“You guys, I need something! Anything!" Anything to make this look better. I felt control slipping through my fingertips. "Oh God. My father is going to kill my m—"
Both the boys kept staring, first questioningly, then with what appeared to be pity.
"Please!" I practically screamed.
I felt the air escaping my lungs. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on twisting up my hair to wrap it close to my head.
"Brey." Mrs. Stonewood appeared in the mirror. She stood behind me on the large staircase. "I have a brush right upstairs. Why don't you follow me?"
I tripped and almost fell at the bottom of the stairs. Jax's hand caught my elbow, and I turned to say thank you, to grab at any dignity I may have had left. When I saw his confusion at my panic, I couldn't bring myself to say a word.
He started to walk up the stairs with me, his hand still on my elbow. I didn't care. I just needed to get my hair back in order.
"Jax, this is just us girls," his mother said, her voice stern.
Jax's hand left my elbow and for some stupid reason, I missed it. Probably because I knew after this, he wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole.
I followed her up the rest of the white marble stairs and down the hallway to a gigantic bathroom that I probably should have just run to the moment I saw the mess on my head.
She went to one of the drawers and pulled out a brush. Turning me toward the mirror, she calmly started brushing my hair without offering me the brush to do it myself.
I stiffened, staring at her head over mine in the mirror. Her eyes were the same blue as Jax's and they glistened with sympathy.
I didn't want it. I didn't need it. I had done just fine with my mother and my father so far. I stepped closer to the speckled granite countertop. "Thank you for finding me a brush."
Her brow furrowed. "I can help you with your hair."
She'd read my silent plea right. I wanted her to leave, but she wasn't budging.
"Is there a reason you can't wear it down?"
She knew the reason. Adults like Mrs. Stonewood were easy to read. They all held the same expression. The first time I encountered that look had been a day my mother picked me up from grade school. My teacher had seen a bruise on her arm when my mother reached for me.
She had gasped and we both stiffened. My mother pulled down her sleeve quickly but my teacher’s eyes had already changed. They flicked to our car nervously, and she asked if everything was all right.
On the way home, my mother said she wasn't going to be dropping me off anymore, that I would have to walk. I read her thoughts. That day, I nodded my head in total agreement. Soon after, I was being homeschooled.
Now, Mrs. Stonewood begged me with her eyes to tell her something as she stroked my hair and brushed away the curls.
I didn't answer her.
She'd always been a sort of friend to me, the type of mother I never had. She yelled at the boys for me, let me eat cookies, she even told me to call her Nancy instead of Mrs. Stonewood. At this moment though, knowing that she wanted the truth, I figured not answering was my best answer. I just couldn’t bring myself to lie to her.
She began to fold my dark curls over one another and said, "Whenever you're ready, we can talk. Just us girls." She always said ‘just us girls’ when she wanted me to understand it would be our little secret. My throat constricted and when I looked away from her, I felt wetness slide down my cheeks. I wiped the tears away quickly, hoping she didn't see.
If she did, she didn't say a thing. "All better."
I looked in the mirror and saw that my hair was French-braided, and it looked classy. Father wouldn't mind this. No curls. No frizz. No hair out of place.
"Thank you," I mumbled.
"Don't thank me when two out of my three boys did this to you." Her third and oldest son, Jett, was in college, living near his father. Thank God because I didn't think all three Stonewoods here would be good for the female population.
I let out a sigh and smiled a little. "Only Jax, really."
We started our way back down the hallway.
"I'm going to have to ground him for eternity at this rate. To think, he’s seventeen and facewashing girls. I doubt there’s hope for him.”