need to catch up?  preface part 1 part 2 part 3

“You need to break it off.” Dad had repeated.

And suddenly I felt free. For the first time in two years.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said.

Easter Sunday dawned bright and beautiful. I dressed for church, putting on my brand-new Easter dress (a family tradition…actually, I still get an Easter dress every year) and, for the last time, I put on that sterling silver ring. Oddly, it didn’t feel as heavy this time.

I couldn’t wait to go back to school that afternoon.

On the way back to school, I told Andrew and Sister about my conversation with Dad. I told them what I had resolved to do. They were deliciously supportive.

At 7:00, after I was resettled into my dorm room, I made the phone call.

“X, I need to meet you in the circle,” I said. I tried to sound normal.

He agreed, and five minutes later, I saw him walking toward me. I twisted the ring off my left hand and held it so tightly that it left marks on my palm.

I held the ring out in my right hand. “I am giving this back to you,” I said. “We’re done.”

I don’t think he’d been expecting it, but also I don’t think it was very much a surprise. He accepted the ring without saying anything.

“Are you sure?” He asked, finally, as he stuffed the ring in his pocket.

“I’m sure. I’m going to leave now,” I said.

I turned around and walked back to my dorm. I ran upstairs, burst into my dorm room and said, “I BROKE UP WITH HIM!” Sister screamed, we called Andrew and the three of us went out for McFlurries to celebrate. (I have to say, this was the only breakup I ever celebrated.) I shook the entire time we were at McDonald’s, which makes it very difficult to eat an M&M McFlurry.

The three of us came back, sated with ice cream, and I finally stopped shaking. I collapsed into my desk chair and started deleting everything X related on my computer, screen names, emails, you name it. I went through and blocked him on all my messengers, and it was then that I realized…I could unblock Joey again.

That guy must think I am such a nutcase; I have blown him off so many times, I thought. I’m probably not worth it.

But I unblocked Joey nonetheless. And, somehow, within thirty minutes of the aforementioned unblocking, he had initiated a conversation with me. I couldn’t believe I was talking to the boy I had secretly had a crush on for, like, four months…I subtly managed to mention that I had broken up with X. For good. Joey was nonchalant, and I stressed myself out over whether the nonchalance was a good or bad thing.

In the course of our conversation, I foolishly mentioned that I had gotten a cavity drilled on the previous Friday afternoon and that the Novocain had deadened the left side of my face for hours, way worse than normal. And I don’t even know why I told him that Sister had taken a picture. Naturally, Joey wanted to see it.

He had me giggling in my desk chair before I knew it, we were sending pictures back and forth like adolescents who met in a chat room on the internet while their parents weren’t looking.

Jamie called just then.

“Um, hi…did you break up with X?” she asked.

“Oh.My.Gosh. The grapevine in this school is way too short. Yes, I broke up with him about an hour and a half ago,” I said.

Jamie got very quiet. “That’s odd…”

“Why?” I demanded.

“He asked one of the girls on my floor to Spring Banquet last Friday…so I thought maybe you broke up last week.”

“No…no, I definitely broke up with him just this evening,” I said. “It’s clearly a good thing I did, too, because I wonder how he planned to explain that one to me.” I asked.

And it was then that realized how truly glad that I was free. I just had one more thing I needed to do.

The next day, Sister and I skipped chapel and went to Great Clips.

“Cut it all off,” I said. “All off.”

The stylist looked at my hair. I hadn’t cut it in almost two years, so it was mid-back. And I had no bangs. It looked horrible…blah, unattractive, and just plain nasty.

“Are you sure?” She asked me.

“I hate this hair. I have hated it for as long as I’ve had it, cut it all off.” I insisted. I’ve been a short-hair girl my entire life and the long hair had been driving me crazy. I hate it when it touches my shoulders, gets stuck in my shirt, or flips up inside my collar. Plus I look like a monk with a skullcap when I have long hair, no bangs, and I pull it back in a ponytail…it’s not pretty, friends. (As I’m sure you observed in the Novocain picture.)

Sister sat in the chair next to me and cheered me on. The first thick, long lock fell to the floor and I squealed with delight.

“This,” I said to Sister, “Is my Freedom Cut.”

And I loved it. It was just above my shoulders and flipped out a bit on the bottom. It was tastefully layered; I’d found a similar style in a magazine on Julia Stiles and I thought she looked super cute.

I walked out of Great Clips a new person. Sister and I went back to our dorm room, put our skirts and stockings back on (we had changed into normal clothes for the haircut) and went over to get lunch from the cafeteria. I saw X as I was walking in, he was going out. He looked truly startled when he saw my short hair, and I stared at him until he grew uncomfortable he looked away.

The first meeting was over.

I took a deep breath and continued into the cafeteria. I had avoided that place like the plague for the last six months, not being able to bear the fact that X never saved me a spot and when I’d try to sit with another group of people and X was there, I had this uncomfortable feeling that people were staring and gossiping. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, but I had convinced myself, so I had given up eating there unless I knew Sister or Andrew was going to be there also, they always had my back.

Now, though, I didn’t even care what anybody said about me anymore. I pulled open the door and walked inside.

“Woah, you cut your hair,” was the first thing I heard. I glanced up. It was Joey.

“Yeah, I did,” I said, shyly.

“It looks great,” he said, and shot me his million-dollar smile, did this Tom Cruise wave-thing from Top Gun (one of my favorite movies), and walked out the door.

My heart did flip-flops. I told it to stop, that it was highly inappropriate to be flirting this close to a break up and that I should exhibit some decency. I was having a hard time convincing myself.

That evening, I went to the mall. I bought red lip gloss, two pink shirts, an above-the-knee jean skirt (SCANDAL!), dark brown eyeliner and someeyeshadow. I looked like a new woman. Heck, I was a new woman.

Breakup or not, though, I was still dateless for Spring Banquet and it was only two weeks away. And I had that great dress. Andrew was going with Laura, his girlfriend, Sister was planning to go with her friend Stephen. I was discussing my problem with Sister, who suggested I call The Kid to see if he’d go with me. He could come ride out and back with Laura and stay with Andrew in his dorm room.

I thought it was an awesome idea.

So did Mom when I called her to ask her if she’d mail him over to me in time for next Saturday.

And, thus, it was decided. My date to my senior Spring Banquet was to be my fifteen year old baby brother. For the first time all year, I was excited about Spring Banquet.

To be continued…