Light Up My Life Read online

  “You’re dumping me…” she whispered.

  I could practically hear the tears in her voice. It broke my heart. I felt like a jerk, but I knew it would be harder later if I didn’t do this now. I just wasn’t built for a long-term relationship.

  “This isn’t going to work,” I said. “You’re looking for something serious, and I can’t give that to you. I told you that from the start.”

  “I know. I know… it’s my fault. I thought you had changed. I thought that what we had was special enough… I guess I was wrong.”

  I groaned. This was harder than I thought it was going to be. “I’m sorry. We are just on two different pages. It’s best if we just let things go now. I’m so sorry if you thought this was going somewhere that it wasn’t.”

  “Ok, well… you have a nice life,” she said. “Take care of yourself.”

  “You do the same,” I replied.

  I ended the call and went to take my shower. A part of me always wondered if it was a mistake to break up with a woman this great. It was fun, but I knew in my heart that having a long-term thing would just make me miserable. How long would it be before my misery made her crazy too?

  Yeah, I was doing the right thing. I knew I was…

  Chapter Two

  Kat

  “Are you sure you are doing this right?”

  The woman’s voice made my skin crawl. I felt like I was about to lose it and smack her right then and there. Somehow, I was able to keep calm and stay in control of myself.

  “It’s fine,” I said. I took a few deep breaths and stole a look at my friend Cassie who was working on her own client’s hair. She smiled and shook her head to let me know how much she did not envy my situation. Old, cantankerous Mrs. Duvall… She was a regular who had a real tough time with anyone touching her hair since Melanie left. Melanie could do no wrong, but had moved to San Francisco and left poor Mrs. Duvall in quite the bind dealing with us low levels who she was convinced had no idea how to cut her hair. Only Melanie’s magic fingers could do the trick.

  I truly hated this woman.

  But I desperately needed this job, and I was not about to blow it by saying or doing the wrong thing to this golden customer who came into the salon at least once or twice a week.

  “What are you doing?” Mrs. Duvall asked. “I wanted my bangs tapered… this is like straight across. Can you fix them?”

  “Sure, I’m not done yet. I was just adjusting some things,” I said with a big, fake smile.

  I took my comb and smoothed out the bangs before beginning to snip them slowly with my scissors. I could practically feel the apprehension as the woman wanted to squirm in the chair. I had to stop and move her head to the right spot before beginning again.

  I was about halfway across when she started to move her head back apprehensively. I sighed and got close to her face. “Mrs. Duvall, you need to sit still, or this will not work. You can’t move. OK?”

  She nodded briefly. I wanted just rail into her with my mouth and slap some sense into the old woman. But I couldn’t. Patience… just breathe. You can keep it together Kat, you have to.

  I took a deep breath and I began again. I was almost done with her trim, when the door opened behind us and Mrs. Duvall turned her head slightly at precisely the wrong moment. My scissors cut through the hair at a very odd angle, leaving the right quarter of her bangs basically nonexistent, gone, no way to fix it. She would just have to wait for them to grow back in.

  Shit. I was in so much trouble.

  Mrs. Duvall gasped as she realized what happened. She saw the shocked look on my face and spun her chair around to look in the mirror. She saw the damage and her jaw dropped wide open. “What in the hell? I knew you’d mess this up! Why weren’t you paying attention?”

  “I was. You jerked your head,” I said.

  “I did no such thing. I was still as could be. Don’t try to blame this on me. This is an outrage! I can’t believe it. Oh, no. You’ve got to fix this!”

  “I don’t think I can fix this. Unless you would wear some extensions.”

  “What? That’s never going to work. Those things look so fake. I won’t wear them.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. Let me work with the rest and I’ll see if we can make it unnoticeable,” I offered.

  “Don’t you dare touch my hair!” she screamed. “You will pay for this.”

  I looked at Cassie and shrugged. She was trying her best not to laugh, and so was I, even though I realized how much trouble I was probably in. The way this woman was overreacting was hilarious.

  She was out of the chair now and looking at herself in the mirror. “Oh, no, no, no…”

  “Mrs. Duvall, let me at least try,” I said.

  “NO! You won’t! I want your supervisor.”

  “Mrs. Duvall, that is not necessary. I can fix this,” I lied. The last thing I needed was Jenna coming out here to give me grief about this. She loved to ride me, and she’d been that way ever since I’d started working there. I believe she felt threatened by me. Her boyfriend came around every so often and he was always giving me the eye. I did my best to ignore him, but he was a bit of a creep. Jenna hated to think that her boyfriend had eyes for someone other than her. Didn’t she realize if he flirted like that with me, then he probably did with a lot of other girls as well? She was such an idiot. I couldn’t stand her.

  “I want her called out here!” Mrs. Duvall demanded.

  Jenna was already on her way. I hated that she’d taken over as manager of the salon when Melanie left. The little twit wasn’t even good at doing hair. She was fake, and universally hated by everyone on the staff.

  “What is going on?” Jenna asked.

  “Look! Look at what she did to my hair!”

  Jenna took a look at the mistake and I saw fire in her eyes. Her fists clenched at her side and she immediately scowled at me. “You did this?” She asked turning to me.

