Undone(7)

I was angry, and confused about the fact that I was angry with someone who was dead. But that stage didn’t last long either. That was when I knew I was going to kill myself, and I felt better as soon as I’d made up my mind. It gave me something to focus on and, weirdly, something to look forward to. But the letters changed everything.

I took my note – my suicide note – out of the bedside drawer. What had seemed so reasonable an hour before now looked pathetic. I tore it into tiny, unreadable pieces just in case Mum decided to go rummaging through my bin.

I couldn’t bloody well do it now, could I? I wanted to. So badly. The thought of going to sleep forever was delicious. I was so very tired.

But I couldn’t do it to him. Not now. I couldn’t ignore what Kai had done for me. I wouldn’t let him down like that; I let him down more than enough when he was alive.

I couldn’t get over the timing of it all. As if he knew me so well – every single thing, to the very core of me – that he’d somehow known that today was supposed to be the day. He’d known, even though I’d had no idea. Of course, the rational part of my brain knew that this was stupid, just one of those crazy coincidences that life is filled with. This one just happened to be a lot spookier than most.

I was going to have to wait. Somehow I would have to find a way to get through each day without him. I would be patient and read his letters when he wanted me to, even though the waiting would be complete torture. Maybe the letters would help (and maybe they wouldn’t).

Twelve months. One year. I could survive one measly year, for him. But once that year was up . . . The Valium might be gone, but there would always be another way.

First things first: I had to get my hands on some hair dye.

I blinked against the overly bright sunshine. I was like a hedgehog coming out of hibernation. It was a bit of a shock to see that everything looked the same as it had before. The world had been going about its business while I’d been cooped up in my bedroom. I was on my way to the chemist’s to get the blonde version of my usual black dye when a girl stopped me on the street. She was about my age and rather orange.

‘Excuse me? Can I just ask, do you dye your hair?’

I’d been stopped by them before – the trainee hairdressers prowling the streets for new clients. I’d always ignored them – why spend thirty quid when you don’t have to? But this girl’s hair was gorgeous. It looked natural but you could tell it wasn’t, if that makes sense. I’d thought only people in California had hair like that.

She pointed me in the direction of the salon. They were doing half-price cut and highlights for students, and when I checked my wallet I had just enough cash. It seemed like fate. It seemed like Kai had arranged for this girl (Kayleigh . . . her name even began with a K, for Christ’s sake!) to cross my path.

The hairdresser barely suppressed a grimace when he looked at the state of my hair. ‘Don’t you worry, we’ll have you looking spick and span in no time, little one. Fernando will work his magic, I can promise you that.’ I wanted to run screaming from the salon. People who talk about themselves in the third person are at the very top of my shit list, but I gritted my teeth and thought of Kai (and tried to ignore Fernando’s terrifyingly over-tweaked eyebrows). I looked through a book of sample colours, but in the end I said I wanted something like Kayleigh’s. He smiled knowingly. ‘Ooh, our Kayleigh’s the best advertising we’ve got!’ He looked over his shoulder furtively and then leaned in close to me. ‘Shame about the “tan” though, yes?’

I laughed along with him and thought maybe this wouldn’t be complete torture after all. It felt strange to laugh again after so long, but the muscles in my face seemed to remember how to do it. And it felt good. I’d only asked for a half-head of highlights, since that was all I could afford, but Fernando winked at me and said, ‘Don’t you worry, my love, I’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of this, how you say, funeral black, and then –’ he paused to ruffle my lank locks – ‘then I will work my magic!’ I kept on smiling despite the funeral reference. It was out of the question for me to cry in a place called Kool Kutz.

Two hours later I slumped down in front of the mirror, exhausted from Fernando’s incessant chatter. My hair was still wet, but that didn’t lessen the shock. I had been dying it black (much to Mum’s horror) since I was thirteen. My natural hair colour is a nothingy sort of shade – like baked mud. There was nothing remotely mud-like about this – I was properly blonde.

My eyes looked blue. They’ve always been blueish, I suppose, but now they were BLUE. Seriously, piercingly blue. My whole face looked different somehow – less pale, less like someone who’d only left the house once in the last four weeks.

The shock was even greater by the time Fernando had finished snipping away and done his stuff with the hairdryer and the straighteners. He stepped back to admire his handiwork, a look of supreme smugness on his face. ‘Madre de Dios, I am goooooood.’

He wasn’t wrong; he had worked a small miracle. I didn’t look anything like me. To be perfectly honest, it scared me a little. You get so used to seeing the same thing in the mirror every day you stop thinking about what you look like – or at least I did anyway. To suddenly see someone else – someone blonde, for Christ’s sake – is disconcerting to say the least.