Disclaimer: The X-Men belong to Marvel, and Basil Martin belongs to my good friend Jack. Chris, Theresa, Eve, Andrew, Gina, Andrew, and all the other random characters that don't come from the movie belong to me.

A/N: Sorry that this chapter's so short. It was written between midnight and 1 o'clock, and I don't think clearly after 11:30 at night. But anyway, enjoy and please review.

Chapter 29 – Free to Be

That Monday, Basil and I started working on our video for UV Menace. I managed to shanghai a girl from my Spanish class by the name of Gina Turner into running the camcorder. I didn't tell her that the higher powers were smiling down on her to be around Basil on one of his good days.

Overall, the filming wasn't going all too well. Basil kept forgetting what he was supposed to say, and I had been struck with a sudden outburst of clumsiness and kept tripping over various unobtrusive objects (namely my own feet, and sometimes Basil's) and dropping things.

After an hour and a half of working, we finally just gave up and crowded around the camera to see how stupid we looked. Basil, as he was in an unusually good mood (I'm thinking that his lack of a friend before may have contributed a great deal to his antisociability), was having great fun watching me mess up.

"Oh, shut up!" I yelled at him after the fourth episode of his point-and-laugh syndrome. "At least I didn't say that there was an ozone hill above Antarctica." Unfortunately for me, this comment only encouraged him to point out even more of my mess-ups.

We were near the end of the tape when Gina said, "Theresa, have you ever thought of cutting your hair?"

That sort of caught me off guard. Like a typical self-absorbed female, I immediately assumed the worst. "Why, does it look bad or something?"

She shook her head. "No, I just thought that it would look good on you."

After we were done, I studied one a lock of my long black hair. Mom and Dad had never wanted me to cut it. I guess Mom thought it would look "unladylike" to cut it short, or something to that effect.

But then, my hair had always been sort of annoying. It was a devil to wash, and on windy days it tended to blow across my eyes. I had neither the time nor the energy to style it or anything of the sort. Maybe it was time for a change.

Later on, at supper, I found Gina, who was sitting with a couple of friends. "Hi Gina."

She smiled. "Hi Theresa. What's up?"

I sat down. "Remember what you said earlier about my hair?" She nodded. I continued. "I think I like the idea."

She grinned happily. "When are you gonna cut it."

I shrugged. "I don't know where to get it cut. I want to do it soon, though, before I chicken out."

The girl sitting next to Gina looked at me shyly. "My mom taught me how to do haircuts. I could cut it for you."

"Cool," I said smiling. "Could you cut mine sometime?"

"Sure," she said amiably. "I could do it tonight if you want."

I shrugged. "That sounds good to me."

Half an hour later I was sitting in a tall wooden chair in front of a large mirror in the girls' bathroom.

Andrea had warned me that she couldn't do anything "fancy," whatever that meant. She seemed quite pleased when I told her that I really didn't care , as I wasn't the fancy type.

"How short do you want it?" she asked, holding a lock of hair away from my head with two fingers. In her other hand she held a pair of scissors.

"Um…short."

She smiled. "This short?" she asked, touching my hair with the scissors at a point about half an inch from my scalp.

I laughed. "Not quite that short."

"Okay." She adjusted her scissors so that they were at a point much less threatening. "This short?"

I let out a deep breath. "That looks good to me."

She looked at me in the mirror. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked.

I nodded. "I need a change."

"Okay," Andrea said. She put the scissors on the edge of the sink and picked up a hair elastic. Far quicker than I could have done it, she had tied my hair into a ponytail. Then she picked up the scissors again.

"You're absolutely sure?"

I nodded again.

Snip.

Andrea handed me my severed ponytail. "Congratulations," she said cheerfully. "Your hair is gonna look so good…" She smiled to herself and started snipping away at what was left of my hair.

I stared at my ponytail for a minute. Then I smiled. Who cared what my mother would think?

In that moment, I realized how free I truly was.

Breakfast the morning after my little trim was certainly amusing.

There were only four people in the kitchen when I got there – Andrew, Chris, Eve, and Basil. I was getting some cereal out of the cupboard when Chris looked up and noticed something was off. "Theresa…?"

I turned around and looked at him. "Yes?"

It took him a few moments to put his finger on what was different. Then it hit him. "What did you do to your hair?"

This caused Eve and Basil to look up. "I love it!" Eve exclaimed in a matter of seconds. "You look so good with short hair!"

Basil's thoughts were much less encouraging. "You look like you got on the wrong side of a man with a machete."

I decided to take Chris's continued dumbstruck, open-mouthed staring as a good sigh. Although, I hadn't ever seen him speechless before – at least that I could remember. It was rather amusing to watch.

I was right. I did need a change.