“I haven’t forgotten,” he says. “Turn around and let me look at you.”
I hold my head down. I don’t want to take the chance that he will see the revulsion on my face—not because it would upset him but because it would make him happy. He loves to torture me with the fact that I am at his mercy. I feel weak and the truth is, I am. If I leave him or try to tell someone about the hell that he puts me through, he will make me pay by hurting people I love. I don’t doubt that at all. He tortures me daily with the possibility. I don’t know how I didn’t see how sick he was before, but I definitely see it now. I hate him—almost as much as I hate myself.
“I don’t like your hair like that,” he says casually. He sounds like he’s looking at a painting on the wall and is trying to figure out why he doesn’t like it.
“My hair is too long. I need to get it cut,” I murmur, reaching up and running my hand over it. I actually thought it looked half-way decent today.
“It’s not that,” he counters. “I like it long. You shouldn’t cut it,” he says, which is code for I’m not allowed to cut it. I don’t argue.
There’s no point.
“Okay.”
“It’s the color. I think you would look great as a blonde.”
“I can’t go blonde. My skin is too fair. It would wash me out,” I argue, turning around to look at him, thinking that there’s no way he can be serious. Immediately, I can see that he is.
I shouldn’t have said anything. Even as I’m talking, I know I shouldn’t. To make matters worse, I can’t stop myself from jerking physically. I’m stupid because I do it without taking the time to think. If I had, I would have realized that I should have made it seem like I was all for the idea.
Now, that I’ve shown the monster I dislike something, he’ll make sure I do it.
“Well, I’m your husband and I want you to have blonde hair,” he says, moving his hand along the side of my face. I barely keep myself from trembling at his touch. Hate wells up inside of me so deep that I almost choke on it. The problem is that I can’t tell if it’s directed at him or myself.
“I give in to you on everything, Mitch, but I want to keep my hair it’s natural color,” I respond, stubbornly trying to reason with him—despite my fear.
“You’d be smoking hot as a blonde,” he says. To my relief, he doesn’t look upset—just disappointed. “What time are your meeting Katie and where at?” he asks. I know this is his way of keeping tabs on me, but as he wonders into the attached bathroom, I allow myself to relax a little because he’s let go of the blonde hair so easily.
“I told her I’d meet her at six at our favorite Mexican place. I’ll make it quick. I’ll be home before eight,” I answer, trying to placate him.
He comes back out of the bathroom, and I spare him a smile, not really looking at him directly. The name of the game with Mitch is not to bring attention to yourself and I figure I’ve already lived a little dangerously this morning by standing up to him about my hair.
“I think you’re right about your hair,” he says, surprising me.
“I am. Blonde would look horrible on me,” I respond, thanking my lucky stars that he’s relenting.
“Yeah, blonde is not what you need at all.”
Chills run down my spine as I immediately pick up on the change in his voice.
“Mitch—”
His name ends in a cry as he pushes into my stomach with his elbow and I fall to the floor, my head hitting against the metal bedrails of my bed. I try to move my hand to the back of my head to see if I can feel the damage, but Mitch gets there first. He drags me by my hair to the mirror. Fear eats at me and my eyes round as I look at our reflection. He’s on his knees behind me, holding my hair up. In his hand are my cutting sheers. They’re not the kind you cut hair with. These are wicked sharp sewing sheers that his mother bought me for Christmas last year. They’re so heavy that sometimes I have trouble even holding them. The handles are black, but the blades are silver. They gleam sinisterly with the light shining through the windows.
“What you need is a haircut. Maybe that will teach you that when your husband wants you to have blonde hair, you will fucking get blonde hair and not give him any lip,” he growls. I whimper as he tightens his hold, twisting my hair around his fist, and then cutting it off so close to my scalp that I’m surprised he didn’t cut me. He does that twice more. With each cut, hot tears stream down my face. When he’s done, Mitch moves quickly, and without his body to hold me up, I fall onto my back. He bends down gathering my hair and throws it over my face. I push it away, feeling as if it is suffocating me. For some strange reason, it feels as if just the weight of the hair he cut is being used to bury me alive.