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Ellie had been pestering him for a haircut for weeks. “I’m gonna get grabbed by the ponytail while we’re out there, you know,” she’d explained all matter-of-factly. She folded her arms just like Marlene used to. The gesture sent waves of mild disgust and guilt through him, even after three years. “My hair’s too long, I need you to cut it.”
Joel had pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging the cartilage below his skin as if that could rub out the headaches she loved to give him on days like these. “Why the hell d’ya want me cuttin’ your hair again? You know what happened last time.” It had been a disaster. Maria had had to come in on clean-up duty. Joel was a lot of things, but he was not a hairdresser.
“I don’t like when Maria cuts my hair, she always goes too short!”
He sighed. “You’re awful picky for a kid in the middle of the end times.”
“Times have already ended, and I’m still here-- with overgrown hair, Joel!” She was talking with her hands again. So much energy in such a small person. (Though, she had grown a few inches since their first year together. He chalked it up to puberty and all the vegetables from Tommy’s compound.) “Please, please cut my hair?”
“No. Go get Maria to do it. I’m sure she’ll oblige when she’s not takin’ care of the kids.”
And so, Ellie had stomped out down the street, residents of the compound milling about their day, knowing better than to ask the girl what Joel had said this time. She really did meet every criterion of the “moody teenager” checklist: quick to anger, always asking for something, blaming most (if not all) of her problems on Joel… It was a phase he’d never reached with Sarah. The late teens were a new territory for them both. She was, and had always been, incredibly mature for her age. He regretted it deeply that she had to be. But, despite this, she was still a teenager going through the same things all teenagers inevitably did. He couldn’t hold it against her.
It wasn’t until she came back home that he realized maybe he should have given her the haircut.
She came through the door like the always did, with a creak, a thud, and the sound of her bag being dumped by the door. He didn’t look up from his book until she was toeing off her old sneakers at the door. Her hair had been cropped just above shoulder length, the front half of it tied up at the back of her skull. It glowed reddish-brown in the light that came in through the windows.
An electric shock rocked through his stomach, followed by nausea. She looked just like Tess.
She turned around and he could think to do nothing but stare down at his book, as if she’d never entered the room at all. “So?” she said expectantly, waiting for him to look up. He swallowed. He could hear the trepidation in her voice.
Slowly, he raised his eyes to her, as if he was really hung up on leaving the page of his book. “Lookin’ sharp, kiddo,” he said, voice thin and wavering slightly as he spoke.
She launched into an explanation as soon as she registered his tone. “Ugh, I know you hate it. I hate it, it’s too damn short! I always tell her not to go above my shoulder. Now I can’t pull it all back, only the top half!”
Joel looked back down at the book. “It looks fine, I promise.”
She sighed loudly and took her canteen from the kitchen counter, filling it with water from the jug on the counter. Walking to the room adjacent, she flopped onto the couch and hummed a tune to herself. She was still in Joel’s line of sight.
He hadn’t thought about Tess, at length, in so long. He thought of her every day, in passing, but he tried his hardest not to dwell on the same old memories that stirred up the same old feelings that compromised so much of his composure. Rarely, Tommy would mention an old memory. Just he and Joel, having a beer at his place while Maria and the kids slept soundly upstairs. Tommy would sigh and take a long haul of his drink, then launch into some long story about Tess and how she used to always find the very best stuff. How she was a scavenger’s scavenger. A model smuggler. How she’d been younger than he and Joel both, but she managed to outshine them in every respect, especially in business. Talking about the time she’d taken three guys out alone with just a rock and half a shiv. The night they’d found a pristine bottle of whiskey and split it three ways, finishing it in one sitting. Laughing and laughing by the fire. A remembered moment of her smile, her auburn hair, her freckled cheeks. Those green, green eyes.
Ellie really did look so much like her.
And now, with this haircut… Joel looked up at her again, trying so hard not to dwell on it. Just let it go. Don’t do this. But he knew he couldn’t. He knew himself. She on her back and twirling her knife between her fingers, her legs crossed, her foot bobbing up and down while she hummed. She could have been Tess’s own daughter. Her spitting image. He felt like he was looking at a ghost.
She had been a little taller than Ellie was now. A little skinnier- Tess never quite ate enough. The same hair, almost down to the color, haphazardly chopped to her shoulders and tied half-up to keep it from blowing in her face. She was a little older, in her early twenties. Tommy and Joel had found her leaning up against the wall in an alleyway, trying to lure some suckers down with some false promise of sexual favors just to shake them at knifepoint for their ration cards. Luckily enough, Tommy had seen it all before.
