Page 45 of The Narrow

“I like that,” she says.

My knuckles are just touching the soft skin of her neck. I let my hands run the rest of the way through her hair, the strands whispering between my fingers, and I shiver.

I want to run my fingers through it again. Instead I say, “I can manage that.” She watches my every movement in the reflection.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asks.

Do I? But that isn’t what she means. “I cut my friends’ hair all the time.”

“Then I guess I trust you,” Delphine says.

I pick up the scissors. “Are you sure about this? That’s a lot of hair to lose,” I say.

“I’m sure,” Delphine replies.

I gather her hair together behind her back. “Last chance,” I tell her.

She looks at me in the mirror, her head tilted ever so slightly. “Eden.”

Soft, chiding. Almost affectionate. I laugh a little. “Okay, but don’t hate me when it’s done.”

“I could never hate you,” she says.

And I slice through all her hair in one smooth motion.

The now-shoulder-length strands fall away, the rest left gripped in my left hand. She sucks in a little gasp. I hold the long tail of coppery hair out over her shoulder to show her. It’s a foot long—and gone.

“No going back now,” I tell her.

“Good,” she says firmly.

I go slowly after that, trimming, checking the length, trimming again. Again and again I touch her—tilting her head, bumping my fingers against her jaw, parting the strands, my fingernails nicking her scalp. Her breath is quick and her eyes stay fixed on me, on every movement. When the cold metal of the scissors touches the back of her neck, she gives a little shiver, but she never looks away.

“What do you think?” I ask.

I haven’t done much. It’s a simple short bob, slightly higher in the back, framing her face. It turns her features from delicate porcelain to precise marble.

Her expression is perfectly still, and my stomach twists with nerves. Did I screw it up?

Her hand reaches out and closes around mine. She doesn’t meet my eyes, but keeps her gaze fixed on her own reflection, and her voice cracks when she speaks. “Thank you,” she says.

She doesn’t let go of my hand.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” I say. I take the towel away. With one end of it, I clean the little stray hairs from the back of herneck and shoulders. Her hair is scattered across the floor around us in clumps and drifts.

She turns in her chair toward me and fixes me with those sharp eyes. “How do I look?” she asks.

My mouth feels dry. “You look beautiful.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice,” she says immediately, shaking her head. She looks down at herself—that ridiculous little-girl dress. “I hate these clothes,” she says. She stands abruptly. “Help me get this off.” She turns her back to me, gesturing toward the zipper. I hesitate.

“Eden, can you get the back?” she asks, looking over her shoulder, and I force myself to step forward.

I unhook the tiny wire clasp, unzipping the back of her dress. A pale triangle of skin appears. I unzip the dress past the white band of her bra and step back, dropping my hands quickly.

She lets the sleeves of the dress fall down over her arms, shrugging out of it. Her torso is long, a constellation of moles along her back. She steps out of the dress and turns to me. I can’t help staring at her—her ribs, her flat stomach, the flare of her hips. The curve of her small breasts.

She sees me looking, but she doesn’t turn away or cover up. She walks toward me instead. “Eden? Is everything okay?”

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