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She stares at herself in the mirror, the scissors in her hands. Her hair is now cut at sharp angles. Dark pink dye stains her hands in ways that she struggles to look at. She rakes her hands through her hair, fingers molding the hair into place. There’s an odd sense of muscle memory to it, picking up a section of hair, teasing it to high heaven and dousing it in hairspray. 13 year old me would be proud. Jess thinks to herself, her hair falls in front of her eye in a way that reminds her of the girls she admired on Tumblr.
Jess finds herself breathing a little easier.
But, there’s something still off. Her face feels too soft, too naive, too ingenue. She slides open her vanity drawer that holds her eyeshadow pallets and rummages around until she finds the one she bought as soon as her mum let her wear makeup. Jess stares at it for a moment, the dusty, beaten up case that holds the eyeshadows. Emily always called it a biohazard. Jess flips it open, the dark pigments indented to the point where there barely any pigment left. She dips her brush into the matte black, sweeping it over her eyelids in confident strokes. She opens her eyes and finally sees herself: a confident, braver, stronger version of herself.
She stares at herself longer and something sparks with childlike fervour within her. She plays with the ends of her new hair, the splattered pink dye makes her heart stutter for a moment, it looks darker in this light, too close to red. She shakes the thoughts away, fixating on the childlike spark, letting it burn brighter in her chest. Jess realises, she looks like her 13 year old self's icons. And, for the first time in a year, Jess smiles, it's an awkward, cracked smile. The muscles around her mouth aren't used to being used.
As she smiles, her hands rake through her hair quicker, a strangled laugh falls out her throat and onto her tongue. She looks like herself. A glassiness glazes over her eyes and she laughs again although this time more confidently. She looks like herself again. Tears trail lazily down her cheeks and her laugh morphs into a cry. She looks like herself.
Jess wipes her eyes haphazardly, laughing still. The black eyeshadow streaming down her face in ways she doesn’t care about. She sniffles, her cheeks burning as the door softly clicks open.
“Damn, Paramore really had an impact huh?” Emily jokes, there’s a softness in her eyes that warms Jess.
Jess laughs slightly as Emily pads over to her. She runs her hand through the back of Jess’s hair, easing troublesome strands into place. There’s a tightening in Jess’s throat. She feels like a child again, Emily helping to straighten her hair for the first time, both of them obsessing over emo boys in bands. Jess blinks herself back into her body.
“13 year old me would be screaming right now.” Jess says, her voice sounds far away.
“I remember you and I crying when Danger Days came out.” Emily says, sitting down next to her. Emily opens Jess’s nail varnish drawer, pulling out several dark colours, wordlessly Jess points to the dark purple. Emily takes her hand and starts brushing the varnish over her nails with a surgical precision.
“Was that the first concert we went to?” Jess asks, watching the colour coat her nails. As Emily is dipping the brush back into it bottle, Jess moves to face her.
“No, that was Warped Tour.” Emily points out, brushing the freshly coated brush onto her nails. Jess nods in remembrance. There’s a silence that stretches between them, the air heavy and heady with nostalgia. Jess’s nails are finally painted and Emily wordlessly points at a colour, a dark red. Jess unscrews the bottle, trying to not to think too hard about the colour. She can see Emily struggling the same. Dragging the colour across Emily’s nails Jess sighs.
“I missed this.” She says, breaking the quiet spell. “Why did it end?” She asks, innocently at first, until she realises she's afraid of the answer. As she looks up at Emily, there's a sense of regret in her eyes.
Emily’s shoulders slump and she sighs, “Stupid boys and stupid jealousy.” She finally says. Jess nods and looks back down at her handiwork. The dark red varnish sings against the golden tones of Emily’s skin. Jess looks back up at her.
“I can’t believe I let Mike of all people get between us, goddamn Mike.” Jess mutters, cringing at herself from last year. Emily scoffs in a way that sounds like a laugh, both of them had been burned by him. For a moment they let the silence linger before Emily asks,
“Do you still have that biohazard pallet?” Jess just nods and Emily makes a sound of protest.
“Hey! It has sentimental value!” Jess exclaims, shoving Emily playfully, Em nudges her back before taking a makeup wipe and cleaning off the smudged eyeshadow from Jess’s cheeks. She takes a clean blending brush and softly blends the dark eyeshadow around Jess’s eyes, then she dips her finger into a dark sparkly glitter pot that Jess had left open and swipes it across her eyelids. The green glitters make the green tones in Jess’s eyes glow as she peers into the mirror. She feels herself slowly come back to her body. She looks so different to the girl who survived the mountain last year and in that, Jess found strength. A thought passed through her, it danced between the haze of hurt, tiptoed over her childhood, ran under high school until it was at the forefront of her mind. It suits me to be strong. Emily slides beside her, resting her head on her shoulder. A reassuring weight.
“What would you say to 13 year old Jess?” Emily asks.
Jess takes a breath, staring harder at herself in the mirror, conjuring an image of her 13 year old self. The steep slope of her fringe, her smudged black eyeshadow.
“I’d tell her to stop caring about boys, that it’s okay, I’ve got her back, that she has time, so much beautiful time.” Her voice is shaky and her eyes glassy again. Emily simply nods, taking her hand in hers. Jess looks down and realises that the dark pink dye has become just that, dye.
Jess draws a breath.
“I’d tell her that I look like her again. That I think she’s pretty.”