Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
FRANKIE
Idon’t know what it says about my mental state that I drove right past the hair salon and ended up in the parking lot of Beauty Galaxy instead. Maybe it said I wanted control. Or chaos. Maybe both.
Rachel pulled into the spot next to me, her car making that little tick tick tick sound of cooling metal.
We didn’t even need to talk—we just knew.
No stylists today. No pretending I trusted anyone else to fix what life had broken in me.
Just two girls on a mission to dye my hair purple and, apparently, rewrite my life.
Inside, the place smelled like plastic and coconut oil.
Aisles of bottles lined up like soldiers—every shade of blonde, brown, and pink imaginable.
My reflection in the wall mirror looked too normal, too golden, like I was still pretending to be the kind of girl who didn’t get in trouble, didn’t break hearts, didn’t spiral.
Rachel was already picking up boxes like she was auditioning for Project Runway: Hair Edition.
“Okay, you’ve got a yellow undertone,” she said. “We’re gonna need something cool-toned so it doesn’t go Barney the Dinosaur.”
Before I could answer, a lady with a name tag that said Mimi swooped in, eyes sharp in that I’ve-seen-things way.
“You’ll want toner first,” she said, eyeing my hair critically. “You’ve got gold in there, sweetheart. That’ll mess up how the purple takes.”
I blinked at her. “Mess up as in... clown wig?”
“Mess up as in patchy, muddy, regret,” she said matter-of-factly.
Rachel snorted. “Regret’s kind of our aesthetic right now.”
We started comparing brands, and within minutes, it turned into this ridiculous debate that probably should’ve been televised. Rachel was Team Semi-Permanent—“less commitment, more fun”—while I argued for permanent because, well, wasn’t I already kind of committed to the bit?
“Frankie, if you hate it, you’ll be stuck like that for months,” Rachel said, holding a box of lavender dye like it was a moral argument.
“And if I love it?” I shot back. “Then I’ll be glad it lasts.”
“Or you’ll get suspended,” she said, half laughing, half not.
That’s when it hit me. Hard.
“What the hell am I even doing?” I asked, my voice too sharp, too full. “Like seriously, what if I show up Monday and they boot me out because my hair’s not ‘natural’ enough?”
Rachel tilted her head, that slow, thoughtful way she does when she’s about to hit me with something both obvious and profound.
“Homecoming,” she said.
I blinked. “What about it?”
She smiled—a little soft, a little dangerous. “Purple’s the school color.”
And somehow that made everything both better and worse.
Mimi, the toner prophet, chimed in again. “You could always dye just the under layer,” she said. “When your hair’s down, it’s hidden. But when you put it up…” She wiggled her fingers like jazz hands. “Surprise.”
I could almost see it—me with my hair twisted up, streaks of violet flashing like rebellion in sunlight. Quiet on the outside, storm underneath. Story of my life.
While I was still picturing it, my phone buzzed in my back pocket. Coop.
The name lit up my screen like it always did—bright and wrong.
Rachel glanced over. “You can answer him,” she said softly. “If you’re ready.”
I wasn’t. God, I wasn’t. So I left it unread, like if I ignored it long enough, the ache would dissolve on its own.
A quick glance at the clock reminded me I had maybe two hours before I had to feed the cats. They’d be pacing by now, tails flicking like judgment. The thought of going home—of possibly running into Mr. Standish or Maddy—made my stomach twist.
“I hate leaving them,” I murmured. “But I really don’t want to deal with—”
“Then don’t.” Rachel’s voice was calm, certain. “I’ll go with you. We’ll do your hair there. And trust me,” she added with a grin that made me both laugh and believe her, “I can be pretty ferocious if I need to be.”
Something in me unclenched then. Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was the wild, stupid hope that purple hair could mean something other than trouble.
I picked up the toner, the dye, gloves, container to put the dye in, random hair dye paraphernalia that we didn’t already own. and a brush I probably didn’t need but wanted anyway.
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “Let’s make a mess.”
Rachel smiled. “Now you’re talking.”
As we walked toward the register, bottles clinking in my basket, I swear I could already feel it—the faint electric hum of change. Like static before lightning. Like maybe, just maybe, I was ready to start again.
The sun was an open furnace over the parking lot, and even though the asphalt shimmered and the steering wheel could’ve fried an egg, I barely felt it anymore. Maybe I’d just burned through every nerve that registered “too much.”
