Chapter Two: A New Look
"Hey! We're home!" Rita called. Lynn Sr. came out, hugging and kissing Rita.
"Hey, sweetie… You took longer than I expected." He said. Rita nodded.
"There was someone we took back home. She was a bit lost and she didn't live too far away from us." Rita said. "Is dinner almost ready?"
"Sure thing, honey!" Lynn Sr. said cheerfully, pulling the dinner out of the oven and setting it on the table.
"Kids!" Rita called. "Dinner!" Suddenly, there was a massive rumble from the house and everyone crowded down to the kitchen, sitting around the table.
"So, what did you get up to today, Mom?" Luna asked.
"Oh, well… I went shopping. Lynn's torn right through her knees again in the pants department. We really need to find a pair that will accommodate her active lifestyle." Rita said.
"What about you, Little Bro?" Luna asked.
"I met a new girl at the arcade." Lincoln said. "She's really good at Dance Dance Revolution, and she's really cool." Lincoln said. Lynn laughed mockingly.
"Stinkin' has a girlfriend!" She teased.
"I do not!" Lincoln turned a deep shade of pink. "She's like Luna's age!" He protested.
"Ahh… So you like em older, huh?" Lynn continued. Lincoln growled, really embarrassed now.
"I-it's not like that! Clyde and I were just showing her around town! She just moved here!" He complained. Rita stepped in.
"Come on, Lynn… Ease up… Speaking of the new girl, Luna… Could you take her guitar back to her on Monday?" Rita asked. Luna nodded.
"She plays guitar? I like her already!" Luna said with a laugh. Rita chuckled as well.
"Yeah… She's really sweet. She met Lola, Lana, Lucy, Lisa and Lincoln. They moved from somewhere out of state." Rita said.
"Really? Right in the middle of the school year?" Luna asked, raising an eyebrow. Rita shrugged.
"People have all sorts of reasons for moving. I'm sure Sam's parents did as well." She said. Luna sighed, finishing her dinner and going upstairs to practice her guitar. She had really gotten into it when she was nine, and now she was practically a virtuoso at a bunch of different instruments.
Luna had always been musically inclined, but recently, she had thrown herself into music. Guitar, Violin, Drums, Keyboard, Bass, any kind of instrument, really. She was even working on different big band instruments, like trumpet and flute, though she didn't like them as much. Recently, she had begun to work on 12 string guitars, and learning how to pluck guitar with her fingers rather than a pick. Her fingertips were bleeding more often than not. But she was getting really good.
Lincoln sighed. Luna had always been his favorite sister. She was so cool and pretty and talented. He just didn't quite know how to tell her. So he asked her to teach him to play guitar like she did. She had started him off with some simple songs, and learning how to tune and play chords. Luna said he was a fast learner. He didn't know about that. Having grown up around sisters who were all exceptional in their fields, he had become capable of learning quickly.
He read complicated books to Lisa, he helped Luan with her comedy and was actually pretty funny when he wanted to be. He helped Lola practice for her pageants, Lana with her tools and hunting for frogs and bugs, Leni with her clothes and he could speak text language with Lori. He could do poetry with Lucy and sports with Lynn. He was definitely already a Jack of all trades, even at 9 years old.
"Hey, Lil' bro! Ya wanna work sommore on guitar after you're done eating?" Luna asked, popping her head downstairs again. Lincoln nodded happily, finished as fast as he could and hurried up with Luna, sitting on her floor with her and strumming the guitar. Eventually, Luna stopped him and asked about Sam.
"What did Sam look like?" Luna asked. Lincoln smiled.
"She was really pretty. She has light blonde hair like Leni and blue eyes like Lori, but darker blue. She has long hair like Rapunzel and she's really good at dancing." Lincoln said, drawing a quick, but decent picture of Sam, with a long braid that went down to her knees, a tee shirt with a circle on it and some writing and a pair of jeans.
"Here." Lincoln said, handing Luna the picture.
"Wow… Jesus, Linc! This is really good, brah! I didn't know you were this good at drawing!"
"Yeah… I illustrate Lucy's poems and stories sometimes." He said, blushing modestly. "It's not a perfect likeness, but it'll do." Lincoln said. Luna nodded.
"Great… Let's get back… You've got the chords and everything down pat. You wanna start learning a harder song?" Luna asked. Lincoln nodded. Luna began showing him the chords for Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes. The two played late into the night before Luna realized what time it was and made Lincoln go to bed.
Sam sighed, walking into her house and going right up to her room. She had so much energy with Lincoln and Clyde. But now, it had all just drained away and felt like it was never there. "Hey, Sammy… Who were those people who brought you home?" Simon asked, hoping that he could have a conversation with Sam. She looked at him, a desperately sad expression on her face.
"Just some locals." She muttered, closing herself in her room, looking in the mirror. Could she really cut her own hair?
