Chapter FifteenRoe
Chapter Fifteen
Roe
I cannot believe he did this to me. I mean, I’m not usually such a vain person, but when I am suddenly attacked by a hissing storm of bitches and blades, and I receive a desperately unwanted and absolutely horrid haircut, a girl has the right to lose her fucking mind. Which is exactly what I’m doing.
I let out a wordless scream and slam my palms against the bathroom mirror. Funnily enough, I have found myself in the same bathroom I had been in not thirty minutes past.
East, Felix, and a reluctant Trent trail into the bathroom.
"Roe, I'm… Fuck, I'm so sorry he did that to you!" East cries, running her fingers through my uneven hair.
"Not your fault," I say hollowly.
Felix comes up behind me on the other side. "You know," he whispers as if he is trying to calm a spooked horse. "I’ve been cutting hair since I was twelve. My sisters', my moms' and my own. I can… I can fix this if you will let me?"
"How?" I ask, my voice thick as I meet his eyes in the mirror. "How could you possibly fix this? "
He smiles gently.
"I will have to make it short, really short, to match this spot here," he runs his finger through a section of hair on the back of my head, which I assume is the closest to my scalp. "Think 2012 Miley Cyrus."
"Fuck yes, Roe!" East exclaims, tapping Trent on the shoulder rapidly. "You’re going to look like a fricking rock star! Tell her, Trent!" she gives him a particularly rough tap in her excitement.
Trent, soaking up the attention and touch of East, agrees readily.
The bell rings for class, and East curses. "My dad will kill me if I miss class. I'm sorry, Roe, I will have to skip out, but I will try to come see you after school?"
I smile sadly at her. "Don't worry about it. If it will get you into trouble again, just head home. I'll see you tomorrow anyway."
I give her a quick hug, and she rushes off to class.
Trent awkwardly lingers before excusing himself as well, muttering that he would email me notes from class.
Felix and I linger another five minutes, waiting for the halls to quiet as the masses get to class before we head out. Thankfully, the halls are empty, and there is no one to witness my walk of shame .
Felix's car is as flashy as the rest of them, though also completely individual in its shocking shade of hot pink.
I whistle, "Fuck yeah, Felix! Now this is a car I could get on board with!”
He smirks and pats the hood tenderly. "She's a showstopper, that's for sure."
We head to Felix's house with Ed Sheeran blasting, both of us shamelessly singing along at the top of our lungs. We aren't perfect vocalists, but we aren't terrible either. We sound like a mediocre pub karaoke team.
"You've got the voice of an angel, Roe," Felix says as the song ends.
I snort, "I'm no Taylor Swift, mate."
"Didn't say you were," he smirks.
"Asshole," I smirk back.
We spend the rest of the ride singing and joking. I know he is trying to keep me distracted, and I am relieved that it has worked, if even only for a short time. Reality slaps me in the face as we turn into the drive of, yep, you guessed it, a mansion. Felix's home is French in style, beige with baby blue window shutters and draping plants hanging from the veranda and windows.
"You don't sound French," I muse as we traipse up the front steps .
"Oh, I'm not," he replies. "Not a drop of frog in these veins. My grandmother was obsessed with France, and my grandfather, being a love-struck fool, built this monstrosity to please her."
"You call this a monstrosity?" I ask in disbelief.
He just shrugs as he opens the front door. "I suppose it is nice to look at. If you are into this kind of… style," he says.
The delicious aroma of baking sweets invades my senses, and I breathe in deeply, my stomach growling in appreciation.
"Fee? You are home earl- Oh! Hello there," the sweet voice sounds from down the hall and quickly cuts off as a beautiful, middle-aged woman with greying, black locks spies me standing awkwardly at Felix's side. She studies me with a polite smile, a tray of baked goods in her hands.
Forgetting for a moment that I look like I have picked a fight with Edward Scissorhands, I wave like a dweeb and squeak a nervous, "Hi!" Before clearing my throat and adding a hasty, "You have a lovely home, ma'am."
Felix chuckles, "My mom isn’t one of those uppity housewives, Roe. She doesn’t give a shit about what you think of her home. However, make fun of her cooking, and you’ll be on her shit list for life . ”
"Oh, shush, Fee," his mom admonishes, approaching us. "Make fun of my cooking, and I'll be faced with the challenge of improving." She stops in front of me with a kind smile on her face as she eyes my hair. "My name is Lynette; you may call me Lyn."
"On a nickname basis already, mom?" Felix teases as he snatches a cookie. "How unladylike of you."