“Here,” Tommy had said, holding out two ration cards. Joel remembered staring at him in disbelief, until she stepped into the light. She was too young to be out on her own. “I hope things get better.”
Tommy was always a little too good to strangers. It was going to get him killed. She didn’t say thank you.
“You’re new here,” Tess commented instead, tucking her ration cards into her shirt pocket. “Your accent.”
“Texas,” Tommy said.
She whistled low. “That’s a long way from home. No Zones closer?”
“It’s slim pickin’s out there. Most of the functional ones won’t let ya in the front door.”
“Hmm. Your man here know how to speak?” she smirked, meeting Joel’s eye. She had a cut on her cheek, redness disrupting a smattering of freckles. He said nothing, only stared at those hazel eyes. “Guess not. Well, here’s a tip: don’t give your ration cards to strangers.”
“We could stand to follow that one,” Joel piped up, shooting a glare at his brother.
Tommy shrugged. “Figured the favor’ll come back to us someday, right…?”
“Tess.” She filled in his empty question with her name.
It’d been the first of many meetings, that led to a partnership, that led to in-fighting, that led to Tommy joining the Fireflies and Tess becoming his sole confidante. It wasn’t until a few years down the line that he’d finally fallen into her bed. The rest, he always hurriedly decided, was history. He didn’t need to examine the aching of his heart to know that the memory of her was still there. In some sad, twisted, complicated way, he did love her.
And now, her ghost was laying on the couch.
Just like clockwork, as if the day could get any more complicated, there was a knock on the door. Before he could even grant permission for entry, Tommy was standing in the kitchen.
“Hey, Joel, I had some plans for the hydro plant renovation if you have a few minutes, I wanted to see what you thought about—” Tommy stopped mid-sentence as he met his brother’s worried eyes. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Nothin’.” Joel swallowed, finishing the sentence curtly.
“Are you su—”
“Hey, can you tell your wife to cool it with the scissors next time? I think all those pregnancy hormones are going to her head again.” Ellie leaned in the doorframe, sporting her new haircut. Tommy stopped dead in his tracks. “Wow, it really is that bad, huh?”
“I—no, I—it looks good, El.” Tommy stammered through his sentence, blinking a few times. He looked over at Joel, who was looking down at his book once again.
“Jeez, you both really do hate it!”
“I don’t!” Tommy shook his head, crossing the room to meet her. “Here, let’s see it down.” He took the elastic from her hair and let the front parts of her hair fall down to frame her face. “I actually really like it, Ellie. I think it’s a nice look on you.”
She scoffed, shoving his arm a little. “Nice recovery. I’m gonna go see what they brought back from the run last night. Did they find any candy?”
Tommy chuckled. “Why don’t ya go find out?”
Ellie took off out the door again, leaving the brothers alone to the conversation Joel was suddenly dreading. He didn’t want to talk about this now. Not about her.
“Joel, she—”
“Am I losing my mind?” Joel said abruptly, running a tense hand through his hair.
Tommy sighed. “No. You’re not.”
He laughed a little. “Well, at least I’m not the only one who sees it. She—I dunno. I saw it before I guess but she’s really startin’ to look just like her. This haircut is really—I dunno. I really don’t.”
“Reminds me of the very beginning in Boston.”
“I never shoulda left the QZ, Tommy,” he exhaled loudly. He stood up and crossed the kitchen, rummaging in the cabinets for a bottle he knew wasn’t there anymore. “I shoulda turned around and stayed at home with her. Shouldn’t have ever gone outside the wall.”
“Joel…”
“It’s one thing for her to be dead. It’s just a whole ‘nother thing to have her sittin’ around here lookin’ exactly like her, twenty years ago. It’s too much. It really is.”
Tommy leaned against the counter, stunned into silence. This was the most Joel had ever spoken of his feelings on Tess since arriving at the compound three years ago. It was usually Tommy who did the talking.
“Do you want me to say something to her?” Tommy offered.
“No. No, she’s already feelin’ shitty about the haircut as it is. I don’t want her thinkin’ it’s any fault of hers that she’s got the same look on. I just… I don’t know. I wasn’t expectin’ it. I wasn’t thinkin’ I was gonna have to deal with that today.”
Tommy nodded. “I understand.”
“It’s like seein’ a ghost, Tommy.”
His younger brother’s eyes softened. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
A pregnant silence passed between them, awkward and tense. “I miss her,” Tommy said, finally speaking again. He didn’t want to drag up more memories than had already been brought to the surface. There was so much he needed to say, so many pieces of her he wished he could share with Joel, but he just couldn’t bring himself to put his brother through it.
“Yeah,” Joel answered, sitting back down at the table in defeat, looking down at his book. “I do too.”