nineteen

Alice
I wanted to sleep for ten more hours. This coke was kicking my ass, and at least when I was asleep I didn’t have to think about Marcus. Whenever I awoke, my shame would creep down my spine and I would have to put my head under the covers again, hiding from everything I remembered about the night before. I had no idea why this was hitting me so hard. Maybe I really liked him, maybe I just had never been rejected. It was definitely a blow to my confidence, that’s for sure. I felt like I wanted to get up, but couldn’t. if I got up, it was saying I didn’t really care. Like I was okay, and I was most definitely not okay. I finally dragged my ass out of bed, and looked in the mirror. Jesus. No wonder he rejected me. I was hideous. I raked my hair back from my face, and turned to my profile. Too big nose, pointy chin, freckles.
“How could he not want someone else? God, anyone else?” I said aloud, dropping my hair back into place. “Fuck, pull yourself together, Alice. You’re such a fucking loser.”
I kept staring at myself, picking blackheads I imagined and wallowing. Eventually I decided to take a shower, to shock myself out of this abyss. I let the water pour over me, not washing myself, just standing under the spray. I watched some dye from my hair run into the drain absently and shifted myself close to the hot water. I resolved to re-dye my hair later that day. Changing ym hair had always been somewhat cathartic for me. I chopped my hair when I lost my virginity, and dyed it when I left for college. New hair, new self. That was going to be my mantra today, I thought, I could use a trim. I needed to give myself concrete tasks to do so I could lose myself in the, and stop thinking about Marcus. I turned the water off, and grabbed my robe. The cool air chilled my skin, and I hurried back to my room, fighting the urge to crawl back in bed. I didn’t get dressed, just fished around under my bed naked, looking for my haircutting scissors and some hair dye. I stood in front of the mirror, combing my hair straight, the wet strands sticking to my cheeks. I turned my head one way, then the other, eyeing which strands were longer and needed to be cut. When I picked up the scissors, I felt reckless, like I wanted to chop it all off. Instinctively, I titled my head forward and grabbed a chunk of hair. I trimmed it close to the skin, exposing the nape of my neck. I continued around my head, cutting my hair with light snips, angling the hair forward until the front pieces were longer, grazing my chin. It was a bob of sorts, I though, just a little more interesting. My hair was dry now, unstyled and kind of frizzy. But it was an improvement. It was a cool haircut, with the shortest part at the back contrasted with the longer parts at the front. I mixed the dye meticulously, wiping up the small spills I made on the dresser with my bathrobe. Parting my hair in quarter inch intervals, I spread the fire engine red dye over my hair evenly. Somewhere around halfway through, I realized the reason why I was doing all of this. I was going to make Marcus so fucking jealous he would kick his own ass for rejecting me. I perched on my bed, pulling my laptop onto my legs as I waited for the dye to penetrate my hair. I flipped through Facebook, going through friends I had accrued online before school started. I marked all of the cute boys on my bookmark list. I was going to date boys, until I found one who made me forget Marcus completely. I was New Alice still, I told myself. And New Alice was strong enough to not only forget about Marcus, but fucking thrive without him. I couldn’t wait til I saw him next, looking sexy and making out with someone else. He would regret last night as much as I did.