"Sam, I really don't know what I was thinking, agreeing to this... here..." I trailed off nervously as we pulled into the freshly pressure-washed driveway of the hairdresser's house, third on a row of near-identical homes. It was a small, pale green stucco house with a clover lawn. Palm trees and gray sand. Local.

"Louise is her own person and a nice person; she won't hold anything between you and Nate against you. Plus I'm there for backup," Sam assured. "Are you still doing what we talked about last night?"

    I nodded, remembering my excitement and anxiety. Sam shut off the engine. 

    My mom is going to kill me if she finds out...

By about this time in the week, I had already begun to lean pretty heavily into a frenzy of self-discovery and goal setting, especially in my hours at Sam's apartment while she worked. I felt like a kid again; the possibilities were endless. I decided that I wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail, trip on mushrooms in the ocean, and fight a bear. But I had no shrooms, and the bears and mountains were far away from Dolphin Coast, so I decided that I needed red highlights. Naturally.

"So were you thinking more of an orange-y red or a deeper, blood red?" Louise asked, holding up two color swatches behind me in the mirror of her at-home salon, the first I'd experienced. The densely bulbed light-up mirror was giving me an ego boost, erasing the dark circles under my eyes as I considered her question. The basement smelled like lavender and I wondered if she cut Nate's hair - if he'd sat in this black leather chair.

Probably...

"Oh, um. Deeper red, maybe? What do you think?" I asked her, tuning back in.

I was feeling out of my element in the young aunt's basement, trying to avoid her eyeline in the mirror. The lighting was harsh. Interrogation-like on baby blue walls. I was wearing eyeliner and the buzz of a slight high and she was so tall. So, so tall.

"I vote the blood-red!" Sam piped up from the corner, where she was laying flat-backed on a fluffy blue Papasan chair with pale bamboo legs, reading a tabloid. Her arms stuck straight up, holding the magazine open. I sat still, trying not to crinkle the noisy smock draped across my shoulders and lap.

Louise hummed with thought, taking a pause to throw her shoulder-length brown hair into a low ponytail. Her neck was slender.

"Blood red it is," Louise chirped before walking off to mix her dyes at a paint-stained rolling cart in the corner, above which hung Nate's framed high-school diploma and graduation photos. There wasn't a speck of dust on either frame.

"So, how long are you in town?" Louise made polite conversation, speaking slightly louder so that we could understand her with her back turned. Free of eyes, I took the chance to shamelessly scan the photos of Nate - smiling and happy and running through tall grasses and fields of sunflowers with his family. I thought that I saw a cat in one. They were... cute.

"Through the end of July," I answered, but the words felt like lies falling from my lips. Sour.

"Gotcha, gotcha. What are your plans?"

I wish I knew...

My chest tightened and the air had begun to take on a distinctive chemical smell, burning my nose hairs. 

"A little bit of this. A little bit of that," I replied light-heartedly, even though I wasn't feeling it. It was Tuesday evening and Moose hadn't texted me back yet, but I was trying not to worry about that and instead focusing on reading Jane Eyre and thinking. 

I wasn't used to having this much to think about or this appetite for stories. It was nice, but unusual.

"Keep your secrets," Louise joked as she returned to my side. I stiffened.

As the hairdresser slathered tin-foiled layers of foul smelling dye onto my virginal, blonde hair, I was feeling a touch overwhelmed. I'd had the same haircut my whole life; same hair color. Mother tested and mother approved.

When Sam and I had decided on my 'new look' yesterday evening over edibles, vampire movies and two pints of cookie-dough ice-cream, I was faintly aware that I was rebelling, but it didn't feel real until I was in that chair. I took a deep breath.

I'll just get rid of the highlights before I leave Dolphin Coast. That should work, right?

No one back home will ever need to know.

The thoughts were equal parts comforting and painful, but it was far enough in the future that I could push it away with relative ease. There were forty-eight days left in Dolphin Coast and RiverCrest already felt thousands of miles away. A lifetime ago.

"So how long have you lived here?" I asked, finally finding my voice again. Sam had put earbuds in and seemed to be dozing off, snoring softly. 

So much for having backup...

"I've probably been here... twelve years now," Louise spoke through a sigh as she folded a strand of hair neatly into a pre-cut rectangle of tin foil. Crinkling and lightly pulling at my sensitive scalp.

"It's nice here," I peeped.

"It is."

Silence. The creak of floor. 

I cleared my throat.

"Well, uh. I'm from right outside of Savannah."

"Yeah, Nate mentioned." Her mouth was a flat line.

Oh.

"Do you like it here?" I squeaked, trying to seem unaffected by the mention of her nephew but failing. My chest heaved and I tried to keep my breathing quiet.

