Entangled hair

She said she liked my hair. With each passing second, I grow more and more entangled into this relationship. It’s a weight I’ve carried with me for years and only now I’ve figured it out. I sit here in this coffee shop, neighbouring a salon I am too scared to go into. Facing the window, I watch strangers pass me by. I can see when people go into the salon. The salon’s light is so luminescent, I see their shadows move before I see them enter or exit. The salon is only a few steps away, but I don’t know if I can count any more. You lose yourself when someone likes you so intensely. She cared for me more than I could care for myself and that was her power. I stayed because no one could love me as much as she did, no one could love my hair as much as she did.

With each passing second, I watch strangers walk across the coffee shop window. I am sitting behind this ceiling to floor window where the outside is just out of my reach. The day has been slow, life seems to have slowed down. I stare out at these strangers, I imagine they all have a story, but I am past imposing any onto them. Before she liked my hair, I could sit at this coffee shop for hours. I would let my mind run wild with stories of the lives these strangers lived. One by one they pass me by. But now I am too afraid to do this. What if I make a mistake assuming something that isn’t true? I can’t actively lie for these strangers. Not anymore.

And in these frequent intervals, the coffee shop’s door opens flooding in the robust sounds from outside. For a second the mellow coffeehouse love song is interrupted. No one else is phased because no one else is paying attention. For the first time in a while, I look around the coffee shop. My eyes take a while to adjust to the darker lighting of the café and this is the first moment, I realise the outside is brighter than this coffee shop. I notice there are more people here than when I first got here. Almost everyone is either busy chattering amongst themselves or isolating themselves in their own little bubble of work. My bubble of thought is burst by the click of her chunky creepers. It’s the women with the honey hair and soft features who just entered. I had seen her many times before and memorised her face because I knew if she were to ever talk to me, she would say something profound. She swiftly moves to the counter, there is a certainty is every move she makes. An air of confidence, most people only dream of.  

My eyes float from one corner of the café to another. I see a clock, brimming with gold and a taste of hipster. I’ve been sitting at this café for two hours now, giving in to the lifestyle of a floating millennial.  Hundreds of strangers have passed by with their lingering trial of lives. Mine lingers as well, in the smell of my clothes, the smell of my hair and the way I sit in this chair. Growing up I thought I needed discomfort to become better but now as I overflow into adulthood, this discomfort is only leaving me stagnant. I can’t walk. I can’t even walk to the salon.

Once again, I sit with my back facing the café, I look over to the shadows and the light flowing out of the salon. Two figures emerge out of the white light into the front of the café’s window. The mother is softly touching her daughter’s hair. The little girl seems to be happy, drifting away into her life where I am not a part of it. That day in the park, she ran her hands through my hair just like that. I let her because I wanted to be loved. It was a rare sunny day in January, we laid ourselves in the warm grass. It almost sounds like a movie and it felt like it too. There is something about rarity that compels you to cling to it more intensely than ever. Rare for most people is just out of reach so when you have it in your hands, you don’t dream to let it go. She told me about her dreams and her visions for our future. I was engulfed, lying on her lap, it felt nice for someone to run their hands through my hair. I didn’t care what she did with my hair. I just closed my eyes and surrendered. All the pain flashed through my eyes. I couldn’t stay anymore. I had to cut it. I was so scared of being left behind that I didn’t have the guts to leave. But I am lying to myself. If I was a character in a novel, I would be the girl I would hate. I know enough to know something is wrong but weak enough to not do anything about it. She loved me and I loved her but at what cost. I was in pain and she didn’t mean any of it. She didn’t. She loved me.

I heard the clicking creepers before I opened my eyes. The honey-haired girl had gotten her coffee and walked towards me. She tapped my shoulder and I couldn’t cry. “Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. But I just wanted to say your hair is beautiful” she said it so kindly, I was taken aback. We smiled at each other past the lingering stories. “Thank you,” I replied. She clicked away with her creepers. She walked through the door, away from my window view. I believed her.

But it was time. I got up from my chair, after what seemed like a whole lifetime. I walked towards the luminescent light because I knew it would grow again.