Toxic Hair

Long black strands of hair coated the bathroom floor. Every girl knew who they belonged to. I knew because, in the past, I had watched Aura firsthand yank a dirty rubber band out of her frizzy hair, taking clumps with it. She would then use her fingers to smooth out the frizz with the underlying scalp grease and her hair would fall to the floor in large quantities. I’m surprised she didn’t notice me noticing her. I noticed her because it was impossible to not notice her. Rumor was that when she was fifteen, she shaved off her eyebrows, but no one knows for sure because she keeps her bangs long enough to cover the place they would be located.

When I was fifteen I made a lot of dumb decisions, but at least I knew I was being an idiot. I don’t think Aura knew she was talking nonsense most of the time. At this age, she mentioned time and time again that she was going ghost hunting. She didn’t mention it to me but rather herself. In the hallways, during P.E., while a teacher was lecturing us. It didn’t matter the situation, Aura always needed to talk. I think she was thinking out loud. My only thought was, aren’t we past that age of immaturity? I went ghost hunting when I was ten. But it seemed like she was stuck in the past.

Aura moved to our town when we were in fifth grade. She was a shy kid, but it wasn’t until our last year of junior high that I realized she might actually be crazy. Every time I saw her she would make direct eye contact with me but say something so quiet I had a strong feeling she wasn’t talking to me. She wasn’t talking to herself either. Her hair was light brown then. It looked so much better on her than the black. I hated myself for thinking that the color of her hair could make or break a person’s likability. How shallow could I be to judge a person based off of their physical traits? Even with her weird quirks, I never had any problems with Aura until highschool-- when she dyed her hair black.

I was running late on the first day of high school because my younger sister didn’t know how to set an alarm. I remember that Aura was supposed to be in my first class but didn’t respond when the teacher took attendance. It was assumed she was absent but I later found out that she was hiding in the girls’ bathroom most of the day. Apparently she was screaming at someone or something, but her words made no sense. I left school that day, noticing two police cars parked outside the front doors and it wasn’t until later that year, I realized who was the cause of the commotion. She didn’t come back to school for a week and when she did, her hair was black.  Rumor has it, she was placed in a psychiatric hospital, or was in rehab for that week, but escaped. I don’t believe it for a second, although I could never figure out what happened in that week of her absence.

“Don’t you see it?” I hear, shaking my mind out of the past. That one sentence told me all I needed to know-- Aura was in the bathroom, which meant I needed to get out before all hell broke loose. All I wanted to do was fix my makeup and avoid doing classwork for econ. I looked to my right, and there stood Aura, like a shadow, staring at me, beyond me.

“Don’t you see it, Mik?” she repeats.

“Mik?” I respond, utterly confused, “Who’s Mik?” 

Her glossed over eyes focus on my face. “Mikkey. Mikaela.” She points at me, “she’s right here.”

“Am I Mik?” I feel stupid for asking. I feel idiotic for treating her like a child, but I never know how I’m supposed to interact with her.

“You don’t see?” she tilts her head to the side. I notice her hair doesn’t move with her and I feel my lips innately curl in disgust.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” or talking to. I wonder why I’m encouraging her weird behavior, but I desperately want to know what is going on in her head. 

“My hair…” she looks to her left, into the mirror. Touching her greasy hair, she repeats, “My hair… It's toxic. Don’t you see it, Mikaela? It burns.” Her eyes widen and her attention shifts to me.

“I’m not Mikaela. Do you need me to get a teacher?” I’m now extremely uncomfortable, trying to get out of this situation. I honestly don’t even think she knows I’m here.

“Yes. No.” She squints at herself in the mirror. “Razor.”

“Aura?” I’m trying to understand her but I’m so lost.

“Shave it all off. Stop the burning.”

“Why do you want to--”

“Mik, you don’t make sense sometimes,” she interrupts. And then she’s laughing. Not a chuckle, but a cackle. One that comes from deep within. From the gut. It sounds like it hurts.

It’s at this point I realize no one has entered or left the bathroom. I know why and I mentally slap myself. No one goes into the bathroom during fourth block because Aura stays in here for the whole class.

“Why does it burn?” I take a step backward, noticing how close to me she suddenly is. 

The laughing cuts off suddenly, and Aura starts blinking rapidly. “I don’t…” she starts, but can’t finish her thought. The blinking stops and she looks at me, actually looks at me. “What are you… what are you doing here?” 

