He nods, and a moment later, I feel the cold of the scissors at my neck and hear the sharp snip of the blades coming together as shorter hair falls in thick waves around my face, the ends just brushing my shoulders.
Liam lets the handful he’s holding drop to the floor, and I look at the long strands that have been part of me for so long gone so quickly. Snipped away in less than a second.
Better my hair than my life.
“I like it,” he says.
My heart is pounding. I’ve never been a vain person, but as I reach up to touch my hair, feel the lack of it, I feel its loss. When I look up at my reflection, I gasp because the first thing I think is that for a moment, it was my mother staring back at me. A younger version of her. Like she looked in the photos of her and Dad together when they first met.
I touch the uneven ends. “Don’t ever become a hairdresser.”
He smiles, but I see the worry in his eyes. It matches my own. “We need to go.”
I nod, but I’m terrified.
“You need to be strong, okay? We all do. I’m going to get you out. You know I’ve snuck out of the house a hundred times,” he says with a wink. I’ve known all along about my cousin’s escapades. He’s been sneaking out since before his sixteenth birthday a few months back. I never went with him, knowing he’d get in worse trouble if I was there. I’m starting to understand why. “I’ll take you to the station. There’s a train that leaves for Raleigh, North Carolina, tonight. I already called Mom.”
“You called your mom?” He and Simona only see her once a month, and that’s only since last year. My uncle has been pretty hard on his ex-wife, and I’ve never understood why. She’s always been warm and welcoming to me, but he hates her, and somehow, he’s managed to keep the courts on his side anytime she tries to petition for more rights to her own kids.
Well, not somehow. I guess I know how now. Can Damian do that, though? Does he have that kind of influence? That kind of power?
“Her address and phone number are in the pouch with the money.”
“Your father will be angry.”
“Fuck him. He fucked you over, Cousin.”
I nod but I’m still unsure.
Stuffing Patty and the pouch of money into my backpack, I sling it over my shoulder and walk out the door with my cousin. I stop in Simona’s room to give her a kiss on her forehead as she sleeps, and tuck Sofia in beside her.
Liam leads the way to the front door, pulling it closed behind me. I turn and look one last time around the dark, quiet hall, knowing that right now, this moment, this space, is a line of demarcation.
My life before is past.
And what’s to come will change everything.4CristinaI keep touching the back of my head, running my hand down over where my hair should be.
“You got it?” Liam asks me. He’s looking up at me from the other side of the fence he just jumped down from.
I nod, tossing my backpack to him. I’m not as fast as he is, and where he’s done this a hundred times, I’m clumsy and scared as I grab hold where he told me to lower myself down.
“I won’t let you fall, Cris,” he says, hands closing around my waist as he eases me to the ground.
At least the rain has stopped as I step onto moist, soft grass. I turn to face him, taking my pack back, slipping my arms into it.
“Is this your usual route when you sneak out?” I ask, trying to make casual conversation. He peers down the street to the back exit of the building. I notice a man smoking by his black SUV with its tinted windows. I watch as he flicks the cigarette onto the sidewalk and steps on it with the toe of his shoe before looking up at our building, then climbing back into the driver’s seat.
Liam turns to me and gives me a wink. Neither of us mention the man as he takes my hand, and we walk quickly through an alley, toward the station that is only a few blocks away.
“It’s unreal, isn’t it? That this can happen? I mean, maybe it’s all some misunderstanding. It’s not like he can take that contract to any court of law and a judge would hand me over to him.”
“I don’t think the Di Santo family cares much for the law. At least that’s the impression I got from Dad. They weren’t fucking around tonight. I know that. I’ll see what I can find out about them, and I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.”
The bright lights of the station come into view. We stop, both of us looking around for another of those black SUVs or men in suits who don’t belong here.