Enshrine

by Chelle Bliss

  I turn over my hand, letting the pieces of hair fall to the floor in a tiny pile. I stand there, staring at my hair and thinking about how crazy my life has become.

  I wish I could say that my tiny little pep talk makes it easier—that I can shave my head without a care—but it’s not true. Each pass of the clippers is like losing a small piece of myself.

  When I finish cutting away the first side, leaving myself a long, floppy Mohawk, I stare at myself and wonder if I could’ve pulled off the punk-rock look in the eighties. Nah, I would’ve been the worst rocker girl ever.

  I realize what’s going to bother me most about not having hair. It screams chemo patient, as the Sinead O’Connor look is no longer in vogue. The barrage of questions will gut me; I’m not sure I’m ready for them. I haven’t hit the point where I’m comfortable enough talking about my illness without bursting into tears.

  My face has changed too. Even with only two rounds of chemo, it shows. The dark circles make my eyes seem withdrawn and make me look older than I am. My skin doesn’t shimmer like it used to, the luster wiped away by the poison inside me. Leaning forward, I stretch the skin of my cheeks. What else is it going to do to me?

  I don’t see him, but I feel his presence. Goose bumps dot my flesh as I see his eyes watching me in the mirror.

  He opens the door fully and invades my privacy. “Callie.”

  “You’re supposed to be sleeping.” I hear the distress in my own voice. I’m not mad, but I thought I could finish this before he woke up.

  He moves behind me, keeping his eyes glued to mine in the mirror. “I reached over and you were gone. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  I can’t hold back. I sure as fuck am not all right. I start to speak, but all that comes out is gibberish. I lift the clippers and show him, muttering about how I can’t do it. Pointing to the ground, my inability to stop crying garbles my words. Louder and louder, I cry. I don’t know what I’m saying, but he seems to understand.

  “Shh. It’s okay.” He wraps his arms around me with a pained expression. “You shouldn’t do this alone.” His strength envelops me and makes me feel safe.

  I stand in his arms, shaking while he consoles me. The way he holds me gives me more strength and serenity in a world overshadowed by my fear. I bury my face in his chest, listening to the familiar beat of his heart, and close my eyes. Slowly, my breathing comes back to normal as my tears dry.

  “Let me help you,” he murmurs into my hair as he strokes my back.

  I look up at him, my eyes still glassy and burning. “I should do it myself,” I murmur, unable to stop my trembling chin.

  His eyebrows draw together and his hand stops. “Why?”

  I shrug, because I don’t know, but I feel it’s my cross to bear.

  “I shaved my sister’s head. I’ve had a lot of practice on my own head too. Let me do it.” He kisses my forehead, his soft lips scorching my skin. “You just stand there and feel what you need to feel, and I’ll do the rest.” The kindness in his eyes is evident. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think there was more to it than just him being nice. I’m kind too, but he looks at me with such softness and adoration that I no longer want to do it alone.

  I nod, not bothering with words because I fear I’ll start crying again. My face is already puffy, my nose clogged, and I can’t take much more without feeling total exhaustion.

  When I turn around and watch him in the mirror, I wait for him to make a face. Something to indicate how hideous I really look. I feel it. The Mohawk look isn’t a good one on me. I don’t feel like myself as I stand there before him. His face never changes, just radiates softness as he picks up the clippers and touches my shoulder before starting.

  “I’m ready,” I tell him and watch his face, not looking at my reflection in the mirror.

  It’s easy to look at him longer than I would any normal person. He’s handsome and no longer scares me with a single look. I know the other side of Bruno. He isn’t a wordsmith, but he says what he needs to and leaves the rest up to the imagination.

  When he raises the clippers, I close my eyes, waiting to feel them against my skin. The sound of them moving through hair, distinct and unforgettable, causes me to look. They aren’t going through my hair, but his.

  “I don’t want to be left out,” he teases before buzzing a line down the center of his head.

  I’m enthralled by the gesture with my mouth hanging open. Men can get away with a buzz cut, me…not so much. But his willingness to cut away his beautiful brown hair is so sweet I almost break down again. I bite my lip, unable to look away as each pass of the razor strips away a little more and it falls to the floor.

  In a few short minutes, his lush locks turn into a buzz cut. He drags his hand back and forth, clearing a few stragglers that haven’t fallen to the floor. I smile at him in the mirror and wonder where he came from and why didn’t I know the real him sooner.

  He makes it seem easy. Freeing almost.

  “Ready?” he asks, holding the clippers next to my head and looking at me with nothing but adoration in his eyes.

