I looked down at the pile of hair on the ground and gently touched my shorn tips between my fingers. I exhaled and closed my eyes.

A month before we had broken up, Blake had protested when I told him I wanted to cut my hair.

“But baby, your hair looks so good when it’s long.” He tussled it and stroked my arm.

He had a habit of only acknowledging—and perhaps overestimating—my feminine side. On the basis of the three plants I kept alive in my Brooklyn apartment, he deemed that I would “be a good mother.” When I wore oversized clothes, he would tell me there was no need to hide my body.

And I was never more beautiful to him than when I was wearing makeup and something tight. I theorized that his preference of me in white had something to do with some kind of purity fetish he never acknowledged.

"Obviously, it’s your body,” he told me one night after retracting his hand my shin, “but I just have a preference for shaved legs.” He was a self-proclaimed feminist.
​
As I looked at myself in the mirror, it was more than the weight of my hair that I had shed.

I slid into the back of the classroom, hoping that by looking at the tile floor and not making eye contact with Ms. Lopez she wouldn’t notice me.

“Ahh, Sabrina. Kind of you to join us.”

I gave her a sheepish grin as I made my way to my normal seat.

“If you were on time, you’d know that you are headed to the wrong spot. You’ll be working with Ms. Smith today.”

I looked about my surroundings quizzically to notice we had indeed been assigned new desks. Monica Smith turned, her perfectly rolled curls bouncing as she cocked her head to the side and beamed at me.

Jesus Christ. She looked like she’d come straight from a Pantene commercial.

I gave her a weak smile in return. There was absolutely no way Monica and I would have jack shit in common and I was already filling with dread at the thought of having to feign interest in Real Housewives or whatever the hell else she was into. She was abysmally cheerful. And it was clear that the Starbucks she kept in hand—undoubtfully more sugar that coffee—was working overtime. It was humanly unnatural to be so energetic and goddam happy all the time.

I slinked into my chair and nodded at her, pulling out the book I was reading in hopes it communicated that I was in no mood to gab.

“Ahh, Durga Chew-Bose, one of my favs,” she said. She slid her Dior purse toward her side of the table to make room for me and adjusted her fuzzy pink sweater over her pleated white skirt. “If you like essays, it’s very different from Durga but I’ve been loving Randall Kenan lately.”

I snorted and stared at her trying to see if she was fucking with me. Kenan and Chew-Bose weren’t exactly "required-reading" type authors and I couldn’t imagine how else she might have found her way to them. She held my gaze, and raised her eyebrows, daring me to challenge her on it.

“Yeah, I like him… Which of his essays did you like?” 

“Ugh, I loved his essay about Eartha Kitt. People don’t talk enough about how much of a badass she was. I love a woman who can use her sex appeal to control the people around her.” She winked at me, putting the straw from her Frappacino between her painted red lips. I watched as the whipped cream began receding down the inside of the cup.

My face flushed. Maybe we’d have something to talk about after all.

When I left for college, there was a lot that I did not know. I had been more sheltered than I had realized, insulated by own desire to please. As such, I played the role of dutiful daughter well, a highlighter in my hand instead of a joint.

My mother had strong opinions when it came to religion. It wasn’t enough to wake up early on Sunday morning. It was best, in her eyes, to practically live at the church. I was unaware that four trips there a week wasn’t the norm for most families. Swimming through bible studies, prayer groups and AP courses, there was little time for me to get into trouble and even less time for me to spend with boys. When my mother pulled me out of a sex education class because I wouldn’t be having sex until marriage, I didn’t object. I heard some of the photos they showed on the projector were kinda gross anyway.

To say I was naïve when I started my unsupervised years is an understatement. My freshman year, a boy invited me over late and I showed up. I was shocked and insulted when he tried to kiss me.

I was good at making others happy. An expert at it, even. I knew exactly how to stow away my emotions to make more space for others. I could be anyone someone wanted me to be. A chameleon that floated from group to group morphing my opinions and values to match those around me.

