For the second day in a row, Hayley was sitting on her bed crying her guts out, but this time for a different boy.
She couldn't believe she'd actually been that oblivious; to not realize that, yeah, given the fact that she had initiated the kiss they'd shared the night before, that flirting with their Chili's waiter would have possibly confused Taylor. It was just that…Chad was a catch, she assumed. He was attractive, and the tattoos he had made him seem slightly badass. But he'd also been nice, smiling and flirting right along with her.
And the fact of the matter was, she was still contemplating calling the boy, despite how angry it might make Taylor.
Her brain was a strange thing. She rationalized that, maybe if she were to start something with Chad, maybe Taylor's feelings would revert themselves. Maybe he'd go back to being strictly her best friend, the kiss she'd given him in her time of doubt forgotten.
She tutted at herself. That's likely. She had really screwed everything up with that kiss, she could tell now. But, really, she didn't regret it. She liked Taylor; she really did. He just seemed to get her. Get when she needed a hug and some consoling, get when she needed space. He could cheer her up and make her laugh with one simple action. He really was her best friend and to anyone else, it would seem like them getting together, starting a relationship would be the right way to go. But her mind was a strange thing.
So far in her life, every male she'd become close to had left her in some way. It seemed that once she spoke those three words to someone, they were bound to leave. And she couldn't lose Taylor; he was her everything right now, holding her together like glue. And if she dared let their relationship grow, let herself become closer to the boy, speak those dreaded words over their relationship, she feared she would lose him as well.
Her tears had stopped and she sat on the edge of her bed, staring at herself in the mirror on her closet door. Her eyes were rimmed red, her cheeks and nose tinted red. Her hair hung limply around her hair, lifeless like she felt. Her face turned up in a grimace. Her hair had been irritating her lately. The naturally blonde locks had annoyed her to no end, and after her bitter breakup, her hair did nothing but remind her of the time spent with the other boy, because he'd always complimented the yellow mane.
So when she'd woken up at around 8 that morning, she had untangled herself from Taylor's grip carefully and climbed her way out of the window, heading back to her house. She'd gotten there fairly quickly, not bothering climbing through her window, considering her mother wouldn't really care that she had been gone anyway.
She opened the front door into the living room, spotting her mother asleep on the couch. Sighing inwardly to herself, she made her way down the short hall and into her bedroom, flicking the light off and tossing her keys onto the bed, heading for the bathroom. The dye was still in the medicine cabinet where she had put it. She grabbed the box and read off the directions, hoping to make quick work of it all so she could get back to the boy's house before he realized she had left. Normally she would have stayed at her own home, for fear of being found there without permission, but something was different today. She genuinely just wanted to spend time with the boy.
About an hour later, she was drying her hair out, happy with the orange tint of it. Orange seemed to suit her better, she thought.
But now, as she sat staring blankly at herself, she wanted to rip all of it out of her scalp. It just hung there, a good two inches past her shoulders. It was too long, too much, and her next moves were hasty and unplanned as she grabbed the scissors from her desk and grabbed a handful of her hair, cutting it jaggedly. And at first she paused, wondering what am I doing? But then she looked to the floor, and saw her hair laying there; dead, apart from her, like she was cutting away her problems, all the baggage left on her life and she grabbed more handfuls, cutting and cutting until her hair was just barely touching her shoulders. She stood in front of the mirror, panting slightly. Then she collapsed to the ground, still watching herself, wondering when she had let herself spiral so far down.