"It has its perks. The people are generally kind and Garrison's happy. Nate'll never admit it but I think that he likes it here more than he lets on, too." 

Three whole sentences! Score!

"That sounds nice!"

Crinkling.

Silence.

I ruined it...

Louise cleared her throat.

"It's alright. It's been a long few years, but I've gotten by - with more help from Nathan than I'd have ever asked for, but shit happens. Sometimes you're widowed in your late twenties and need a little help, I guess," she replied, trailing off into a low chuckle and shaking her head. It was a surprising admission from the near-stranger, dressed in a zebra printed apron and jeans.

She makes Nate seem... sweet. 

"I'm sorry to hear that," I choked out.

"Pancreatic cancer," Louise said flatly, answering an unasked question. I inhaled sharply.

"My dad had that, too. He died when I was three." The words left my mouth before I could catch them and swallow them again. They'd mountain-climbed from my throat, braving harsh conditions and record heat waves. Melting and treacherous. It had been years since I'd talked about my father.

"I'm sorry too, June," Louise paused her painting, meeting my eyes in the lit-mirror with her own, deep and soulful and real. She was one of those people whose humanity you felt. Tangible.

My smocked shoulders shrugged with a rustle.

"I don't remember him and it's probably for the best. My mom was twenty and he was... sixty-eight, I believe, when they got married. Haven't heard many good things about the man. From what I understand, his 'family life' was as transactional as hers has been."

Not that I have much room to judge.

"Ha! Our parents would get along, then! You ever heard of Kiaweh Island? Off the coast of North Carolina?" Louise asked with a pearly smile as she returned to her work. The air of the room was noticeably less tense and the AC sent a breeze, rippling the noisy smock and tickling my ankles.

"I have, yeah! It's beautiful there," I replied.

"Well they live in a community there, retired if I had to guess but it's been years since I've spoken to them directly," she said casually. I watched her narrow face carefully as she continued.

"I left as soon as I turned eighteen. Parents wouldn't let me take my car since it was in their name so I walked until someone picked me up. Old-school hitch-hiker style. Now that I'm a little older and a mom it horrifies me that I did that. So reckless." Louise laughed and she rang like a bell.

I remained silent, hoping for more.

"I was here and there for a while until I ran into another transient soul at three AM on the Marta - That's Atlanta's public transit system, but I'm sure that you know that. I was running out of cash, honestly. Turns out, I didn't have the best idea of how the real world worked. It was mid-November and I couldn't afford a warm bed for the night or my next meal, even. My dad's phone number was pulled up and I was sitting there - texting him for help," Louise's thin lips were downturned when she paused, shaking her head.

"I was about to hit send when this dork with a sweater vest and a camo back-pack approaches me. Asks me if I'm okay and I tell him to 'piss off' and from there... he was... the love of my life. Always has been and always will be... Anyways, now we just gotta wait for it to process!" Louise's wavering voice changed topics abruptly. She cleared her throat roughly as she set the empty dye bowl aside and pulled her black gloves off with two snaps before tossing them into a whicker waste basket. I didn't know what to say, but I knew I had to try.

"He sounds amazing."

"He was; thank you." 

We exchanged sad smiles. 

Talk between us remained small until my hair was processed and rinsed under cool water. In a strange twist of fate, my dead dad got me a  complimentary scalp massage! Lavender shampoo and fingernails. It was wonderful. 

Thanks, dad!

When the metallic purple hair-dryer whirled to life, so did Sam. 

"Oh, shit!" She called out over the noise with a croaking voice. As she stood, she wiped the dried drool from her flushed cheeks. Arms were stretched overhead and eyelids were rubbed as she came over to investigate. 

Wet hair, darkened by dye and moisture, was already looking... different. Out of place framing my neck and cheeks, flushed. The hairdryer pulled apart the tacky clumps, sending spider webs of blonde and red into the floating air, until the final look was revealed. Fear turned to curiosity turned to awe.  

Hot damn...

Louise shut the dryer off.

"What do ya think?"

Eyeliner still mostly in tact, with the red highlights I looked... badass. They were concentrated on my roots, but thin streaks of color were frequent from every angle. 

Grinning at myself in the mirror, I drank in the view. It was like meeting myself as a stranger for the first time and while the makeup helped, it was the relative permanence of the dye that resonated with me. This was me. This was what I would look like for my last summer as an unmarried woman. This was Her. 

I could've gotten used to this...

Many years from now I was sure that I'd see her in pictures, but she was here now and real and alive. She drank in the moment with blurry eyes, smiling at herself and sniffling before saying:

"I love it."