Chapter Text
The razor shakes in her unsteady hand, mimicking the vibrations tingling her fingertips and settling into her bones. She hesitates, her limb unwilling to make the stroke her brain is screaming at her to proceed with.
All she has to do is make that first pass and she knows the rest will come easily. Knows in her core that once she has shed the first bit of the smoke, and death, and pain, and joy, and hunger of the wilderness embedded in her red tresses that she has barely touched since rescue, that she will relish getting rid of the rest. But still she hesitates. So many inches represent the 19 months she spent living by the skin of her teeth, making decisions that now make it nearly impossible to look at her own reflection in the mirror, but it is also the same hair that Taissa would grab a fistful of as Van pushed her against a tree, that she would gently coax a comb through with Van’s head resting on her knee, that her dexterous fingers would weave into braids.
The razor descends.
***
She’s sitting in her living room, eyes fixed on a stain on the rug she remembers in some far away part of her brain was acquired the first night she had moved in when she had rolled herself and Tai into a glass of wine they had entirely forgotten about in a tangle of limbs.
“Van. Van? Are you even listening to me?”
She forces her eyes away. Tai’s eyes are glistening, a few tears have already broken their dam and are carving rivers down her cheeks.
“Yeah I heard you Tai. What the fuck do you want me to say? That I get it? That I’m sorry this is so hard for you? That I agree we should break up so you can go finish your degree and go to law school and not have to worry about the world finding out you’re a dyke. Because bar hookups would be one thing, but instead your girlfriend is still easily spotted tabloid fodder when you can't hide a big scar across your face.”
“Don’t. Don’t do that.” Tai blinks and more tears spill down her face.
“Don’t do what Tai? You’re the one breaking up with me! I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to react however the fuck I want.”
“I’m sor-”
“Just don’t Tai. I don’t want to fucking hear it. If you’re leaving, then just leave.”
Van’s eyes slide back to the stain, a fist slowly suffocating her heart. She hears a jingle and a hand enters her vision, slowly depositing a key on her coffee table. She refuses to look up as footsteps lead to her door. Refuses herself the image of Taissa’s back retreating outside and the door slamming shut.
Hardly a moment passes before a noise like a wounded animal escapes Van.
This is worse, she thinks. She wonders distantly if that makes her a bad person. But still, this is worse. Worse than peering over the pit to find Mari impaled below. Worse than dragging Javi’s small frozen body out of the lake. Worse than Tai drawing the suicide king. Worse than thinking rescue was so close at hand and that they were all saved, only to lose more friends.
Because through all of that, every fresh horror the wilderness concocted, Taissa was by her side. Refused to leave her after wolves tore into her face. Would not abandon Van even when Tai couldn’t understand her faith in Lottie. Not even their disagreement over leaving could tear them apart.
Another sob releases into the empty living room.
Van recalls another conversation. Half remembered through the haze that is already settling over their time out there. Tai standing behind her crouched form, worrying over the consequences of returning home. Trying to get Van to understand her fears about if they could still be together beyond the confines of the world they had created out in the wilderness. It seemed so silly to Van at the time. Nothing existed to Van in that moment beyond the thought of getting home. Of not having to spend another winter wondering which of their friends she would know the taste of next.
If only she had taken a moment to understand what Tai was really saying. It wasn’t really society forcing them apart Tai was most afraid of. It was herself. Always thinking ten steps ahead of Van who was only ever concerned with the next moment, the next meal, the next time she could have Tai. Only concerned with the getting out, not what would come after.
She wonders if she would rather still be out there if it meant still having Tai.
She doesn’t know the answer.
***
Van stares at the reflection in the mirror, willing the person staring back at her to not make her flinch. She raises a tentative hand, dragging it across the top of her head and watches the now half inch hairs spring back into place. Part of her can’t believe she did it.
Short hair had never appealed to Van. In high school she would sometimes daydream about going off to college and chopping most of it off into a more recognizably butch haircut so when she walked into dyke bars there would be no mistaking who she was. But those moments were fleeting. She loved her hair. She loved the weight of it. She loved the way it caught the sun, the way it streamed out behind her when she ran, the feeling of Ta-
No. No. No. Fuck that. No.
She quickly squashes down the fluttery feeling in her chest, pinching the bridge of her nose and pulling in a deep breath.
This was the right choice she tells herself. Her now empty hands still quiver, unsteady as moth wings. She grabs the sink and squeezes her eyes shut, reminding herself of the reason she did this.
She told herself it was the desire to be less recognizable as one of the survivors. Of all of them, she was hounded the most by the media. They all bore scars, but none were like the neon sign that was Van’s face declaring her some kind of freak. An oddity to be leered at and questioned. At least now from a distance she stood a better chance of escaping notice. And maybe as the exact constellation of her scars were forgotten, she could make a new story for them without her bright locks giving her away.
For a moment she allows herself to believe this well reasoned lie.
It feels odd for the weight of her hair to no longer be there. No longer tugging her down. She can’t tell yet if it makes a difference. If the lightness she feels in a physical sense will in any way translate to the dragging feeling she has been burdened with for so long. She decides she doesn’t care.
Van is simply exhausted. Nothing since the rescue has made sense. Not Lottie disappearing off to who knows where after the doctors couldn’t get her to talk. Not getting an apartment and a job and trying to pretend everything could go back to normal. Not the pulling, pulling, pulling, in her gut that seems to be an anchor in the wilderness refusing to release. Certainly not Tai breaking up with her.
At least shedding her hair was her choice. So what if it doesn’t make sense. Finally she was the one making a decision without anyone telling her to do it. Without any expectation that it was the “right” or “healthy” thing.
She meets her own eyes at last, and an achingly feral grin spreads across her face.