Page 14 of Infinity

“Yes ma’am.” She starts brushing through my hair then goes to fetch her trolley. “Okay, how about I cut it, put some shape back into it and give it some highlights?”

“Whatever, I’m in your hands.”

Winking at me in the mirror she begins her to do her job.

Leah is my best friend, the only friend I’ve really got. When I had to take over the garage at nineteen, my so-called friends didn’t like that I stopped going out with them because I was too tired.

The only thing they were interested in were men and getting drunk every single weekend. With Dad’s surgery, depression and taking over the garage it was just too much. The only person to stick by me was Leah.

She’s the complete opposite to me though, I love getting my hands dirty and Leah - well, she’s such a girl, if she breaks a nail it’s the end of the world. But, as much as I don’t mind the grime of my job; I do like getting my hair done every now and again, and seeing the mess it’s in today it’s waaaay overdue.

We met when we were eight, it was a show and tell day at school and she took my toy car, I had all the vintage ones, Rolls Royce, Jaguar. She made fun of me and called me a boy because I liked cars, so I stole her Barbie doll and after the whole ‘my cars are better than any smelly Barbie,’ we were made to sit in the same room and to shake hands by the teacher.

After that we became friends; not without arguments over the adolescent years, but by the time we got to high school we were happy we were different from one another... it made us stand out from the rest. Friends came and went, but Leah, she was always the one in my corner, cheering me on.

Leah’s hair is dark brown and cut into a funky bob which hangs lower at the front and drops into points and in a ‘V’ at the back, she’s always changing her hairstyles. She’s pretty too with striking blues eyes and an olive skin tone, the men fall over her, but luckily, she has a boyfriend named Dan.

They’re perfect for each other and have been together for about a year now. They got engaged at Christmas and it was so sweet; he took her to New York and proposed to her in front of the Rockefeller tree. It was so romantic. The pictures were beautiful, it was snowing too. Getting a dreamy look in my eye, I snap back to now and look in the mirror when I hear Leah’s voice.

“Oi, D. What are you thinking about?”

“Oh nothing. Oh my God, Leah, I look like an extra-terrestrial with all these foils in my hair.” She looks at me confused. “You know E.T?”

“God D, why do you have to watch all the old films - I never know what you’re going on about!”

“One day I’m going to educate you.” I poke my tongue out at her and raise an eyebrow as she just laughs…

“Yeah, mature.”

“I never said I was.”

Two hours later, my hair has been cut into long layers, washed, blow dried and I have two colours running through it; blonde and brown and it looks awesome!

I shake my head and watch my hair, “Oh my gosh Leah, I love it! Thank you so much.” She takes the bib off me and shakes it on the floor as I jump up from the chair and wrap my arms around her. She’s taller than me by about four inches.

I sit back in the chair while she sweeps and cleans up as we’re the only ones here. I wait for her to finish so we can go and grab a bite to eat. While I’m waiting, I send my Mum a text telling her I won’t be home until later and get ready to spend some girl time with my best friend.

I followed Leah home so she could drop her car off as we headed to the pub not far from us. As soon as we were sat at a table we ordered a drink, me a lemonade and Leah had a glass of white wine. Once we knew what we were having I order our meals - a thank you for doing my hair, as she wouldn’t have any money for doing it, then sit back down.

“So, come on then what’s new?” Leah asks linking her fingers and resting her joined hands on the table.

“Not much really. Dad’s no better, the garage is very slowly going downhill and I don’t know how to stop it. I can’t tell Dad because it’ll make him worse... I asked him this morning if he wanted to come to the garage for a bit but he just refused, he wants to sit there and wallow in self-pity and make us do the same.”

“Oh babe, I’m so sorry. If I could help out I would.”

I place my hand on top of hers and smile sadly, “I know you would and thank you.” I look into my glass and swirl the clear liquid around, I can feel Leah’s eyes on me, so I snap out of my subdued mood and smile at her. “Come on then what’s new with you. How’s Dan the man?”

“You know he hates it when you call him that?!”

“I know,” I say with a nod and grin smugly, “It’s why I say It.”

I take out my phone from my bag to see if my Mum has texted me back and see I have a text, but not from Mum:

Player: Hey, friend. What you up to?

I look up to see the waiter at our table and bring our food over, so I quickly type out a text back and change his name in my contacts.

Me: Hey, I’m just out with a friend. How about you?

I drop my phone back in my bag and start eating my Scampi as I feel Leah’s eyes on me…

“What?” I ask confused.

“So, anything new?”

I consider what to say to her - if I tell her about Adam now she’ll get the wrong end of the stick and then get all excited that I’ve got a new boyfriend. I actually haven’t been with anyone since I was nineteen... so you can imagine, she’ll have me married off in weeks.

Instead, I give her a vague excuse and tell her it was just my Mum texting me to ask me to pick some milk up on the way home. She’ll kill me when I do tell her but we’ll deal with that then, for the moment - we’ll see what happens.

For the rest of the evening we laugh, talk and enjoy our girly time before dropping her off at hers and I drive home.

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