The chair felt colder than she expected.
Maya gripped its leather arms while the stylist clipped a cape around her shoulders. Her hair — long, straight, and black — spilled down past her elbows like a curtain she had hidden behind for most of her life. Everyone loved it. Teachers, relatives, strangers in grocery lines. Don’t ever cut it, they’d say, as if it belonged to the world instead of to her.
The mirror in front of her reflected two different people: the version she had always been, and the one she couldn’t yet see.
“Still sure?” the stylist asked gently, holding up the clippers but not turning them on.
Maya inhaled. “Yeah.”
Then quieter: “I need to know what I look like without it.”
The buzzing began.
At first the sound startled her — a dry electric hum that seemed louder than it really was. The stylist gathered a thick section at the crown, pressed the clippers against the scalp, and pushed forward.
A wide path appeared.
Her breath caught.
Hair slid down the cape in a heavy sheet and landed in her lap before falling to the floor. It didn’t feel dramatic the way she imagined — no thunderclap moment, no panic — just a strange lightness, as if a weight she hadn’t noticed was slowly being lifted.
Another pass.
Another long lock gone.
She watched carefully this time. Beneath the hair was soft pale skin she had never seen, smooth and rounded, unfamiliar but undeniably hers. The more the stylist worked, the more her face emerged — her eyes seemed bigger, her cheekbones sharper, her expression clearer.
“You’re doing great,” the stylist said, sensing the intensity of her stare.
Maya smiled faintly. “I thought I’d cry.”
“Sometimes people do.”
“I think…” She paused as another strip of hair fell away. “I think I was more afraid of staying the same.”
Soon only dark patches remained along the sides. The clippers circled her head in steady, careful motions until stubble covered everything like velvet. The stylist switched guards, then finally removed it entirely.
“Last step,” she said.
The bare blade glided softly across her scalp. Warm shaving cream, then cool air. The sensation surprised Maya — not painful, not frightening — almost calming. Each stroke erased the last shadow of the person she used to present to the world.
When the stylist wiped her head clean and turned the chair fully toward the mirror, Maya blinked.
For a moment she didn’t recognize herself.
Then she did.
Her face looked open. Honest. Nothing to hide behind, nowhere to disappear into. She lifted a hand and touched her scalp — smooth, warm, real. The movement made her laugh, a short incredulous sound that turned into a full smile.
“I thought I’d feel exposed,” she said.
“How do you feel?”
Maya tilted her head, studying the reflection like meeting a stranger who somehow understood her better than anyone else.
“Free,” she answered.