Having always been so good at pleasing others, I was unaware how much would be taken from me when my body became collateral in my people pleasing game. I was accommodating. I didn't say no even when I was uncomfortable. 
​
I learned the hard way what every girl must know: that in pleasing others you lose yourself.

I needed air. The room felt hot despite the steady flow of AC. The weight of everyone else’s happiness was heavy. My skin prickled and the effort of keeping the corners of my mouth upturned became too much.

As arms flung around the shoulders of others and hands clasped, I slid through the back door and into a fenced backyard area. Muffled squeals of excitement traveled through the closed glass door. I concentrated on my breath as I stared at the glow of the pool, watching on overturned beetle squirm as it floated across the water.

My boyfriend and mother had both thought it would be a good idea to come here. To get my mind off things. But the lightness of everyone else made the weight of my own despair more noticeable. My best friend was getting married, and I knew I should be happy for her. But these days, displays of happiness felt disingenuous; a costume in the company of others I would quickly shed the moment I left. 
​
I looked around for a more discreet place to collect myself, worried the pool lights would give away my position. The idea of someone stepping out to check on me increased my already racing pulse. Joining the trip had been meant to pull me up, not pull anyone else down. I moved to a darker corner and squatted to the ground to pick up a pebble and hold it in my hand. I concentrated on its smooth, cool surface, feeling the stone slowly warm in my hand.

Siera walked through the gallery, lingering in front of painting of a window. There was a hint of movement in the brushstrokes of the bird perched there, as if it had just alighted. Lavender grew in clusters under a tree. Dilapidated sunlight sprinkled across the lawn.

The painting reminded her of her mother.

Growing up, Siera recalled watching her mother as she sat in her chair by the windowsill, poised, quietly taking in the world outside. She had so wanted to emulate the kind of strength her mother had. She was at times stubborn, but approachable, with a gracious spirit.

She never appeared to be frightened of anything, while Siera, it seemed, was frightened by just about everything. She was plagued by night terrors as a child and slept with her mother and father far longer than her aunt deemed suitable.

“You know, Celeste, Siera really ought to have grown out of that phase by now,” she overheard her aunt scolding.

“Oh, she will. She’s quite independent, just needs a little extra support right now.”

Siera felt embarrassed by the judgement, but her mother caught her eye and gave her wink. They had a way of communicating without using words and she knew her mother wanted her to pay no head to Aunt Monica.

“For someone so interested in the business of others, she has a lot of her own business she should be attending to,” she recalled her mother saying after. Such a statement was about as transgressive as her mother ever was toward another.
​
Siera felt as though she was never quite as strong as her mother had been. But as she reached down to stroke her daughter’s hair, she wondered if her daughter saw the same strength in her.

As we passed by Marcus’ house, Cassie scrunched her nose up as if a foul smell had filled the air and whispered loudly to me, “Eww, I can’t stand him. And did you see what he wore to school today? It looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks! It’s so gross that you have to live next to him.”

Disagreeing with Cassie would be social suicide, but if my mom heard me talking about Marcus she would kill me. Not wanting to die either death, I kept my lips shut and nodded.

Marcus’s hair was always a bit greasy when he showed up to school and his shirts and khakis always had stains on them. My friends called him Pig Pen.

One time, we dropped food off at Marcus’ house—mom’s hashbrown casserole. I was annoyed she'd made it for Marcus’ family and not for ours when she knew it was my favorite dinner. But his mom had just died so I was scolded when I tried to complain.

Marcus’ dad opened the door while Marcus peeked around the door, saw me and then looked to the ground. His dad offered for us to come inside as he took the casserole. 

When we got to Marcus’ house, it was a mess. And not the kinda mess like when Mom says “this place is a mess” and I just have a few shirts on the ground. But this was a kind of mess I’d never seen before. There were pizza boxes by the sink, piles of clothes everywhere, paper plates stacked in a pile on the floor with cat food slopped on top. And it smelled horrible. I pinched my nose with my fingers and Mom yanked my hand downward so hard, I let out an “ow.” She shot me her “don’t you dare” look.