It seemed strange to do that. She had sharp enough scissors to just lob the whole thing off. She could cut her hair in a pixie cut if she wanted to. She had been thinking for a while about how long she wanted her hair to be… No. A pixie cut would be cute, but too short. She was so used to having long, heavy hair. Her hair went down past her knees by now. She had promised Simon that one day, her hair would drag down on the floor, past her feet and Simon could use it to climb up the house.
They were kids then, and that had been a good joke. He had called her 'his Rapunzel'. He had been 'her Flynn', and they spent the rest of the day walking around singing songs from Tangled and eventually branching out to other Disney movies. Sam smiled helplessly, remembering how happy they had been, how much fun they had. Simon offered to braid her hair, and Sam knew that she would probably have to do it over, but she couldn't deny him when he looked at her like that.
So she said yes. And he actually did a pretty good job, considering his hands were so small and he had so little practice doing it at the time. She began singing 'At Last I See the Light', tears filling her eyes. She had ruined her relationship with Simon, all because she had to get herself sexually assaulted and now she just couldn't get over it. A cold, heavy, painful knot began to form in her stomach, and she laid down for a while, falling asleep.
A few hours later, Amanda came up to wake Sam up for dinner. Sam groaned.
"You know, I'm not really that hungry." Sam muttered.
"You've lost a lot of weight, Sammy… You must have lost at least three pounds since that night… You're not eating right… You have dark circles under your eyes… I know you're trying to be strong, but please… Please, let us help you. Trust us." Amanda pleaded.
Sam sighed and turned over, turning her back to Amanda. The mother knew that the conversation was over. Sam wasn't going to eat that night either. She ate maybe twice a day if they were lucky, more often once, sometimes not at all. Amanda and Erik tried to get Sam to eat, to keep up her health. But it was a losing battle. Sam had always been strong willed, and in her traumatized state, it was being used to deny herself her basic needs, to shut herself off from her family.
Amanda was grateful to whoever this Lincoln kid was. She needed to go to Lincoln's house and thank him personally for taking the time to hang out with Sam. Even if it didn't make her happier in the long run, she could tell that Sam had a good time with him.
"Alright Sammy." Amanda said sadly.
"I love you." The blonde haired mother said, kissing Sam gently on the cheek and heading down to dinner to tell them that Sam wouldn't be joining them again.
Sam laid in bed, tears filling her eyes. She was starving… But she just couldn't face her family. She didn't know why. That look that she saw in their eyes every time they looked at her. Pity. Sadness. Fear. It made her sick. It disgusted her. She just wanted to scream at them and make them stop looking at her like that. To force them to stop feeling sorry for her.
She hated them… But she was terrified of them. She just wanted them to love her again, to not see a freak that wasn't even whole anymore much less the perfect daughter they wanted her to be. They must know. Simon must have told them that she was a filthy dyke. That she was a disgusting freak. Simon must hate her so much now for dumping him like she had. It wasn't her fault though… She just couldn't let him get hurt. She couldn't put him in danger just because she needed him.
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT!" She screamed, tears flooding her eye as she collapsed in tears. This was the first time she had cried in what felt like forever… No… She had just cried the other night… It wasn't enough. She wished it was easier to cry. She didn't exactly feel better after she cried, but she felt a little bit less heavy, less burdened after she cried.
She screamed and shrieked, caught between pain, terror and rage, punching her headboard, ignoring the fact that her knuckles were bruised and bleeding now, the skin splitting open and spraying blood with every punch. Pain meant nothing to her though. She just needed a distraction from her emotional agony. After a minute or two of insane screaming, Simon burst into her room, trying to pull her away from her bed.
"Sammy! Sammy! Stop!" Simon pleaded. Eventually, Sam calmed down, hugging Simon tightly, sobbing in his arms, begging him not to let her go. It was weird. Simon felt weird. He loved Sam, she was his Sammy. She was practically his mommy, but she had done so much more for him than his real mom ever did. But he still was having trouble sorting out how he felt. She seesawed between clinging to him like a lost child and refusing to even talk to him.
She switched between telling him how much she loved him and screaming hateful epithets at him. What was he supposed to think? She looked at him with a strange look.
"Simon… I-I need your help. I need you to do a favor for me." She said. Simon hesitated. Why should he do her a favor? She had treated him like shit for the past few weeks when she wasn't clinging desperately to him, and that was only when she needed something from him.
What did he owe her? But still.
"What do you need, Sammy?" Simon asked gently. He couldn't just deny her. He still loved her. She was still his Sammy. She still meant the world to him, and he would still go to Hell and back just to see her smile. She sighed, looking away from him.
"I need you to help me cut my hair." She said. Simon gasped, a pained look crossing his face.
"But you have beautiful hair… Sammy, your hair has always been what you're most proud of… You take such great care of it. You're like Rapunzel with it… Why would you cut it?" He asked. Sam moaned miserably.
"I need to change myself… Physically. I want to look different from how I used to. I want to be someone new here… Reinvent myself." Sam said.
