things to think about as well.
Reaching out slowly I picked up the hair dye from the bathroom bench. I thought a new look would suit me. It's not like anybody knows me here. It had taken Alissa a while to sort out the papers after my parent's death. She wanted to take me as soon as my parents were gone but the courts weren't too sure. Even so I ended up staying in an orphanage for two months. I didn't care; I didn't care about anything after my parents died.
By the time I came to live here it was already the summer holidays and there was nothing to do except watch TV, listen to music and read. Not much fun.
Alissa tried to get me to go out and explore the area but I'd refused. Outside it was cheerful, full of people who didn't know of pain. I envied them.
I stared critically at my hair around my chin. My hair was originally brown like Alissa's and my mother's but I'd learned long ago that dying your hair at regular intervals gives you a certain something in the 'coolness' stake.
It's odd how when you dye your hair people immediately connect it to your personality: black= emo. Blonde= sweet and innocent (well, that depends how you wear it). Dark red= mysterious. Orange= overly bubbly.
I was lucky that my parents were really relaxed about that sort of stuff. They even went out and bought me the hair dye. All of my friends envied me for that. In my life my hair has been brown, black, red, blonde, black again, black with a blonde streak and blonde again. I liked doing some colours again. When I was thirteen I got so sick of my boring brown hair that I went and asked if I could get a red streak. I was really surprised that people started noticing me with that one simply act. So I kept experimenting.
But something held me back from dying my hair. Something was off. I peered into the mirror and stared at my reflection. My hair now framed my face and my head still felt really light. And yet it was something else.
I'd dye it later.
~X~
"Hayley, can you help me with these?" Alissa called to me from the front door. I sighed and turned my music off. She was probably mentally preparing herself for what my hair should have been.
"I'm coming!" I called as I pulled the zipper up slightly on my black hoodie. With pale blonde hair I can pull off the "blonde emo" look.
"Lee, you didn't dye your hair," Alissa said, struggling with two full shopping bags. I quickly took one off her and stood to the side.
"Nah, thought I might do it a bit later, you know, keep the blonde look. Try and preserve it."
Alissa merely smiled and shook her head.
"Make sure you do use that dye though," Alissa cocked a head at me and grinned, "I'm not made of money, you know."
I laughed at that. It was a long standing joke between the entire family that my grand-parents were rich. Really, really rich. When they died Alissa got about two million as did my mother and my other aunt Abby. One million of my mother's money was now sitting in a bank account for me when I turn eighteen. The other million had been distributed between aunt Abby's children as my mother requested when she first got the money.
Alissa and I then carried the bags into the tiny kitchen. Alissa had made a point of hiding the fact that she had plenty of money hiding away. Her job helps. As I started unpacking one f the bags the home phone rang.
"I'll get it," I offered. Alissa nodded in thanks and continued unpacking; there was enough food to feed an army.
"Hello, Hayley speaking," I spoke into the receiver. On the other end I could hear some pips of laughter in the background.
"What colour pa-" Pip pip pip. It was a young Scottish voice.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I asked. It sounded like a dirty phone call so I stayed polite.
"What colour pant-" Pip pip pip.
"Good bye," I said shortly. I hung up and turned back to Alissa, who was still putting everything away.
"Who was it?" Alissa asked.
"Prank call," I rolled my eyes, "Young Scottish bloke and I could hear some pipsqueaks in the background laughing."
Alissa shook her head and put away the last thing from the plastic bags.
"School tomorrow," Alissa said cheerfully while I groaned and flopped onto the couch. My aunt chuckled at my reaction and hit me on the head lightly with some newspaper.
"I'm just lucky there's no school uniform," I told Alissa while I struggled to sit up.
"Cheer up, I'm sure it'll be fine," Alissa tried to reassure me.
"Yeah, but you don't know that," I said quietly. There was a bit of silence that I broke with a whisper.
"What if they don't like me?"
Alissa sat on the couch and pulled me in for a hug. She knew this was more than school, that some of my true feelings about my parents' deaths were coming out. She knew that nothing more could be said, that nothing more would ease my worry, or my pain. So she just hugged me.
And I let her.
~X~
"Hayley, c'mon, wake up," Alissa called. I glanced at the clock next to my bed. It read 7:06.