  I nod and swallow the last bit of anxiety I have before closing my eyes. Watching is the scary part. With him doing it for me, I don’t have to be a witness to the event. I can deal with the aftermath. I have no other choice.

  Gently, Bruno runs the clippers along my scalp, taking his time and not missing an inch. Every once in a while, he runs his hand across the tiny hairs left behind and my eyes roll back in my head. My hair had become painful, but at this length and under his fingers, it makes my toes curl. Not sexually, though. But goose bumps crawl across my skin and my body moves toward the sensation, wanting more.

  Moments later, the clippers stop and both of his hands are moving across my scalp. My body sways, following his movement instinctively.

  How did I go from a complete meltdown to feeling this so quickly? Only Bruno could do that. No one else has that power over me.

  “All done,” he whispers in my ear, holding on to my shoulders. “Open your eyes.”

  I shake my head, fearful of what may stare back at me. I don’t want to look.

  “Come on, sweetheart. You look totally kick-ass.”

  A small smile forms on my lips from the vibration of his voice tickling my ear, along with being called kick-ass. I can’t stop it. No one has ever said I looked “totally kick-ass” before. I’m more like a modern version of Barbie than GI Jane. His statement is completely laughable.

  “I’m scared,” I admit softly.

  “Cal.” His voice tickles my ear again. “You look wonderful. Beautiful even. Remember when I walked in, you had this crazy, floppy Mohawk? That was cute, but it wouldn’t have made a pretty picture in public. Now you look better than any woman I’ve ever seen with a buzz cut. It becomes you.”

  “So you want to rub it?” I’m half joking, but mostly not. His fingers do crazy things to me. My stress melts away when his hands move across my flesh.

  His deep, soft laugh makes me lean back into him. “I’ll rub anything you want.”

  I chuckle softly, rolling my head back onto his shoulder.

  “Come on. Just peek.”

  I take a deep breath and open my eyes. Not slowly, prolonging the agony, but quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid sitting on my hair.

  Huh.

  I don’t look like me. That much I know. Even my face looks different. Thank God my head is nicely shaped. It could have been really awkward if I’d had a lumpy skull, but somehow, it is symmetrical. My hair isn’t as light near the roots, which causes my skin to look even paler.

  I blink a few times, wondering if what I see is real.

  It is.

  It happened.

  I no longer have hair that cascades down my shoulders or kisses my cheek. I won’t feel the wind blow through my hair. The feeling’s odd.

  I’m still me, but I’m not.

  One time, years ago, I had a mishap with my eyelash curler. I remember how m
y eye looked funny without the hair lining the lid. I used black eyeliner for a month while I waited for the hair to grow back. The one thing I’d never expected was that eyelashes actually had a function. I felt air passing through my lids, and my eye constantly teared or was dry as hell. Eyelashes protect your eyes, giving them a line of defense from debris that floats through the air. When I ripped them out—don’t curl with wet hands—I remembered thinking I looked so odd.

  Eyelashes are nothing compared to the hair on my head. Soon, whether I wanted it to happen or not, the same exact thing would happen. Not only would I lose my eyelashes, but I’d be devoid of eyebrows too and every other strand of hair on my body.

  A positive person would think—wow, what a timesaver. I wouldn’t have to shave, no more waxing—hell, I wouldn’t even have any hair to brush, wash, condition, or straighten. That would be grand if it were something I wanted. A choice I’d made. This wasn’t a choice… A disease I vowed to cure during my lifetime made it for me.

  Bruno thinks I look good. He even said the word “kick-ass.” I don’t want to disappoint him, especially after he shaved his head too. But there is no way in hell I can believe either of those statements. I don’t look horrifying, but in no way do I look pretty.

  “See.” He motions toward my reflection in the mirror and looks proud. “We match, and I think we both look pretty fucking great.” He runs his hand backward across his head with a satisfied smile.

  I can’t argue with how he looks. Hair or no hair, the man has it. “You do look great.” I grin and avoid agreeing about how I look.

  “Callie, look at yourself in the mirror.” He holds my shoulders and straightens my body so I’m facing the mirror and have nowhere else to look. “Look.” He breaks eye contact and looks at my reflection.

  “Bruno.” I squirm uncomfortably in his hands. I already looked. I don’t look or feel amazing. I look like a cancer patient, and I feel like shit on top of it.

  “Just do it,” he growls. Sweet, nice Bruno leaves for a moment before his face softens again. “Please.”

  I stiffen in his grip and peel my eyes away from him dragging them toward my face in the mirror. “I’m looking,” I tell him, my voice so sarcastic I wince because he’s been so nice for me to act so shitty.

  “Say you’re beautiful.”

  “I’m beautiful,” I repeat flatly.

