Chapter Text
The air was cold.
A bone aching cold. The Oregon winter had long settled leaving countless grey days and a slither of sunlight, just enough to hit the dusted glass windows into Coraline's rosy room.
Coraline had yet to fix the scattered clothes littered all over the room. In fact, she had yet to fix a lot of things in her little woman cave.
Snip.
It was two nights before her History test. Coraline— who had told her parents she was going to spend the night studying— had decided to spend the afternoon doing something rather different.
Snip.
Red had splattered all over the floor in chunks as the metallic sliced through it.
Snip.
"CORALINE! There's something in the mail for you!" Mel shouted from the kitchen down below.
"Coming!" Coraline panicked, looking in the mirror in horror as she had realised what she had done. Red was everywhere.
With one half of her firetruck hair at waist length and the other in a short bob, she realised there was no going back. Not this time. She couldn't go downstairs looking like this!
There were definitely better ways of dealing with last minute stress than cutting your own hair but Coraline was yet to find that solution. She hadn't had her hair this short since she was 5'4.
She carefully rose the scissors to the other side, making her best attempt to have it all one length rather than a lop sided bob.
Snip.
More red spread all over the floor, most of it damaged from excessive bleaching and pots upon pots of manic panic hair dye.
The worst part about all of this was Coraline's lack of a mirror to see her head from behind. She hoped, she prayed, it was all even. Or at least even enough to a degree of decency.
"Coraline!" Her mother called out again, Coraline felt the sharp panic rise through her face as she made an attempt to make her hair look presentable to her family when she came down from her once bedroom— now salon.
"What do you think mom?" Coraline peeked her head into the kitchen. Mel was gripping onto her cup of coffee, but almost dropped it at the sight of Coraline's hair.
"Coraline! What— I—" Her jaw fell to the ground.
"I thought it was time for a change." Coraline shrugged, going in to pick the parcel off the kitchen table.
"Coraline you spent years growing that out!" Mel sighed, she was not upset…more disappointed. But what could she do.
"It's fine mom."
"F-Fine? Coraline…I-…where is all the hair?!"
"I'll put in a plastic bag!" The olive eyed girl took out the letter opener, stabbing into the plastic zig zagging her way through the package, eager to get into the contents inside, smiling she took out a plastic baggie of a dozen multicoloured hair clips.
"What did you buy that for?" Mel raised her brow, "You can find them at Walmart?"
"Yeah but they're like 75cents on Wish . com."
"Wish dot what?" The mother put down her coffee.
"Website…" Coraline stuffed the baggie in her pocket. "Anyway mom I gotta go. I'm picking up Wybie from his place."
"What about your hair?! And I thought you said you were studying!"
"I said I put in in a plastic bag!"
"I swear to god Coraline if I find a pile of red hair in your room I'm making you come home and cleaning it up."
"Its fine!" Coraline grabbed the keys which sat on top of the microwave, unlocking the birch wood door leading to the hand me down car which sat outside on the driveway. "Bye mom!" She shouted from the distance.
The car wasn't much, but it was certainly an upgrade from the little buggy Mel refused to get rid of for years. Coraline had split the payment of the car with her parents, but with how run down the thing was…there wasn't really much of a payment to begin with.
She started the heating, shivering in the cold as she waited the heating to warm up the small space. Taking out her stale cigarettes from the glove box, her fingers trembled as she took several attempts at lighting the coffin nail, quickly inhaling before the flame could burn her thumb. Turning the cold metal keys, her small red Hyundai chuffed and rattled as the engine started, Coraline turning out of her driveway with a cigarette hanging down from her mouth.
Wybaby: ' hey jonsey'
The notification on her phone popped up— Coraline who knew the road rules very well, looked down at her phone regardless. How irresponsible.
Wybaby: 'Jonsey where r uuuuu'
Coraline thought about texting back, but then the words of the driver instructor rang from the front of her head through the back, almost giving her a slight headache.
"Under no circumstances must you get distracted from a phone!" She told the red head countless of times during her driving test.
' Wybaby: ' BIIIIICHH where r u its coLD'
Coraline grabbed the phone, having enough from the constant 'dings' every four seconds.
Coraloan: 'im around the corner u impatient shit'
Coraline made a few sharp turns, briefly avoiding collision with an incorrect right hand turn at the round about. She was never fond of driving, but needed to get her practice— her father had mentioned several times that she didn't have her mothers talent for driving.
"Get in loser we're going shopping." Coraline winded down the window, honking her horn at the boy who stood sheepishly on his front porch. He stood with his back still hunched. His wire-like hair had grown out a fair bit over the years and a personal (and mildly drunken) touch were the slightly dreaded ends with a few loc's hanging down his face. The teen made his way over to the car stuffed with nicotine, opening the door trying to fit his bag in the what limited space they had in the backseats. He wore a black denim jacket with a dark grey fleece collar with a warm jumper his grandmother had knitted for him. He tried to avoid wearing it at the best of times, but the weather proved to be too much, even for Wybie.
"Your hair!" He exclaimed, admiring the girls new bob.
"What about it?" Coraline raised a brow, smirking slightly.
"Jesus Coraline— you said you had coping mechanisms for stress— I didn't think you meant that!"
"It's called improvisation! And besides, anything looks better than that mop of yours."
"Well I'm sorry I don't have your cock-asian-bleach-damaged emo-ass looking hair." Wybie furrowed his brows, moving a loc from his face tucking it behind his ear, Wybie was quite sensitive when anyone commented on his hair.
"Well!— I—" Coraline kept her eyes on the road, trying to find a come-back but to no avail. She was defeated. "Fine."
Wybie gave her a cheeky side eye, before suddenly switching expressions. "Oh! Did you get the—"
"Check the glovebox." The girl answered him, the boy opening the box in response, the two corners of his mouth smiling at the sight of four pink coloured pills.
"I got them from Damon, tonights party is going to be amazing." Coraline said.
Wybie took out the baggie, holding it in his hand like his life depended on it. "Two for you, two for me. Let's just hope these aren't laced or anything."