  “It was an accident. She jerked her head away and…“

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Jenna said. “This is unacceptable. We pride ourselves on doing great work here, and mistakes like this do not happen.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”

  “Well, that’s not good enough,” Jenna said. She turned back to Mrs. Duvall. “Ma’am, you won’t be charged for this of course. I’ll throw in a free cut for next time, a bottle of our new conditioner, and I will personally work on see what we can do to cover up this mistake so no one would ever be able to tell.”

  “Ok,” Mrs. Duvall said. “I just have no idea how you are going to fix this.”

  “Don’t worry, all of this will come out of Kat’s salary,” Jenna said with glee in her eyes.

  I couldn’t believe it. “That’s like eighty dollars!”

  “Yes, I know,” Jenna said. “Next time, maybe you will be more careful. Now, go mop the rest room and clean the sinks at the empty stations.”

  Before I could even respond, she turned around to kiss Mrs. Duvall’s ass and shower her with compliments.

  I was about to say a lot of things that would get me canned. I felt it all coming hard, but I somehow found the inner strength to turn and walk away from it.

  Once I was in the back where no one could see me, I broke down. I felt like hell. This was not my fault and the punishment wasn’t fair at all. But this was happening. I had to deal with it because if I told Jenna off, she would fire me. And I needed the money. I was barely scraping by as it was. How was I going to eat next week now with that money coming out? I’d have to find a way, but it was going to be a rough one.

  Dammit. She is such a bitch.

  I swallowed hard and tried to get a grip on myself before I started bawling like a baby. I would not let this break me.

  I clenched and unclenched my fists several times, trying to alleviate some of the pain and rage that I felt. It was so unfair. Hell, I wasn’t even supposed to be there. Not really. I’d had everything going for me. My entire future was set, and t
hen tragedy struck. I hated thinking about it, but rarely did I go a day without thinking about the accident.

  I was a freshman in college, living the dream. College was great, everything I’d ever dreamt it would be. Then I got the news that my parents had been struck by a tractor trailer and their car was basically destroyed. They were both pronounced dead at the scene. I could still remember the day those two sullen looking cops showed up at my door…I’d never forget it. I could feel it, see it, and even smell it…

  I wiped a tear from my eye as I tried to get myself together. It was in the past. But it would never leave me. I wouldn’t let it. But I was dealing with it on a daily basis, and not just from the emotional strain. My parents had life insurance, but a good deal of it went to funeral costs.

  I had to drop out of school and work two full-time jobs, and a part time job on the weekends. That lasted for a few years until I finally found a way to make it through beauty school and get a higher paying job as a hairdresser. It was enough to get by, but that’s all I was able to do. I wasn’t sure what my next move would be, but at least I didn’t have to work a hundred hours a week anymore for the same amount of money. I needed this too badly to screw it up. I just had to keep searching for a different salon with a better boss. But no one was hiring right now, especially someone who was not that experienced.

  The day finally ended, and I went home feeling depressed. I walked through the door of my one-bedroom apartment that I shared with my friend Kayley. She was a freelance photographer and spent a lot of her time uploading content to the internet. She was brilliant, and had a great gift, an eye for details most people missed.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” Kayley asked as I slumped down on the couch.

  I looked up at her and gave her a grunt with a grimaced look. She raised her eyebrows and nodded in understanding. “That good? Ok…you want to talk about it?”

  “Nah, it will just bum me out more,” I said.

  “Ok, well do you…“she started.

  “That bitch needs to have her face rearranged,” I said. “How dare she for thinking she can bully me and make me feel like garbage all the time?”

  “Who?” Kayley asked.

  “Jenna,” I replied. “Who else?”

  “Yeah, what did she do this time?”

  “It’s a combination of things. Really, she is just looking for an excuse to get rid of me.”

  “She isn’t going to get rid of you. She has too much fun picking on you and making your life miserable,” Kayley said. “Do you think she is going to give that up?”

  I laughed. She had a point.

  “Come on, get dressed,” Kayley said.

  “Why?”

  “We’re going out,” she replied.

  “Oh, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not in the mood.”

  “I told the girls we’d meet them at club Blitz,” she said. “You need it more than I do.”

  “I don’t. After the day I just had, the last thing I want to do is go out and party.”

  “That’s precisely why you should go with us,” she replied. “You have been sulking around here, acting like your favorite cat ran away for like six months. Ever since that douche Devon broke up with you.”

  “Thanks for bringing that up and kicking me when I’m already down.”

  She smirked. “You should get out of the house and have a little fun, blow off some steam. You know? Live a little.”

  The idea was sounding more tempting, but I felt like hell. I just wanted to melt into the couch with a tub of ice cream.

  “No, you go on without me. I can’t afford it and I’m just not in the mood.”

  “It’s my treat,” she said.

  I shook my head. She was relentless. Kayley was easily shooting down all my excuses and making them sound like exactly that—excuses.

  “I’m not going to meet anyone, if that is what you are thinking. I’m very happy being single for right now,” I replied.