Marcus’ dad brought us sweet tea. I drank mine quickly because I wanted to leave. My mom asked Marcus’ dad lots of questions and then she said “I’m so sorry for your loss, Darius” and we finally left.

We went out to dinner that night and during the drive mom told dad about how we went to see them. They were whispering and had the radio turned up, but I was very good at hearing things I wasn’t supposed to hear. I heard her say “overdose” “hoarding” and other things, but I didn’t quite understand the conversation.  
​
When we got home, that’s when Mom told me I had to be really nice to Marcus even though the other kids were mean. I don’t like having to be the nice one when it makes me stick out, but every time people talked about him, I thought back about how sad he looked sitting there that day, looking down and kicking his feet as the ice melted in his untouched sweet tea.  

​The summer of ’08 was a summer of scandal. Like the summer before, there were the usual characters. Sophia, with her permed out hair and crusty white dog Sebastian whose brown streaks around his eyes and chin had always been off-putting but were growing more-so with every passing summer. Richard, who had a tendency to watch himself in every mirror he passed, combing in fingers through his hair and pouting as though someone might sneak up behind him and capture his vogue pose on camera. And then there was Angelica. As an heiress and the owner of the house we all stayed in, she commanded the room with an arrogance that was at once infuriating and impressive. Even in the most mundane moment, she somehow found a way to draw attention to herself. For years, she had ruled the Hamptons house, her reign of terror known across the beach.
 
However, that changed in ’08.  Those who have heard the story may have heard one of several versions floating about, but I know the truth. Half of you won’t believe it, but that won’t stop me from telling the tale.

​I brought up the invitation carefully, reluctantly. I wasn’t looking forward to spoiling her mood and the good day we’d both been having.

Our tomatoes, kale and carnations sat in a bag at her feet. She looked radiant, sipping her iced coffee with her hair falling toward her face and the shadows from the tree above us dancing across her freckles. I didn’t want to watch her face drop, but I knew I’d put it off long enough.

“So, my mom’s birthday is coming up next week. I think she’s hosting a dinner on Saturday that she’d love us to join.”

She shifted in her chair a bit and stared down at her fingers to pick at a hangnail. “Yeah, sure we can go,” she said. But all the lightness she had carried in her voice that day had slipped away, her grey words thudded on the table. 

I knew her relationship with her mother had frayed over the years, but it wasn’t quite realistic to pretend that mine didn’t exist. It was made particularly difficult by my mom’s enthusiasm when it came to inviting her to things.

She had never forgiven her own mother for how she’d reacted when she came out. While mine was calling us on our anniversary and asking me what Veronica might like for her Christmas gift this year, hers simply pretended I didn’t exist.

I was the first women V had introduced to her parents. Her mother was warm, welcoming and lovely when I met her, but as soon as the nature of our relationship was revealed, her disposition rapidly transformed. 

"Veronica, can you please help me in the kitchen," she'd curtly responded, slicing through the joy V had tried to project when she'd said "girlfriend" and smiled at me.

From my spot on the couch, I'd stared at the fireplace with my hands in my lap, pretending not to hear the arguing that had emerged from the room behind me. Her father coughed from his chair adjacent to me and grabbed a newspaper from the wicker basket beside him. 

On the mantel was a framed portrait of white Jesus, an ornate, standing cross and a massive photo of V and her parents in matching black turtlenecks tucked into belted khakis. She looked nothing like the girl in the photo with braces, encircled by the arms of her parents. She'd traded her barreled, blown out curls for a blunt bob years before I'd met her. 

When she at last emerged from the kitchen, tears had cut through her concealer. "Let's go," she'd choked out. 

I had hoped my mother could be a stand-in for hers, giving her the loving approval that she was denied by her own, but instead it only served as a constant reminder of what she wished she had with the woman who brought her into the world.

I gently placed my hand on hers as a drop of blood swelled by her cuticle. She finally met my eyes.
​
“We could go visit your mother if you’d like? I know it’s been a while.”