Lyn smacks Felix over the ear gently. "Shut it," she says lightly.
Grinning, I give Felix a smack of my own on his opposite ear. "Yes, Felix, shut it. The women are talking."
Lyn grins and nods towards the plate, indicating I should try something.
"I'm Roe," I say as I choose what looks to be cheesecake and jam stuffed with two salted crackers. I take a tentative bite and all but orgasm as the sweet and salty flavors make heaven on my tongue.
"Lyn, this is amazing! My mouth is literally having an orgasm right now."
I blush, realizing exactly who my present company is. I so need to practice my word filtering.
Lyn laughs, easing my embarrassment. "With such praise like that, you are more than welcome into our home any time, Roe. "
I grin through my mouthful of cheesecake.
"Sorry to cut this womanly bonding session short, but Roe has a date with my scissors and a hairbrush," Felix cuts in.
My mood sours, but I force myself to smile politely as Felix leads me away, not before he snatches another sweet from his mom.
"Have fun!" Lyn calls, as if this is a play date and not the most dire haircut of my life.
Felix drags me right to the very end of the long hallway before turning into a bedroom that I assume is his.
It is completely different from what I had imagined. Instead of blacks and pinks and emo-boy band posters, I find a neat and almost classic bedroom with honey oak furniture and beige linen. He leads me through the room without pausing and we enter a large bathroom with off-white furnishings and tiles, the top half of the room painted a deep, navy blue.
Felix wastes no time in prepping, sliding a luxurious hairdressing chair out from beneath the bench before collecting a variety of scissors, combs, hairbrushes, and a spray bottle from the cupboards.
"Your throne, My Lady," he teases, gesturing for me to sit on the white, faux-leathered chair. He turns to a set of drawers and pulls out a booklet with tiny hair samples sticking out one side.
"Woah, you want to dye my hair too?" I eye the book cautiously. I had never dyed my hair before.
"Absolutely!" he smirks at me.
I scoff. "What, the client doesn’t get a say anymore? This is my hair we are talking about."
"Yes," he agrees, flicking through the pages. "But you agreed for me to fix that disaster on your head, and I have the perfect new style for you in my head. Now, do you want to know what colors I have chosen for you, or shall we leave it as a surprise?"
"Colors? Plural?" I groan. "Fuck it, surprise me. But if I look like a clown or a hooker, you are fixing it without question!"
Felix steps in behind me. "Girl, what kind of a hairdresser would I be if I let you leave here with a bad style? I got you."
"Then shut up and get on with it," I say with a sigh. "I'm sick of looking at myself. ”
Felix steps away, at last, eyeing my new haircut with a critical eye. I am practically squirming in my seat in anticipation. Before he had started, Felix had twirled me away from the mirror. When I protested, he shushed me and asked if I had not just said I didn't want to see my reflection any longer. He wasn't wrong, of course, so I let him do his thing. Lyn had popped her head in with a plate of sandwiches and quiches just as Felix was finishing with the dye. She complimented Felix on his color choices, which made me demand answers I was not given.
"Hot damn, Roe," Felix says suddenly, his face relaxing into a wide grin. "If I wasn't gay, I would totally take you on a date."
I snort, "so classy, Felix."
Taking a steadying breath, I nod for Felix to spin the chair around. He does.
I blink in surprise at my reflection. I barely recognize myself.
Felix has cut the back of my hair just an inch from my scalp while leaving the front longer in an edgy side fringe. It has completely changed the angles of my face. And the color… he has dyed the bulk of it a deep, crimson red, with streaks of silver adding a striking flare to the fringe.
I run my fingers through the short but smooth lengths .
Felix shuffles anxiously behind me. "Well? Say something, Roe, you’re killing me here!"
I laugh and turn to face him. "Felix, you are a fucking miracle worker, you know that?" I stand and fling my arms around him. "I love it so much!"
We spend the rest of the afternoon watching romantic comedies while Lyn totters in every now and then with nibblies and refreshments. The woman can make one hell of a mocktail.
With my stomach bloating and my romantic comedy odometer full to the brim, I flick the TV off with a groan.
Felix rolls to his side and watches me as I lay on my back, staring up at nothing and everything at the same time.
"What am I going to do, Felix?" he frowns in confusion. "About the stupid project," I elaborate.
Felix forces out a breath of air, rolling onto his back too. "I think it’s too late to change our subject. Mrs. Welsh practically had kittens when you screamed it out."
"I did not scream ," I say, though not entirely convinced in myself. "And what the hell is with that saying? What does it even mean?"