  “Ok. Fine. No one said you had to go out and meet people,” she said. “We are just having a fun girls night. It will be so fun. I need to blow off some steam.”

  “Why? Your life is perfect,” I reminded her. “You have the best job being your own boss, the best boyfriend, and you have the best friend - in me.”

  She laughed. “That’s true,” she replied. “Except for the best boyfriend part. Keegan and I broke up.”

  “What? Are you crazy? Why did you break up with him? Wait… there is no way he broke up with you,” I said. I was flabbergasted. Why did she keep this from me this long and why was she so ok with it?

  “Yeah. I just realized that we want very different things in life. He is a manager of a very small electronics store. He is content to do that forever. Like, he is not at all trying to better himself. And it’s not like I’m after some guy with a fat, cushy job making six figures. I am my own woman; I make my own money.”

  “Right,” I agreed. Kayley was one of the most independent, strong women I knew. She kept telling me I was too, but I sure as hell didn’t feel that way a good portion of the time.

  “It’s just the fact that he doesn’t want more out of life,” she said. “He has no passion, goals, no desire for something else. I need someone with direction in life, you know? I constantly want to climb.”

  “I agree,” I said. “You should be with someone that you share that with.”

  “So, are you coming or not? It won’t be half as much fun without you.”

  I smiled. “I doubt that. The way I feel, I’ll probably bring everyone else down.”

  “We will deal with it.”

  I groaned and went to my room to get dressed.

  * * *

  The music was pumping loud, flooding my eardrums with a relentless pulsating beat. It felt like a warming sensation that rolled through my ears into my brain somehow making my whole body feel ultra-relaxed. I closed my eyes and imagined that the music was carrying me away. In a way it was. I was being transported to somewhere else in place and time, somewhere that I felt strong and capable. A place where I was able to tell the world that I knew to get bent. I could tell Jenna off so fast her ugly, little head would swivel. But that was not the reality of the situation.

  “Isn’t this fun?” Kayley asked me. She was sitting beside me bobbing to the music with her widest smile spread across her face. She was crazy. I loved her anyway, but she was certifiably insane. I wished I had half the guts she did. If she was in my position, she would have dropped the job I had like a bad habit and left to do her own thing.

  I just wasn’t sure I would ever be able to do that. Of course, it was easier for Kayley since her parents were well off. Her father was a dentist and her mother, a realtor. She never took a dime off them for any reason, but it was there if she ever really found herself in trouble. If you ever found yourself facing a hard landing. I’d had that once.

  “Yeah, I’m having a blast,” I said sarcastically.

  “You need to snap out of it and at least try to have some fun,” she said.

  “No, I told you I wasn’t going to be any fun tonight. I don’t want to be here.”

  Janice put her arm around my shoulder. “This is a place of excitement. You need to let that bad juju go. I mean, look around at all these sexy guys just yours for the taking.”

  I laughed. “I’m not paying much attention. A relationship is the last thing on my mind right now.”

  “Who said anything about a relationship. Just flirt, talk, and have some fun,” Susie winked.

  I had to admit being out with my girls was still better than being at home sulking all by myself. But tomorrow, I would be tired from being out too late, and I would have to suffer through another day. I had to start looking for something better, like really looking. If I was being honest with myself, I was stuck where I was because I’d allowed things to get me down and keep me in the same place.

  I made a pact that tomorrow I was going to start hunting for something better. I had to climb myself out of thi
s hole I was in. I’d made progress, I’d found a place I was comfortable in and become complacent. That wasn’t like me.

  “Oh my God, look over there,” Kayley said. She nudged my arm.

  I followed her gaze to see what she was staring at on the other side of the club. There was a guy standing there, tall, with wavy blonde hair. He was beyond attractive and staring at me.

  I was flattered for a moment, especially when he smiled at me, but then I turned away. “What? You expect me to do something with that?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “You are so hopeless. That is like the third super hot guy who has checked you out since we’ve been here. I mean, you say you don’t want to meet anyone, but then you wear a sexy dress like that. What do you think is going to happen? Guys are going to look, you’re hot.”

  I shrugged. I knew she had a point, but when I was out and about, why wouldn’t I dress to kill? It’s always fun to get dressed up to go out, but after I broke up with Devon, I’d sworn off men. They were just more trouble than they were worth. Devon had developed something of an internet porn addiction. At first, I didn’t notice anything wrong with it, a lot of people watch porn. He started to pull away from me, I would catch him on his computer often. I would get out of the shower, he was glued to the screen, didn’t even notice me walking in the room. I would wake up in the middle of the night, same thing. Our sex life began to falter, and when he did want to touch me, it was as if his mind was somewhere else, or he was trying to recreate the porn but not with me.

  I decided to end things and he didn’t even seem that upset, even though we’d been together for eight months. I thought things were getting pretty serious. Apparently, I was wrong. So, that was it for me. I needed some space from men.

  “That’s their problem,” I said. “By the way, I notice that none of these guys who are looking have approached us. They must not be too interested.”

  “Well, they won’t if you are giving off the bitch vibe. You need to be happy and smiling if you expect them to come over here. Your R.B.F. is unapproachable.”