Chapter 12 Jade #2
“I’m not sure yet. Maybe cut it or dye it.” I say as I run my hand through a few of my still-damp strands that have fallen over my shoulder. “I hadn’t really thought about it yet.”
I drop my hair and look up at him to find him staring down at me with a serious look on his face. Zander’s the most playful of the three, and since being here, I’ve rarely seen him serious and have yet to see him in a bad mood. His hand comes up to play with the few strands I just had in my hand.
“It’s your hair, so you can do whatever you want, obviously, but I think you should keep it longer. Your hair is beautiful, just like you.” He leans forward to press his lips to my forehead, and any response I might’ve had vanishes.
He pulls back and releases me. I know I need to move. Clair's waiting for me by the door, and I can feel Spencer and Roderick's eyes on us, but I feel like my brain just shut down.
His soft chuckle pulls me from my thoughts, and I shake my head to clear it before I glare at him. I just know he did that on purpose. His smile grows at my glare, letting me know I am right.
I walk away without another word. Clair heads out as I make my way toward her, and we go out into the garage. She walks up to a beautiful red car. I don’t know much about cars, but just looking at it, I feel like it’s expensive and probably fast, too, if I had to guess.
“The boys bought me this a few years ago,” she tells me, as if reading my mind.
“I hardly drive it, honestly. Oftentimes, I go in with James, or I drive my BMW, which is still a nicer car, but not as showy as this one,” she tells me as we climb in.
The inside is all leather and a mix of black and red that matches the rest of the car.
She pushes a button, and the car roars to life; screens light up, gauges move, and I understand none of it.
“But I thought taking it out with you for the day would be fun,” she smiles at me as she pulls her seatbelt on. I do the same. I’m not sure if it will be fun, but if it makes her happy, I’m okay with it. It feels like the least I can do.
She hits a button, and I hear the garage door open behind us before she backs out, and we head down the driveway.
I’m pretty sure we’re headed the same way we did when the guys took me to the mall, but I can’t be sure.
The drive isn’t terribly long, and Clair has soft music playing in the background, which helps.
We don’t say much on the drive, but it’s not uncomfortable.
We pull up to a strip of buildings. It looks like there is a cafe a few doors down.
There are chairs and tables full of people all over the sidewalk.
Clair shuts the car off, unbuckles, and gets out, and I once again follow after her.
The sign on the front of the building reads Color your Creation.
It doesn’t sound much like a salon to me, but what do I know?
We walk in the front door, and a bell rings overhead, signaling our entrance.
“I’ll be right there,” someone calls out, and while I can’t see them, I assume they are farther back in the shop based on how far away their voice sounded.
The room is full of mirrors set up in what appears to be stations with a chair in front of each of them and all kinds of things on the desks under the mirrors.
I know some of them, like the curling irons and blow dryers, but not everything.
Even what I do know, I only know from seeing them when I had a high-end client pay for me to be done up.
I’ve never used them. The space is open with minimal decor, but it still somehow feels like it has character.
Not even a minute later, a woman comes out through the door in the back, pulling my attention away from the space and to her instead.
A gasp escapes my lips before I can stop it as my eyes land on her.
She’s just slightly taller than I am with a thin build, though her arms appear to have muscle on them even though she's slim. She’s dressed in skinny black jeans with rips all over them and a dark red tank top with combat boots, much like my own.
All of that is normal enough and not what caused my reaction.
Her tank top lets me see that she is covered in tattoos. From her neck down to her hands, there is just ink. Some are solid black, and other spots have color worked in, though I can’t make out what any of the designs are from this far.
Her hair is long, falling to just above her ass, and it’s close to the same shade of blonde as mine.
As she gets closer, I see that most of her hair is twisted together and falls in thick strands down her back.
Some of them are colored underneath the bulk of her hair in different shades of blue and purple, with the space above her left ear shaved short.
She reaches us, and Clair pulls her into a hug before pulling back and introducing her to me as Mel.
“It’s great to meet you, Jade. Clair told me about how you could use a girls' day out yesterday when I saw her, so of course, I insisted,” she tells me with a friendly smile as she reaches out to shake my hand. I take her hand and can’t help but smile back.
The longer I look at her, the more beautiful I realize she is.
She has high cheekbones and a little button nose, and her green eyes are so intense they look like they sparkle in the light.
She has two metal rings in her lower lip on the left side and a ring in her nose on the right.
The makeup around her eyes is just a dark line of eyeliner and mascara, but it really makes her eyes pop.
She has thick black circles in her ears that appear to be like an ear piercing, but bigger.
I’d never seen a girl who looks like her, and before meeting Kratos and the guys, I’d never seen anyone like this at all.
Kratos and the guys all have tattoos, but for some reason, this woman having them hits me completely differently.
Kratos and Zander also have some piercings, and I think Zander might also have the larger ones in his ears.
Usually, men with tattoos are attractive, and while I believe Mel’s tattoos definitely help with that, I want to be her more so than I want to be with her.
Somehow, seeing her snaps something in my brain that makes me realize I have the option to look like this, whereas seeing the guys like that didn’t.
And damn it, the longer I look at her, the more I want it.
She’s the opposite of what I would say society calls 'natural beauty,' but I think it’s better.