Rachel followed close behind me the whole drive, her little blue hatchback glued to my bumper like moral support on four wheels. We hit the drive-thru because both of us were running on caffeine and nerves.
“Two chicken tender meals,” Rachel told the box, leaning halfway out the window. “Extra honey mustard. And fries. Because we’re making life choices today.”
The speaker crackled, monotone: ‘You want to make that a combo?’
Rachel looked at me where I was ahead of her in the drive-thru, one eyebrow up.
“Always,” I called.
I paid at the window despite Rachel’s protests from behind me. When the bag hit my lap, it was hot enough to sting through the paper. Grease and salt and something like normalcy filled the car. I managed to not eat the fries on the way back—barely.
When we finally pulled into my complex, the parking lot was half-shadowed, a rare mercy. I scanned the spaces automatically. No Maddy’s car. No slick black Lexus that belonged to Mr. Standish. Just my dented Toyota and an empty stretch beside it.
Hope flickered—small, trembling, but alive.
Rachel parked next to me, and for a second, neither of us moved. I sat there, fingers gripping the bag of food, feeling the heat bleed through it into my palms.
“Okay,” I said finally, exhaling. “Let’s do this.”
Inside, the apartment was still, the kind of quiet that pressed on your ears. Then the chorus began—three distinct meows, layered like a choir of complaints.
“Tiddles, Tory, Tabby,” I sighed, crouching as they circled me in figure eights.
Tiddles, sleek and black, rubbed against my shin like he’d been starved for attention for years.
Tory, white and skittish, hovered close but not too close.
And Tabby—my fat, sassy drama queen—jumped onto the couch and immediately started licking her paw as if to say, You’re late. Feed me, peasant.
Relief hit like cool water after a long run. They were safe. The place was intact. No sign of intrusion, no perfume that wasn’t mine.
Until I saw it—the note on the fridge. My name in Maddy’s handwriting.
My stomach dropped.
Rachel followed my gaze. “Want me to read it?”
I blew out a breath that felt like it scraped my lungs. “Am I being a coward if I say yes?”
She shrugged, casual but fierce. “You’re protecting yourself. Anyone who calls you a coward for that is gonna get a throat punch.”
Somehow, violence had never sounded so comforting.
I smiled, shaky. “Let’s do my hair first. Then we’ll eat and read it after. That way, if it messes up my mood, at least it won’t be permanent.”
Rachel gave a mock salute. “Strategic emotional management. I like it.”
She set the food aside and started pulling bottles and gloves from the bag while I dug through my drawers for something sacrificial to wear.
“Got a towel or two you don’t mind turning purple?” she called.
“I’ve got at least three that already look like crime scenes,” I yelled back.
By the time I returned in an old button-down and pajama shorts, she’d transformed the kitchen into a mini salon—bowls, brushes, gloves, and towels all neatly arranged next to the microwave.
Rachel spread her arms wide. “Welcome to Rachel Manning’s Beauty Redo Station, where sadness goes in and badassery comes out.”
I laughed, really laughed, the act cracking some of the stones weighing down my chest all day.
Just like that, between the smell of honey mustard and the sound of my cats fussing underfoot, I started to believe maybe—just maybe—purple could be a beginning, not an ending. That was until Rachel went to work with the toner on my hair.
Within minutes, my kitchen smelled like a mix of chemicals and regret. The toner was doing its thing—whatever that meant—and I was sitting there in an old towel with my hair twisted up like a cotton-candy experiment gone wrong.
“Ugh, this stinks,” I groaned, scrunching my nose. “It’s like burned plastic and sadness had a baby.”
Rachel laughed, standing behind me with the kind of focus usually reserved for bomb diffusing. “I love the smell of making new decisions.”
“That’s not a real quote.”
“It is now.” She grinned, hands moving confidently through my hair. “Just remember—this isn’t about the smell, or the note, or even the guys. This is about you. Right?”
Something in the way she said it, all simple and steady, landed deep. I nodded, throat tight. “Right.”
The minutes stretched, soft music playing from my phone on the counter, the cats weaving around our feet like tiny supervisors. By the time I’d rinsed out the toner, my hair felt lighter, cleaner, like it had shed something invisible. Then came the purple.