"I'm awake!" I yelled back, snuggling down deeper under my duvet.
"You might be away but you still need to get up. Come on," Alissa said on the other side of my door.
"Fine, alright, I'm up," I mumbled as I struggled out of bed; my duvet was tangled around my legs. After a few tries I ended up on the floor still wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy. At exactly the wrong moment Alissa opened my door and stared at me with her mouth gaping open.
"Did I not say I was up?" I enquired politely. Instantly Ally covered her mouth with her hand and retreated out of my bedroom.
Finally I got up and stared at my reflection in the mirror. A pale blond girl stared back. Quickly I ran a comb through my hair that now framed my face at my chin. Shaking my head so that the ends of my hair felt like spiders against my face I wondered if my new school would be okay. To stop myself from worrying I pulled a face and smiled a smile that looked more like a grimace, making me feel stupid.
I already knew what I wanted to wear to school today: my dark jeans, my black tank top with white stitching and white comfortable black hoodie. For piercings I decided to go with my green studs in my lobes and my fake diamond one (just glass but it looks real enough) in the cartilage of my left ear. For shoes I wore my black keds that I'd painted two yellow stripes down the sides to make them cooler (like Ruby Redfort's yellow stripe sneakers that my cousin Elise is always nagging me about).
Quickly I dressed and only when I was confident that I looked just fine did I leave the confinements of my bedroom.
When I was outside of my room I caught sight of my aunt. Fortunately it appeared that Alissa had sobered up. Good.
"Hayley…" Alissa asked tentatively, "Your… mother mentioned that you did martial arts or something…?"
My throat choked up at the mention of mum but I felt compelled to answer her.
"Yeah, judo and karate- I also did gymnastics," I replied as I got my breakfast in the kitchen so I didn't have to look at her. As soon as I poured the milk I got a spoon and started shovelling my food in my mouth as fast as I could. Alissa looked at me for a moment before she started to get her own breakfast. I sat down at the table so she would have enough room in the kitchen.
"Okay, so the closest school here is actually quite a while away so I'll drive you in until we figure out the bus timetable," Alissa said quickly as though she didn't want to bring up memories of my mother. I glanced at her and cocked my head to one side; she had a frown on her face.
"Google is your friend," I quoted my father, feeling a pang in my chest at the thought of him. People say grief lessons with time and I'm praying to whatever higher being is up there that that is true. I want to be able to remember my parents without bursting into tears. Alissa shot me a 'look' while drumming her fingers against the counter top as she waited for the jug to boil.
"What's the time?" Alissa asked me suddenly. She looked kind off… rabbity.
"Dude, relax," I told her. I looked at the stove clock that was behind my aunt. I smiled at her, trying to push the painful memories of parents away, "It's not even eight."
Sometimes my aunt worries for no reason.
~X~
Their eyes were on me- I could feel them burning holes in the back of my head and frankly it was irritating. Even the teacher was staring.
I leaned forward over the desk and tried to concentrate on the workbook we were supposed (yeah, note the emphasis) to be working out of. I shook my head and sighed at how ridiculous this was. Not the workbook. No, the fact that I had been officially labelled the "class freak".
A balled up piece of paper landed on my book. I glanced back behind me and there were no suppressed smirks on anyone's faces so I gingerly opened it.
Don't worry- you're not weird or anything like that. Our class is really uptight. I swear, me and my sister are the only normal ones
-J.J. (my real name's Justice Joy but call me that and die)
Again, I looked back. This time, though, there was a girl who looked like she was waiting for the teacher to turn around so she could throw a screwed up piece of paper. Her opportunity came and she neatly threw it across the room. I caught it and unballed it but found it was from a different person.
You should hang out with me, J.J. and our crowd at break. No one would mind and it's better than either being alone or chatting with this crew.
~Lydia (some people call me Dee Dee)
For the third time I turned around and saw two girls grinning at me. I smiled slightly and nodded my thanks. They were identical twins. Not the type that you could tell apart by a mole or something- they were identical identical. And they had a look about them that made me instantly like them. It was a look that plainly said "I don't care so don't expect me to".
Maybe school wasn't so bad after all.