Page 153 of While I’m Still Here

I hate that.

“Before I change my mind.”

Still nobody moves.

I look at Colin first. He watches me carefully from the armchair, and I can see the question on his face even though he doesn't ask it. Danny has put the remains of his pastry down and is sitting forward now, his forearms resting against his knees. Marcus is closest to the clippers, but he doesn't reach for them.

“Well?” I ask when all three continue staring at me. “I'm going to lose my nerve if you lot keep looking at me like I'm about to be executed.”

That gets them moving.

Danny stands first and comes towards me, stopping close enough that his hand brushes mine. Marcus picks up the clipper case from the coffee table, while Colin takes my mug before I can knock it over and carries it towards the kitchen.

I follow them.

The dining chair is waiting in the middle of the floor. The old towel Colin found earlier is folded over the back, and the bin bag has been opened beside the table, ready for the hair. Marcus sets the case down and opens it, revealing the clippers inside, neatly packed away with their attachments and cable.

My stomach drops. “Oh, fuck.”

Colin immediately turns towards me. “We can wait.”

“No.” I shake my head before he can say anything else, although my hands have started trembling. “No, because if we wait, I'm going to go upstairs and pull at it again. I know I am. I can't keep doing that.”

Danny comes to stand beside me. “Then we don't wait.”

I look at the chair. It's just one of my kitchen chairs. I've eaten dinner on it. I've piled clean laundry on it instead of putting it away. Danny sat on it the first time he came to my flat and spent twenty minutes pretending not to be nervous about meeting Colin properly. There is nothing remotely frightening about the fucking chair.

Today, I don't want to sit in it.

Colin seems to understand because he doesn't tell me to. He simply unfolds the towel and waits.

I touch my hair one more time.

My fingers slide from the roots to the ends, slowly enough that I can feel the texture against my palm. I've complained about this hair for years. Too frizzy when it's damp. Too flat when I want volume. Too much effort. Never sitting properly when I need it to. I've dyed it, straightened it, curled it, tied it up because I couldn't be bothered and threatened to shave it off approximately four hundred times without ever imagining there might come a day when I'd actually have to. “I spent so much time complaining about it,” I say quietly.

Nobody answers immediately. I look at Colin. “I complained about my tits too, and now they're gone.” My hand is still wrapped around the ends of my hair. When I loosen my fingers, several strands stay behind in my palm. “I keep losing things I didn't know I loved.”

Danny reaches for my hand and gently closes my fingers around the loose strands rather than brushing them away. Colin's eyes are wet, although he doesn't try to hide it, and Marcus watches me with an expression I recognise because I've seen it every time I've said something about cancer that he understands too well.

I breathe in through my nose, then I let the hair fall from my hand into the bin bag. “Okay.”

Colin lifts the towel, and I sit down.

The first pass is the worst.

Colin's hand shakes when he presses the clippers against my head, and the vibration travels straight through my skull. I feel the blades move backwards, feel the strange release of weight, and then a thick section of hair slides over the towel and lands in my lap.

My breath catches, and Colin immediately lifts the clippers away. “Keep going.”

He looks at me in the reflection of the small mirror on the kitchen table. His eyes are wet, but he doesn't ask if I'm sure again. He just nods and continues, slowly clearing one side of my head while I watch pieces of myself fall onto my shoulders, my lap and eventually the kitchen floor.

I cry through most of it. Tears just keep slipping down my face while Colin works. When he's done with his section, he bends and presses his lips against the top of my partially shaved head. “I love you,” he tells me. “So fucking much.”

“I love you too.”

Then Danny takes over. He is unusually quiet as he clears the other side, one hand resting carefully against my head while he guides the clippers with the other. I can see his face in the dark reflection of the kitchen window, and every now and then his mouth tightens when another section falls. At one point I whisper, “I'm okay.”

Danny stops long enough to meet my eyes. “You don't have to be okay because I'm upset.”