*Maybe if I look different, I'll be different. Maybe if I look different, I won't be such a freak anymore. Maybe I'll actually be straight and I can make Mom and Dad proud of me…* This was what she was thinking. Simon still seemed conflicted.
"Is this really what you want, Sammy? To cut off your beautiful hair?" Simon asked. Sam nodded, hugging him tightly, seeing that he had already agreed, even if he hadn't said it yet.
"How short do you want it?" Simon asked, taking out the sharpest, 'cuttiest' pair of scissors he had. That's what he called them, the 'cuttiest' pair of scissors he had.
They were extremely sharp, not as sharp as a razor, but sharper than typical kitchen scissors because they were specialized for art, for cutting flower stems and various other things for art. He was only allowed to use them with adult supervision. But Sammy was an adult. She could approve him using them. So he got them out of his room and turned on as many lights as possible.
He wasn't very experienced at cutting hair, but he was an artist, and Sammy was worth it, even if his feelings for her were confused. She sat down in front of her vanity mirror and he pulled her hair out of its braid, over the back of the chair, combing it out, being as gentle as possible, stroking her hair to calm her down a bit, and putting it into a ponytail, tying it perfectly.
"Tell me where to cut it, Sammy?" Simon asked. Sam showed him a spot about halfway between the bottom of her ears and her shoulders. He nodded and cut it, holding the back of the blade just above her neck and snipping. The hair fell away and she looked at it, frowning slightly.
"It's a little longer than I wanted it. Maybe you could cut it a bit shorter?" Sam asked.
"Sammy… I don't… I don't want to. Your hair is so beautiful… Why do you even want to cut it in the first place? Why do you want to cut it at all?"
"I-I told you… I just want to change the way I look… It's just hair. Besides, it seems silly now that I ever cared so much about my hair. It's just little strands that grow out of my head. Simon sighed, his hand beginning to shake. He tied her hair back up and cut a little higher.
Unfortunately, this time, his shaking hands made him cut higher than he meant to. He cut just about at the bottom of her earlobes. Her hair was still beautiful, but short. It was so short. It looked weird. He ran his hands through her soft, silky hair, brushing out the stray strands. He had hardly done a professional job on her hair. It was uneven, it was obvious that it had been a hack job.
"Do you mind if I even out your hair, Sammy? At least give you a haircut that suits you?" Simon asked. Sam nodded. Simon snipped here and there, making sure he was being careful. He had cut Alric's hair a few times. Noriko's sisters had actually given him his start. They knew how artistic he was, and they usually cut Nori's hair for her, so they taught him a bit about cutting hair, and he studied videos of people cutting hair, since the first time he cut Alric's hair, it had turned into a disaster.
His first time cutting Noriko's hair was much better. Not great. Yuriko and Emiko had been much better at cutting hair. But she smiled and thanked him. Even though he knew he had done an objectively terrible job, Noriko never cared that much about her hair. It was just a pain to have it be too long, so she had her sisters… Or sometimes Simon… Cut it. So no, Simon wasn't a professional by any means. But he was an artist, and he was better than the average eight year old at cutting hair.
He finished off the do, and Sam put on her glasses, looking at her hair.
"Well… It's shorter than I expected it to be. But you did a really good job." Sam said, hugging Simon tightly. Suddenly, she looked nervous.
"Do you think I look okay?" She asked.
Simon rubbed his arm uncomfortably.
"I always think you look beautiful, Sammy… I've always thought you were the most beautiful person in the world… But… I loved your long hair. I thought it was really pretty. It made you look like a princess. And when you would wear those pretty dresses… You could have been right out of a Disney movie. If… If this short hair is really what you want though… Then yes. I like it." Simon said.
Sam smiled. There was a reason, she knew that she trusted Simon so completely. He had almost gotten killed protecting her, and her hair… But even still, he was willing to cut it all off for her just because she asked him to. He was really sweet.
"Simon… I know I haven't been the best sister lately… But you know I love you, right?" Sam asked. Simon looked away. There was a long pause.
"Of course… Would you at least come down and get something to eat? I hate seeing you starve yourself like this. You've gotten really skinny and you look really tired, like you can't sleep. I-I'm worried about you… But…" He was going to tell her how confused he was about how he felt about her… He couldn't do that to her though. Not right now.
"But I'm worried about you…" He said, acting like he had never even thought what he was about to say.
"I-I guess I could have some milk or something… To settle my tummy." Sam said. Simon thought it was cute how Sam still used words like 'tummy' sometimes, especially when she was feeling vulnerable. Most of her friends didn't use words like that anymore. But Sam still did on occasion.
She went downstairs with Simon and got a big glass of whole milk and gulped it down, looking like she felt a little bit better, even if not much.
"I-I think I'm just gonna go to bed." Sam said. Simon nodded and kissed Sam on the cheek.
"I love you, Sammy…" He said. Sam smiled.
"I love you too." She said, brushing her teeth and going to bed.
