I didn’t think twice.
Nadine and Tessa had always been close.
Honestly, sometimes they were closer than I liked to admit.
Nadine knew the names of Tessa’s teachers. She knew which girl had stopped sitting with her at lunch in sixth grade. She knew when choir rehearsal ended and which flavor of milkshake Tessa ordered when she was upset.
I knew those things too.
Or at least, I told myself I did.
Around five that afternoon, I heard the front door open.
“Hey, sweetheart!” I called from my laptop. “Did Grandma spend all my money?”
Normally, Tessa would’ve shouted something back.
Instead, I heard quick footsteps crossing the hallway.
I looked up just in time to see her heading for the stairs.
She was wearing a huge gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled tightly around her head.
It was nearly ninety degrees outside.
“Tessa?”
She kept walking.
I pushed my chair back.
“Why are you wearing a hoodie?”
“I’m cold.”
She didn’t look at me.
That was when I knew something was wrong.
Tessa was a terrible liar.
Not because she couldn’t invent a story, but because she always stopped looking at me when she did.
I followed her upstairs.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed when I entered, her knees pulled against her chest.
“Tess.”
“I’m tired, Mom.”
“Look at me.”
“I’m fine.”
Then I saw them.
Tiny brown hairs were scattered across the shoulder of her sweatshirt.
My stomach tightened.
“Tessa.”
She went completely still.
“Take the hood down.”
Her eyes filled immediately.
“Mom, please.”
I walked closer.
“Whatever happened, you’re not in trouble.”
“You’ll be mad.”
“At you?”
She didn’t answer.
I sat beside her.
“Tess, please.”
For several seconds, she just stared at her hands.
Then she slowly reached up, loosened the strings, and pushed the hood back.
I actually stopped breathing.
Her hair was gone.
Not cut to her shoulders.
Not even cut into a bob.
The hair that had hung past her hips the night before had been chopped into a short pixie cut around her ears.
It wasn’t perfectly even either. Some pieces were slightly shorter than others, as if the stylist had been working with very little room.
“Oh my God.”
Tessa looked away.
“What happened?”
“Mom—”
“Who did this?”
Her lower lip trembled.
“Please don’t freak out.”
“Tessa, you cried last year because I trimmed too much off one side. You wouldn’t even let me take an inch. Now all of it is gone.”
