“I kind of like the pink,” I told her when I saw her a few minutes after I got out of the shower. “It’s like you have a cotton candy halo around your head.” “Oh stop!” She patted at her hair, but it just wouldn’t lay flat. “I think that dye damaged it because it was on there so long. It made it kind of frizzy.” “I’m sure there will be something at the salon that can fix it,” I reassured her as we walked in the direction of the hairdressers’. I stopped and picked up two coffees and then we were on our way. The walk took fifteen minutes, but we were still early. Natalie let us in anyway, her eyes wide as she looked at Celia. “Girl, I have to teach you how to throw a hay-maker, don’t I?” She tutted and fussed until she had Celia in a chair with a cover snapped around her neck to protect her clothes. She examined Celia’s hair carefully and asked questions before she finally offered any advice. “Right now, I’d tell you to leave it alone. The hair was really damaged by the dye they thre
I went to the campus police station after I left Keith at his class. He’d been worried about me walking around on my own, but I wasn’t. Let Rachel and her ‘sisters’ play their stupid games. The law was on my side. I filed a formal complaint against her, the sorority, and the owner of the car. Keith’s security cameras had caught the whole thing and recorded it. I gave the police a copy of the file for their records and walked out of the station happier and feeling lighter for doing it. The school didn’t want to do anything, fine. I’d go to the police. If the campus police didn’t want to do anything, I’d go to the sheriff, or whoever it was that was next on the list. Something had to be done about these stupid rituals they had in place.Because that’s all I could think that this was. Rachel wanted to be in the mean girls’ club, and this was her way of doing it. Or, the sorority had put her up to it as a hazing initiation or some bullshit like that. I didn’t know anything for sure, but
It was Grant’s night with Celia, but I hadn’t seen her hair yet. Grant told me about it but it just didn’t make any sense in my head. I waited for her to come home after her shift at the library and hid from her. When she went to walk up the stairs, I leaned out from the kitchen to have a look at the back.Okay, not too bad. I tried to lean out to have a better look, but my sock-clad foot slid on the polished, hardwood floors and I fell. I quickly got up and knew I was caught. I ran to the pantry door, slipped inside and quietly closed the door.“Hey?” she called out as she came back down the stairs. “Are you down here, Keith?” “Celia, are you home?” I heard Grant call from the living room. “Sorry, I knocked over a plant. How was your day?” “People like my hair, apparently. I’ve had some stares, some compliments, and someone slipped me a number. Which I promptly threw away.” I heard her kiss him and knew I was saved. I came out of the closet and went through the other door to the b
I wanted to run away. I wanted to never leave. Conflicted, that’s how I felt as I stared across the bed and through the glass wall. It was so… hot. But at the same time, so weird. I didn’t know where to look and my eyes moved from place to place.“It’s okay for you to look, Celia,” Keith whispered. “That’s why they’ve left the curtains open, so people can watch.” “Any people?” I whispered back; afraid they could hear me. “Sure, anyone the club lets in. And they don’t allow just anyone in. The only reason you’re here is that I brought you with me.” “I see.” But I didn’t. I thought we were going to a club, get drunk, and dance the night away. This was better, worse, a nightmare, but a fantasy too. I groaned and put my hands over my face. People did this?“What’s wrong? Is it too much?” “Do you want… that?” I gulped around the lump in my throat, shocked by what I saw, by what was happening. “Only if you do. That’s why I brought you here, Celia. So you can explore. I know I was your
“Celia, I really need to talk to you and a phone text isn’t the best way to do it. Would you please answer your phone?” I listened to the message Becky had left for me on voicemail the next morning and groaned.I’d avoided her for so long. She didn’t seem to be happy that I was with Keith and she’d texted me a few times to ask me to come to the diner with her. And every time I wanted to reply to her I felt like a naughty little schoolgirl, who would be told off by their mom for doing all the things that I did with Keith. Especially after last night. Becky and I had made up, sure, but I didn’t want to constantly have to defend my relationship with Keith to her. This was mine, all mine, and I wasn’t about to let anyone take that from me. Even a really good friend like Becky. I rolled out of bed, sore from my exertions of the night before, and headed for the shower. I had class and so did Keith. He was already up but in his own shower downstairs. I stepped into the hot water and let it
“Where the fuck did you take her last night?” I asked Keith when he came home later that day. “She caught me here when she came home early, and I had no idea what she was talking about.” “I took her to the club. That club.” His grin told me all I needed to know about which club he’d taken Celia to last night. Well, that and what she’d said. I’d suspected it was the club, but I wanted to be sure and couldn’t exactly ask her, now could I? “You need to tell us this stuff, Keith. It’s my day today, I needed to know what you did last night. Luckily, she kind of told me herself but if she hadn’t, I would have been clueless. Then she’d have figured out something was wrong.” “Relax, Colin, I was going to tell you, I just didn’t have time to yet. By the way, she’s into it if you were wondering.” He had that smirk on his face, the one that made me want to punch him sometimes but this was good news. It meant we could tell her our secret when we were ready and maybe she wouldn’t freak out so m
The next day, I got up and my nose was stopped up and I could barely think straight because my head hurt so badly. I went into class anyway, because I didn’t want to miss a day but by the time I got to my English class with Becky, I wanted to just go home. She cornered me as the class ended and dragged me down to the diner. “I need to talk to you. It’s important.” She’d hissed the words in a way that told me she wasn’t just trying to get me to go eat with her. She really had something she needed to tell me. “Listen,” I said with my head over the cup of coffee I’d ordered. I let the steam roll up onto my face and into my nose. It didn’t help, but it didn’t hurt either. “I feel like complete shit, so I’m sorry if I don’t seem interested. I am. I just don’t feel well.” “I’m sorry, but I need to talk to you. I don’t know who else I could trust with this.” Her eyes welled up and she leaned closer to whisper. “It’s about Mike.” I looked around but didn’t see the waiter anywhere. “Is he
The next day, I got up and my nose was stopped up and I could barely think straight because my head hurt so badly. I went into class anyway, because I didn’t want to miss a day but by the time I got to my English class with Becky, I wanted to just go home. She cornered me as the class ended and dragged me down to the diner. “I need to talk to you. It’s important.” She’d hissed the words in a way that told me she wasn’t just trying to get me to go eat with her. She really had something she needed to tell me. “Listen,” I said with my head over the cup of coffee I’d ordered. I let the steam roll up onto my face and into my nose. It didn’t help, but it didn’t hurt either. “I feel like complete shit, so I’m sorry if I don’t seem interested. I am. I just don’t feel well.” “I’m sorry, but I need to talk to you. I don’t know who else I could trust with this.” Her eyes welled up and she leaned closer to whisper. “It’s about Mike.” I looked around but didn’t see the waiter anywhere. “Is he