a/n: this is a bit of a departure from my usual third-person, present tense writing style. i guess i wanted to have a play around and see what works differently.
[CN/TW: a rather small, brief allusion to some period-typical sexism, not enough to warrant a tag but enough for me to warn you of here.]
On the 18th of October, I cut my hair.
I did not tell Maria about what I was going to do. It was a strange feeling — my fingers felt so shaky and clumsy holding those scissors, watching those strips of dark hair fall to the floor, struggling to trim away any uneven pieces. By the time I was through, the whole mess looked very choppy. Some parts of my hair brushed against my neck, others hung at around chin-length. I had never gotten my hair cut save for occasional trims before, let alone cut it myself, so that was to be expected.
In the end, the face in the mirror I stared back at wasn't my own. It wasn't the same face I was used to looking at before. Two years have passed since the Drevis manor burned down along with everything in it. I am thirteen years old as I write this. I know a lot can change in two years, but I don't look like me. My face looks a little sharper, my cheeks have grown a little hollow. In the time I've spent out in the countryside trying to start things anew, I've gained freckles placed haphazardly upon my face; my skin, too, has grown a bit darker from more frequent time spent out in the sun. I must have noticed this before, it's just more apparent now that I've cut my hair.
I don't know how to feel about how I look. It's not that I think of myself as having grown uglier or beautiful. It's just that another piece of Aya Drevis broke off and disappeared.
Maria looked a bit surprised when she saw that I had cut my hair. I saw her dark red mouth press into a strange tight little line and her head dip down a bit. She spoke without looking all that directly at me — her words were kind enough when she offered to help me even it out, and that though she had never seen very many women with hair that short that it suited me. Besides, seeing as how I'm planning to take up the occupation of a doctor in a while, short hair would work better.
I guess that's why I cut my hair, and why I'll keep doing it. I thanked her and let her smooth out the ragged edges so that it looked less choppy. She used a much smaller, silver pair of scissors than the larger pair I'd grabbed earlier that day. Then again, I'd just chopped off most of my hair on a whim. It looked a little cleaner and well-kept when she finished.
It's funny, I suppose. When I grew up, I was told that it's very important that girls make sure to keep their hair long and soft. Long, soft hair was pretty, if I was going to get married someday I had to know how to have it properly styled so that I'd look beautiful for any suitors. And you had to make sure your hair wouldn't get too dry or too greasy — Mom always made sure to remind me that I had to wash my hair around once a month since soaps would dry it out. She knew a lot about the sorts of decorations and styles you have to use for your hair when you get older.
Still, I always preferred it when Father brushed my hair. Mom and some of the other servants tried, they really did, it just always felt too harsh whenever they tried to jerk out snarls of tangled hair. I wondered how she did it herself; she always had such pretty, silky brown hair. Mom must have gotten used to it when it came to styling her own hair.
Somehow Father managed to do it while being gentle about it. He was always the one who'd help me untie it at night and brush it, or dry it off after I washed it so I wouldn't get the shoulders of my nightgown wet. In the mornings, he would help me go through the supplies of hair ribbons and decorations I had and help me pick out whatever we agreed on looked best. I remember Mom would smile a little at us and talk about what an excellent team we made together.
I feel so confused. The girl staring back at me in the mirror doesn't resemble Aya Drevis as much as I thought. It shows the truth, but I don't know what to make of the truth anymore.