Felix bursts out laughing, and I am not far behind. It has been one hell of a day. I cannot even begin to process the range of emotions my body went through. And don’t get me started on Western Mazzuchelli. His personality was volatile. He had almost had me convinced he was a good person for a little while there.
And then he proved me wrong. Fuck, did he ever.
Suddenly drained, I ask Felix to take me home, and he does without question, seemingly picking up on my sudden change of mood.
The lights are on in the house when we arrive, and Felix leaves after giving me an awkward hug over the center console. I stare up at the sky as Felix's headlights disappear down the dark drive. The stars are bright and many, not a cloud in sight. The city never had views like this. The heavens had always been clouded by smoke and smog. I take a deep breath, appreciating, for a moment, the clear and fresh air living apart from the clusters and crowds.
Sighing, I turn away from my musings and open the front door. I can vaguely hear the television playing what sounds like a raunchy romance down the hall. Katie is back.
Suddenly nervous about having to explain my makeover to her, I decide to sneak up the stairs as quietly as I can.
No such luck.
"Roe?"
I turn and look at Katie as she stands at the bottom of the stairs, her brow furrowed .
"What-" she stutters. "I mean, you look absolutely stunning, Roe, don't get me wrong. But… why the sudden change?"
The day's events are suddenly heavy on my shoulders, and I collapse to the step I'm standing on, tears streaming down my face. Katie rushes to my side, soothing me with gentle hushes and a hand on my back.
I tell her everything. Ok, not exactly everything. The whole blowjob thing can stay between West and I. But everything from my walk of fame to being forced against a locker, to the photo and video revelations and the unexpected scissor attack. Katie listens to it all, gasping and seething at every opportune moment.
"I stood against them, even when you warned me not to," I cry at the end.
Katie is silent as she contemplates everything I have said.
"You know," she says after a while, "You and I are more alike than you would think. I grew up in this world. I was told stories of the Dukes before I learned to walk. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to change the hierarchy, too, so to speak. The Dukes of my school years weren't as unpleasant as West, Brett, and Law seem to be. In fact, Lawson's older brother, Cooper, was one. I can't say my little acts of rebellion were as… public as yours have be en," she smiles, "but I got my fair share of humiliation. Mine came in the form of spaghetti."
We giggle over her tales of how the Dukes used spaghetti (on her chair, in her locker, water bottle, even tipped down her top) to torment her for over two weeks before she bent the knee, so to speak.
"But I've been plotting and plotting in the privacy of my own head, hence this business deal I'm fighting for," she says.
I look up at her and wipe my eyes. "About that, how did everything go last night?”
Katie scoffs, getting to her feet. She motions for me to follow and we head to the kitchen and each grab a coke before she says, "It was a complete waste of time. The Elders had no interest in my ideas. I was just there to learn my place, standing against a wall and grabbing beers and wine when called for."
I simmer in my anger and the injustice of it all.
"Don't worry, Katie, I'm going to take down the Dukes even if it's the last thing I do."
She sighs. "I want you to be safe, Roe. And it doesn't sound like you are. I don't want you to go after the Dukes if it means getting hurt in the process. Who knows, maybe the Dukes will take themselves down one day? "
I smile but don't believe it for a second. In fact, the whole social studies assignment may just be our ticket to taking them down. I keep my thoughts to myself as I take a sip of the sweet and bubbly goodness.
"You going to the party tomorrow night?" Katie asks, keen to change the subject.
"How the hell do you know there's going to be a party tomorrow night?"
"I may not be seventeen anymore, but I was once. The back-to-school bash is tradition."
"Fair," I say. "I don't know if I want to go, to be honest. East isn’t allowed to go to parties and she is the only girlfriend I’ve got. I don't know if Trent or Felix are going…" I trail off, not particularly fussed with where this conversation is going. "Besides," I add, "I've got nothing the wear."
Katie slams her can to the bench, then looks slightly sheepish as if she had not actually planned to be so brash.
"We are going shopping tomorrow. In the city."
"I've got school, Katie," I laugh. "Wasn't school a condition of my allowances?"
"Well, yes, but to hell with it! Every girl needs at least one killer outfit that is going to send all the boys to their knees. "
"Ok, who are you, and what have you done with Katie?" I laugh, half in shock, half pleased with this new, fun, and young Katie. Because she is young, I remind myself. Too young to be mothering anyone, let alone a sassy teenager like me.
Katie laughs and wraps me up in a hug. Two days ago, I was not a hugger, but I am certainly softening up to it now. It is such a warm and fuzzy feeling being wrapped up in the arms of someone you care about.