Rachel sectioned strands with a professional sort of calm that didn’t match her age or the fact that she was still wearing a “Girl Gang or Go Home” shirt. Halfway through, when my head was covered in streaks of violet goo and I looked like I’d lost a paintball fight, she said casually,
“So… what’s the deal with Mathieu?”
I sighed. “I honestly don’t know.”
She paused, brush midair.
“He said he wasn’t taking me or anyone else to homecoming,” I said slowly, “but the way he said it… it kind of felt like he was breaking up with me without saying it out loud, you know? Like a preemptive ghosting.”
Rachel nodded in that quiet, understanding way. “That’s rough.”
“Yeah. I mean, I think we’re still… something? But my emotions are just—” I gestured vaguely at the wall. “Everywhere. Like spaghetti on the ceiling.”
My first boyfriend and breakup all at once. Go me.
Rachel chuckled softly and switched topics, maybe sensing the wobble in my voice. “Okay, so what about the secret admirer? The roses?”
I looked at her reflection in the microwave door. “I don’t know who it is.”
“No guesses? Not even a hunch?”
“None. Whoever it is, they’re either really shy or really creepy.”
Rachel dipped the brush back into the bowl and smirked. “Is there someone you want it to be?”
“Why are we even talking about this?” I said, half whining, half laughing. My scalp was starting to tingle, and the cool paste made the back of my head feel like a snow globe. “Feels like I’m getting brain freeze.”
“Because,” Rachel said, painting on another streak of purple, “I want you to see that not everything has been bad these last few weeks.”
I didn’t have a comeback for that. She was right. There had been glimmers—tiny, flickering moments like this one. The smell of fried chicken still hung in the air. My cats purred in the corner. Rachel hummed under her breath while she helped me rebuild something I’d accidentally torn down.
Maybe not everything was bad. Maybe this was what new beginnings actually smelled like, along with hints of chemicals and regrets.
“I don’t know who I’d want it to be,” I said finally, my voice quieter than I meant it to be. “At first, I thought it was the guys, you know—trying to make up for…”
I waved my hand vaguely, the universal gesture for everything I don’t want to name right now.
“But they were all so irritated about it that I know it wasn’t them.”
Rachel snorted, biting into a fry and talking around it. “Yeah, it does seem a bit subtle for Archie. Even if I could see him going for roses—he’s dramatic enough.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “True.”
“I could see Coop doing it,” she went on, wiping honey mustard from her thumb. “But I don’t think his love language is roses. Now Bubba or Jake? Meh. Maybe.”
There was a tone there—something half-playful but edged, like she was weighing her words carefully. It prickled under my skin, but I didn’t say anything. I just dipped another fry in sauce and let the grease distract me.
We ate while the color set, the kitchen quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the cats occasionally thumping against the cabinets.
My head felt heavy, wrapped in cling film and potential transformation.
The dye timer on Rachel’s phone ticked down like a soft little countdown to whatever came next.
When it was finally time, I leaned over the sink. “Well,” I said, eyeing the purple streaks dripping into the drain, “at least it’s stainless steel. No one will think I murdered Barney in here.”
“See?” Rachel burst out laughing. “Positive thinking.”
I started to laugh too, and the sound felt rusty but real.
Then I looked up, and met her eyes. “Do you know who it is?” I asked. “The secret admirer?”
Rachel tilted her head, the corners of her mouth curling. “Do you really want to know? Or would that take the fun out of it?”
I hesitated. “I’m… not sure.”
“Then maybe wait till you are,” she said simply, and that was that.
She slipped the gloves back on and helped me rinse. Her hands were surprisingly gentle, fingers massaging my scalp in slow, soothing circles. The warm water and her touch blurred everything else—the note on the fridge, the weight in my chest, even Mathieu’s half-hearted whatever that was.
“God, that feels amazing,” I mumbled.
“Ah-ha! Now I know your weakness.” Rachel gave a low, mock-evil laugh.
“Scalp massages?”
“Exactly. I can use this knowledge for good… or evil.”
It broke through the bubble of sadness I’d been floating in, and I couldn’t stop smiling, even with purple water swirling down the drain like liquid twilight.
Once the last rinse ran clear, Rachel shut off the faucet and helped me wrap my hair up in a towel, tucking the ends carefully.
She stepped back, her grin bright and mischievous. “Now,” she said, sweeping an imaginary curtain aside, “for the magical reveal…”
My heart kicked, somewhere between nerves and excitement. Because, truthfully, this was about way more than hair.