To the girl with the red hair he never wanted you to cut,
Freedom looks good on you.
When I met you, I could barely see you because you were hiding in your hair and in the shadow of someone who always wanted to make himself seem bigger than you. I couldn’t see you, and you scared me the way that all mysterious things do. So he became a friend because I could see him, and you disappeared beneath the mask he gave you.
I wanted to cry when he invited me to your wedding. I wanted to cry because I finally felt so included. He has this funny way of making people feel special just because he deemed them worthy of his attention, you know? Of course you know. So I cried because it felt like family when he spoke to me, and I hoped that you would be there to welcome me, too, between the dancing and the hiding and the nervous laughter. But I couldn’t actually go to your wedding in the end, so we kept out of touch as you fell deeper down the rabbit hole.
I remember when you cut it. I walked into the coffeeshop, and you were standing there with short hair. I think I was holding my breath waiting for him to react, as if it had just happened, just fallen off or something, and he’d be furious that you didn’t do anything to stop it all from happening. But he stood there, making himself big, and for the first time you were peeking through his shadow - just enough for the light to fall on your face. And I saw the beginnings of a girl who would be resurrected.
I watched the death come for you from a distance, and it wasn’t until you both had been consumed by it that he put words over the silent film. Divorce doesn’t sound real until it’s happening to someone that could have been you. It’s something that’s only supposed to happen to parents and people who get married in Vegas. Still he said the word like it was normal, like this was the way the story was always meant to unfold, like it was in the script he had rehearsed since he got the part.
This is not to say that he wasn’t sad - of course he was. He was smaller than I had ever seen him, and he sat there shrinking more and more as the minutes passed. I remember thinking that you must’ve grown too big for him to control, like a wild vine that started as a weed on the ground, only to scale the wall and overtake the whole house. I remember wanting to see you and cry with you and tell you that I understand the hiding and the growing pains that come when you finally break into the light. I remember being glad I didn’t see you dance at your wedding.
When I saw you standing behind the counter of a different coffeeshop months later, I didn’t know how to act. It was like seeing you for the first time, like you were a stranger I had known forever, like maybe you had escaped from that room inside my mirror. I said it was good to see you and asked how you’d been, even though I knew the answer was heavier than the fake smile you made as you said the words, “I’ve been good.” And I think you doubted those words more than I did because I could finally see you, and I knew that had to mean that you were waking up from a long sleep and that good was only a few breaths away.
The rest of that year was complicated. You ran away to yourself in the mountains, and I kept stumbling over love in coffeeshops. Something was happening to both of us that meant seeing and being seen, and we fell into a world online where we could finally break that years-long silence. It happened slowly. I couldn’t even tell you who took the first step, but we built a friendship through likes and reblogs and shares and comments - both of us creating a safe space to come out of hiding. So when I finally saw you again, it felt like coming home.
Can you believe we knew each other two years before ever sitting down across from each other with a cup of coffee? When we finally did, the words poured out of us like a breath that had been held for much too long. It was sloppy and messy and perfect, and it meant something more than the moment could hold. I didn’t see you for a while after that, but there was something perfect about that, too. I had finally seen you, and I knew I’d be seeing you again.
When we went out for that photoshoot how ever many months later, the winds changed. There was something about the day we spent together that settled it, that meant breaking our old patterns and coming into the light together. And the times I saw you after that made the whole complicated thing worth it. What was once only online or only in line at the coffeeshops had taken its rightful place across the table at dinner and side by side at parties and sharing drinks in the spirit of the holidays. But that sweet season was cut short too soon.
What I mean when I say that season was cut short is to say that it had to be because we both know that freedom means cutting things short. I cut off my time in that place the same way you cut off your hair and for the same reason. He never wanted you to cut it, and she never believed I would. And if the cutting is what it takes for us to be free, I can count on the both of us to do it when we are ready. I can count on us because we do what it takes to see and be seen, you know? We are the chasers of the light.
I hope that light leads us back to the same line again and that the woman in your mirror lets you grow out your hair as long as you want to. Freedom looks really good on you.
I’ve run away to myself in those mountains, and it’s the chase I’ve been meaning to cut to since the first scene.
Until next time,
the girl with the ties she never thought I would cut