Page 36 of Wylder and the Secret Rockstar
"Get him out of your head, girl," she told herself. Beckett once told her he gave himself pep talks in the mirror, and that it helped.
Wylder didn't know about all that, but it was worth a shot.
"Sebastian Cook is not some fairytale love," she said. "He isn't your Diego." That, of course, referred to Killian and Diego's adorable romance.
Wylder turned the faucet on and splashed water onto her face before looking in the mirror again. "Girl, you cray." She imagined that was the kind of thing Beckett said to himself. Because hewascrazy.
Pursing her lips, she pulled one dread over her shoulder, staring at the end of it. For so long, these had been tied to her identity. They fit the image of the rock star she'd wanted to portray all those years ago when she got them. Now, that image was no longer her.
And it was the girl Sebastian knew.
Digging in the drawer next to the sink, she found the scissors she used to trim up the ends occasionally. Without another thought, she snipped off the dread, letting it fall into the sink.
"Oh gosh." She covered her mouth. "What have I done?" A laugh bubbled out of her. There was something freeing about it, like a snake shedding its skin.
This was Wylder shedding hers, transforming herself from the girl everyone knew to something else entirely.
With each dread she hacked off, her smile widened, until every last one of them sat in the sink, a used costume she had no more need of.
Now, her hair was ridiculously short in places and longer in others. Part of her dreads still remained, leaving the jagged ends uneven and in dire need of brushing. But she looked less like the old Wylder, the one who'd thought one summer could make a girl fall in love.
And that was a win.
The bathroom door opened and a gasp had her turning toward the noise. Killian stood frozen, his eyes wide.
"What did you do?"
She shrugged. "What I needed to."
"Oh, Wylds." He bit his fist to hide a laugh—and failed. "It looks terrible."
"It does, doesn't it?" She grinned at her friend's shock, but it was forced because her actions were just starting to sink in. "Oh my gosh, it looks terrible." She leaned back against the shower door, her shoulders slumping.
"No, don't cry. I don't do girl tears." He slid into the bathroom and took the scissors from her. "I can fix it. I cut both my sisters' hair for years. I had to learn." Killian had grown up poor in a household with a single mom and two sisters in Texas. It didn't surprise her he knew how to cut hair. “But if I do this.” He steered her around to sit on the toilet, “it doesn’t leave this bathroom, you hear me, Wylds?”
"I don’t care about the hair." A sob wracked her body. "Killian, I thought it would change me. Cutting them off was freeing in a way, but that didn't last. Now I'm just the same girl, except I don't have cool hair anymore."
Killian brushed shorn hair from her shoulders and bent to look her in the eye. "Why would you want to be anyone else? My bestie is amazing, cool hair or no."
She leaned against him, letting him pull her into a hug. "I'm sorry I'm such a mess."
"We're all messes, Wylds." He rested his chin on her head. "I know something is going on with you. Diego hinted at it but wouldn't tell me. And you've been off all month like something is bothering you. I need you to tell me what it is, because that's the only way I can help you."
"You can't help me."
"I can try. Even if it's just you telling me who we need to hate and me cursing his name."
She let out a sound between a laugh and a cry. "I kissed Mr. Cook."
His entire body froze, and she realized she'd left a large chunk of the story out.
"Mr. Cook is Sebastian, the guy I met last summer. And today, I did the dumbest thing I could. I kissed him."
"Give me a minute, Wylder, I'm trying to wrap my head around you dating our teacher."
She punched him in the stomach. "It was before he was our teacher. I'm trying to stop thinking about him, but it's so hard when he's right there, and today... I don't know what I was thinking."
He sighed. "You were thinking with your heart, not your head. A very Anderson thing to do."
