How to Lose a Close Friend

by Anonymous
(Lawrenceville, GA, USA)

It was the Sunday before school and I was desperately in need of a fresh press. The hairdresser I normally use was on vacation and the only other one that I knew of was closed. I called my friend. Let's just call her Britni. She assured me that she had been doing her cousins hair for years and that she was very skilled with a hot comb. I was too desperate to hesitate. Right before she came over, I washed my hair with a harsh Selsum blue anti-dandruff shampoo and used NO CONDITIONER.I know. This was during my hair care ignorant days. My thick, coiley, densely packed, type 4a/4b hair didn't yet know what it was in store for.

Britni came with her shoe box of tools: two hot combs one with small teeth and one with large teeth. My nervousness began to set in when I saw no electric hot comb oven. I put on a brave front as she set the comb into the fire on my stove.

That day was particularly hot. We were sitting in my small kitchen and I was beginning to sweat. We turned on the sealing fan- it did nothing. She decided to open the freezer. She stuck her head in there every now and then for temporary relief.

By now my hair was tangled and dry. She began with one of the plastic combs with the small and even smaller teeth that we frequently see in 99 cents stores. She was raking my hair with a vengeance. Then came the hot comb. It didn't glide through my hair like at the hair dresser's. Britni might as well have been clearing out my hair with an over heated hot comb.

I sat there section after section knowing that my hair was being tortured and abused. I was silent, pretending to care about whatever boy had tried to talk to her before she came to my house. After what felt like hours, she was done. And so was my long healthy full hair.

I turned around to what was the biggest bush of hair to have ever comb out of my head. There were broken pieces all over the counter. I broke. "Britni!!!" She looked at me as if to say she didn't do it and started to blame me for allowing her to do my hair after it had been freshly washed. I went upstairs and cried in my room. She came up after me silent. With every nerve in my body telling me otherwise, I handed her $15. Then I went into my bathroom and put my hair into the thinnest ponytail I had ever made and I cried again.

I walked Britni to the nail salon and sat there pretending to care about whatever she was saying about yet another boy. When she was finished, I walked her halfway home and as we were preparing to part ways. I said "Thanks for pulling out all my hair."

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. She turned back to me and used her hands to make a scissor motion while mouthing "snip, snip, snip".

That was Junior High School. I'm now in my last year of college and I haven't seen or heard from Britni since. The next visit to my hair dresser brought on more tears after she exclaimed, "What happened??!!!" and began telling me about everything that wasn't like it was before.

There's a lesson to be learned here.