  He tilts his head and my eyes flicker to his. “Say it like you mean it.”

  “Fucker,” I whisper-mumble.

  His left eyebrow rises and I shoot him a fake smile and hope he didn’t hear me. “I’m beautiful.”

  “Call me anything you want, but you’re still pretty. Hair is just hair, babe. Life is more important. It doesn’t make you you.”

  “You should write greeting cards.”

  “Cal.” His grip tightens and his voice lowers. “Don’t push it. I’m being nice and you’re acting bitchy.”

  My eyebrows shoot up when I hear the word bitch. “Sorry.”

  “We all get to act out when times are tough. I do it. We all do. But you have to see what’s in front of you.”

  “A cancer patient?”

  “No.” His nostrils flare, and I can’t tell if he’s at his wits’ end with me or not. “A woman fighting for her life. Someone taking control of her destiny and ready to kick cancer’s ass.”

  “I wish I had your optimism.”

  “You do. It’s just been beaten down. We’ll find it again. I won’t let you quit.”

  I look back at him. “Why?”

  “You’re too important to quit and let cancer take you.”

  Huh? “Come again?”

  “I know who you are, Callie. What you do. You’re too important to the millions of cancer patients out there fighting for their lives. You can’t throw it all away and succumb to the very thing they’re battling.”

  I gawk, like really gawk, at him. My mouth hangs open as I search his face in astonishment. Bruno knows who I am? He knows what I do? But…why? How? “You do?” I ask, my voice small and timid.

  “We will talk about it later.” He releases my shoulders and stalks out of the bathroom quickly.

  I stand there completely stunned, staring at myself in the mirror. No longer am I looking at my hair in the reflection but staring at myself and asking, “What the fuck?”

  By the time I catch up to him, he already has his boots on and is heading toward the front door. “Bruno, we need to talk.”

  He opens the door without even looking at me. “Later, Cal.”

  “Now!” My voice is shrill and panic-laced.

  “I’ve said too much already.” He doesn’t say anything else. He leaves and I have a million unanswered questions.

  16

  Stage 4—Depression Revisited

  Life has become…

  I don’t even know the word to describe it.

  Exhausting.

  Depressing.

  Inescapable.

  Lonely.

  When Bruno stormed out of my apartment two weeks ago, I said, “Fuck him…good riddance.”

  He called, texted, and even knocked, but I never answered or let him in. I didn’t want anyone around me, especially him. He wasn’t telling me something, and I was done playing games.

  I’ve never been the girl to be okay with secrets.

  I waited for him to bust down my door and come barging in, but he didn’t.

  The last week has been peaceful. Even Becca had become scarce. Her boss had slammed her at work, making her work double shifts.

  Chemo still kicks my ass, and I feel sicker than I ever have before. I crawl around my apartment when I need to get around. I learned quickly to set everything up before I go for treatment. I put enough water out, small snacks if I become hungry, and have my vomit pot nearby in case I need it. I don’t need anyone around to take care of me, especially him.

  My buzz cut now is splotchy with smooth patches and very little hair left. My eyebrows are gone, my eyelashes are hanging on by a thread, and the rest of me is smoother than ever before. Every time I look in the mirror, I have to do a double take.

  I’ve lost too much weight. I look like a walking, hairless skeleton. There isn’t a person in the world I want to see me like this. I have my groceries delivered and have only left my place to go to chemo or the doctor’s and then come straight home.

  I try to watch television, but nothing holds my interest. I can’t laugh or get lost in anything, not even a book that I would’ve enjoyed before.

  I still fear death. How can I not?

  When I find the energy, I start to clean out every drawer and closet I have. If I do pass away, I don’t want anyone to have to go through my stuff. I remember how the family acted when my grandmother died. They combed through her things, and everything that had been private became public. The smartest thing she did was label the big items. On the back of every painting, piece of furniture, or decoration, she’d put a piece of tape with the name of the person she wanted to have it after she left this world. I thought it was peculiar at the time, but now, I understand her thinking. She knew at her age that the end was close and she wanted her wishes fulfilled.

  But I have no one to leave my things to except Rebecca. Besides work, the only important stuff in my life had been my things.

  Things no one wants.

  My prized possessions would be donated to a thrift shop. Someone would spend a couple of bucks when I’d spent hundreds of dollars and tried my best to keep up the perfect exterior.

  What a fuckin’ waste.

  Instead of spending time with friends and possibly finding the love of my life, I worked and shopped. What the heck would my obituary read?

  “Callie Gentile died at the age of thirty-two with a killer shoe collection, an unrivaled designer clothing closet, and alone.