She must know something is wrong by the confused look I’m giving her. Her eyes tear up. “Who’s Mikaela?” I whisper. I’m terrified she's going to lash out at me for speaking the name. I don’t know how she’ll react and I regret saying anything in the first place. 

“Mik…” she trails off, looking behind me, “Mikaela?”

“You were talking about her just now… or talking to her… Are you okay? Do you need me to get someone?” I look back at the door hoping I can get out to grab a teacher.

“You don’t care,” she’s trying to read me. “No one in this place gives a shit,” her words are hurtful but she speaks mechanically, as though she is rehearsing lines for a play.

“Does Mikaela care?” 

Aura smirks to herself as she looks at the floor, “Mikaela cares too much.” She then looks right into my eyes, her dark brown ones shining under the fluorescent bulbs, “Isn’t that right?”

“Are you asking me?”

She doesn’t respond. Instead, she leans over the far left sink and turns it on. Although her eyes still shine with unshed tears, she is smiling. It gives me goosebumps. I wonder why I haven’t left. I’ve been here for too long. Is she going to hurt me? I hate myself for thinking that about someone I don’t know, but every time she looks at me I see the urge she has to cause trouble.

“You don’t remember Mikaela?” she finally speaks.

I wrack my brain trying to think of students that ever hung out with Aura in the years she had lived here. I come up short.

“Sometimes we scream so loud, but no one hears us. We tell them our hearts are beating out of our chests and they say ‘take deep breaths.’ We say that we wish we didn’t feel. We aren’t sad… No. I think that we just need to be noticed. We aren’t noticed, are we?” She’s asking me a question I think.

“Are you talking about me?” I’m noticed plenty. I make it my goal to be noticed.

“Mik loved the attention. She never got it though. Not the way she needed” Aura cups her hands under the water watching them fill and overflow back into the sink.

“I don’t remember her,” I say quietly. I’m ashamed because I feel like I should.

“She’s still here.” Aura turns the water off. “She’s where you need her most.” She still hasn’t looked at me but is instead looking at herself in the mirror once again.

“What does she look like?” my curiosity gets the best of me.

“She looks like what she is.” Aura turns her whole body in my direction. “Would you shave off your hair if it hurt?”

I’m stunned by her topic change. “Are you in pain?”

“Always,” she gives me a soft smile but it doesn’t comfort me due to the dark context behind the word. “Not up here,” she points at her hair, “But in here,” she shifts her finger to the middle of her forehead.

It doesn’t surprise me that she feels pain mentally, but what she says next does. “You are too.”

“You think I’m in pain?” I stare at her incredulously. 

“I don’t think. I know.” Her voice is so calm still.

“You know nothing about me!” The nerve of this girl. She doesn’t know anything about who I am or how I think, yet she wants to tell me she knows how my brain works?

“You remind me so much of Mikaela,” the smile on her face grows. “I love her for all she is. I hate her for everything she wishes she wasn’t.”

“Are you telling me that I hate myself?” My voice is growing louder.

Aura doesn’t respond but instead looks behind her at the black hair dusting the floor. “I gotta go.” She doesn’t look back at me but instead turns back and marches past me without so much as a sideways glance.

I stand in the same spot and listen to the bathroom door swing open and closed, open and closed until it stops and I am alone in silence with nothing but my thoughts. Aura and I had never had a conversation before now so why did she speak to me as if she’s known me my whole life? I didn’t realize that there were so many things I ignored about her. 

An interesting story you’ve written. What is it that you have ignored about Aura?

“I’ve ignored what she has to offer. I think she could have more power at school.” 

And why do you think she needs that power?

“She doesn’t need it. I never said that, Mikaela. I said she could have more power”

Okay, but why do you think that?

“She freaks everyone out. So she should use that to her advantage.”

It sounds like Aura has a lot of qualities you don’t understand.

“Maybe. But I want to understand her better.”

Tell me, do you know why she dyed her hair black?

“Well, yeah. She likes feeling dark. And she likes having that darkness under control. So she keeps it on her head, right over her brain.”

That’s interesting because earlier, you told me that you didn’t understand Aura like you wanted to, yet you know such a personal detail about her.

“I probably overheard her talking to herself like a crazy person.”

I think we both know that didn’t happen.

“What are you trying to say?”

I think it's time for you to wake up from your delusions.

“I don’t have any--”

Wake up.

“What are you--”

Wake up.

Wake up.