Defeated, brush in hand, she refused to look in the mirror, ignoring the burning scalp, finally acknowledging that all she was doing was an attempt to disappear. Wherever she went with this hair, the bullies followed. Her scalp hurt, her eyes hurt, and her head hurt too from crying. She was crying so hard that she didn’t notice when another girl walked into the bathroom.
"Hey, stop crying, please." She heard the words over her shoulder and looked up in the mirror at the pair of almond-brown eyes looking back at her. The girl was taller than she was, and she was… perfect. There was no other way to say it.
"I'm not crying," she finally answered.
"And I am not here," the girl responded, clearly amused by the unnecessary lie.
She walked over, pulled a green handkerchief from her pocket, and asked, "May I?"-not really asking, because she went to work dabbing and wiping. Next, she took the brush from her clenched fist, laid it on the sink, and the tall girl started to run her fingers very gently through her curls. She said nothing else, just let her fingers do the work.
She pulled a clip from her own hair and pinned back some of the unruly strands. Then, picking up the handkerchief again, she dusted off all the foreign objects from her shoulders, adjusted her uniform until she was pleased.
“One more thing.” She pulled out the school pin from her own uniform and attached it to her. "Even if you don’t want to walk around this school with any hair left, you still need to have your pin at all times. “The girl laughed a little at her own sense of humor. Rubbing the tips of her curls between her fingers, she continued, “You can also stop trying to comb these away. They are perfection.”
She stepped back, appraised her work, and gave a satisfactory nod. Then she pulled another pin from her pocket and replaced it on her chest.
"Don’t lower your eyes or head for anyone here. Keep that chin up."
She gestured for her to turn around and look in the mirror. She gasped in surprise.
“That’s what I see. Now you have one friend. You will make more. I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”
And she left, just as she came, bewildering her.
The voice you hear is because Onyii who was kind enough to read for me, since I was sick and lost my voice.
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