All my life, I‘ve strived to be the most looked at, the one with the attention, dressed up and made up to be whatever kept eyes on me and off the girls. I could have never looked like her. I could never look like anyone but who they wanted me to, and it wasn’t something I even cared about, to be honest. But standing here with them right now, I realize I might care about it if given a chance.
I don’t realize I’m staring until she cocks her head to the side, a hint of humor on her face.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to stare. You're just...” I trail off as I try to find a good way to describe it.
“Different?” she says at the same time I say, “Beautiful,” and her cheeks turn slightly pink before she throws her head back and laughs.
“Oh, Clair! You weren't wrong. She’s a freaking treat,” she says as she continues to laugh. “I’ve had a lot of people stop to stare at me in this town, more so when I first came through a few years ago, but I think you're the first one to have this reaction, hun!”
She pulls herself together and turns to walk towards one of the stations farther back in the room, waving us to follow her as she goes.
“Come on, Jade, let’s get you in the chair and see what ya want.
I have a feeling we're going to get along great!” When she stops at the chair, she motions for me to sit.
I look from her to Clair, who nods at me reassuringly.
Talking to Mel is easy. I’m not sure how long we’ve been here, but not a minute of it was uncomfortable.
Clair, Mel, and I talk about so many things and nothing the whole time.
It takes me a little while to decide what I want to do with my hair, but between the three of us and all the choices, we piece together something that I’m beyond excited to see.
After we decided, she turned me away from the mirror, wanting the reveal to be a surprise. It makes me anxious that I have no idea what's happening, but it also excites me to think of all the possibilities.
“Alright!” Mel walks back to stand in front of me after setting the curling iron down on her little workstation. “Are we ready to see the final result?” She claps her hands together and beams at me.
I can’t fight the smile on my face. I turn to look at Clair, and she’s smiling, too.
I nod my head, feeling giddy. Mel’s energy is contagious, and I can’t help but be just as excited as she is.
“Okay, close your eyes, and when I say one, you can open them,” she tells me, and I don’t hesitate. I feel the chair start to turn the moment my eyes are closed as she begins the countdown backward from three.
My eyes fly open before she even finishes saying one, and I watch my reflection as my jaw drops open.
Holy shit.
I have to remind myself to breathe.
I sit still as a statue for a moment, my eyes darting around to take everything in before I’m up and out of the chair to look closer in the mirror.
Mel’s either super talented or a freaking witch. Honestly, I’m leaning toward the witch.
I’d debated what to do with it as far as length went for a while, but in the end, we decided on a trim.
I might not know what to do with it most days, but when given a choice to cut it or not, it didn’t sit well with me to chop it off just for a fresh start. I’m done giving up pieces of myself.
Instead, Mel suggested an overhaul of it entirely, and damn did she deliver.
My once long blonde hair is now dark brown at the roots, so dark it looks black, but as the light hits it, you can see some brown in it. The brown starts at my roots and continues down until just around my ears, where it mixes with a beautiful green in what Mel called an ombré.
I knew from the moment I saw her colorful hair that I wanted to try it. It took us a while to decide on the color, but when Mel suggested a dark Jade green as a joke about my name, it felt right.
Everything about my hair is the opposite of what it was before, and I feel like a new person. The longer I look at my reflection, the happier I am with the result. Gone is the blonde, which was a huge selling point for so long; it was something men wanted and found attractive.
Now I look good for me.
I turn from side to side to see more angles.
As I do, a bright, almost white-blonde spot catches my eyes over my left shoulder.
I run my hands down my part and pull my hair forward over both shoulders.
Sure enough, one thin strip of hair is still blonde at the base of my head, just behind my left ear.
It’s wound and knotted up like some of Mel’s hair.
My eyes meet with hers over my shoulder in the mirror, and she must see the question in my eyes. She comes over to stand next to me, her eyes still holding my gaze in the mirror.
“Clair didn’t tell me everything, but everyone in this city who means anything knows the guys and their parents and what they do.
So everyone will know where you came from even if nobody ever speaks a word of it.
” Sadness swirls in her eyes before she looks down, grabbing some of her hair and twisting it around her finger.
“When I first came here, I was running from some shit. It wasn’t anything like what you're dealing with, but it was my trauma.” Even with her gaze cast down, I can see tears gathering in her eyes.
I have the strange urge to comfort her like I do the girls, but I keep myself still.
I don’t know, Mel, and I don’t want to overstep.
She takes a deep breath and pulls herself together before looking back up at me.
“The first thing I changed about myself was my hair. It was so liberating, but my cousin had given me peekaboo dreadlocks before we ran, and I kept them. They help me feel close to her and remind me where we came from and what we've been through. I’ve added more over the years, but those are special. They remind me that it could always be worse and keep me here, in the now.” She turns to face me instead of the mirror for the first time since coming over here.
Her eyes still look sad, but she has a smile on her face that lets me know that sadness isn’t all she feels anymore.
My life is a fucking mess on the best of days. Mel and Clair honestly don’t even know half of it, and they never will.
If they did, they’d probably never look at me the same.
I look down at the tiny dreadlock I still hold between my fingers and get it.
We are the sum of our parts, and while I may hate most of my past, it made me who I am. It kept the girls safe and helped me be a better version of myself.
I grip the dreadlock in my hand before looking back up at Mel. I give her a nod before a smile pulls at my lips to match hers.
She’s right.
We survive.