My salon hummed with the usual morning quiet, a soft symphony of hairdryers and low chatter. It was my sanctuary, my escape, especially after he had ripped my life apart, just weeks before our wedding. I’d poured every ounce of my savings, every broken dream, into making this place a success. It was the only thing I had left.Then, she walked in.
The bell above the door chimed, a gentle warning, but nothing could have prepared me. Her entrance was less a walk, more a shuffle of defeat. She was young, probably early twenties, but her face told a story of a hundred years of pain. Her hair, once probably a vibrant blonde, was now a dull, matted mess, bleached roots screaming for attention against dark regrowth. Her clothes were clean but ill-fitting, hanging on her thin frame. And her belly. It was unmistakable, a gentle swell beneath a worn sweater. She was pregnant.
Her eyes, swollen and red-rimmed, darted around the salon, settling on me with a flicker of desperation. She gripped a crumpled ten-dollar bill and two singles in a trembling hand. “I… I just need something,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “Anything. I only have… twelve dollars.”
A smiling teenage boy sitting in a classroom | Source: Midjourney
My heart squeezed. Twelve dollars. That barely covered a basic trim at some places, let alone the transformation she clearly needed. My first thought was pragmatic. I can’t do much for twelve dollars. My second was purely emotional. She looks like she’s about to break. I knew that feeling. I’d lived it.
“Come on in,” I said, a little too quickly, ushering her to my chair. “Let’s see what we can do.” I pulled the cape around her shoulders, ignoring the faint, almost metallic smell of fear mixed with stale cigarette smoke. Don’t judge. Just help.
She sat stiffly, her gaze fixed on her reflection, then quickly averted. It was clear she hated what she saw. I began to comb through her hair, gently untangling the knots, feeling the coarse, damaged texture. “What are you hoping for?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.
She shrugged, a small, defeated movement. “Just… different. Clean. I just want to feel… human again.” A tear escaped, tracing a clean path down her grimy cheek. “He said… he said I looked a mess. And he was right.”
He. The word hung in the air, thick with unspoken hurt. I recognized that kind of pain. The kind that comes from a man’s careless cruelty. “Well, he’s wrong,” I said firmly, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “You deserve to feel beautiful, no matter what anyone says.” She gave a weak, watery smile, the first hint of life I’d seen in her.
A woman standing at her front door | Source: Midjourney
I worked meticulously. I snipped away the dead ends, adding layers to give her hair some life. Then, a bold decision. I mixed a warm, rich brown, a shade that would hide the years of neglect and bring out the warmth in her pale skin. This isn’t about twelve dollars anymore. This is about restoration. As I washed her hair, I massaged her scalp gently, feeling the tension slowly leave her body. She closed her eyes, a soft sigh escaping her lips.
“He promised me everything,” she mumbled, almost to herself, as I applied the color. “Said we’d start a family. A new life. Then… he just left. Vanished. Like I was nothing.” Her voice cracked. “Said he couldn’t handle it. The baby. The responsibility.”
My hands paused, a chill tracing its way up my spine. Sounds familiar. I swallowed, pushing the thought away. Plenty of rotten men in the world. “It’s not your fault,” I said softly. “Some men… some men are just cowards.”
She looked at me in the mirror, her eyes wide. “He loved that old car,” she said, changing the subject abruptly, a wistful look on her face. “Spent every spare minute in the garage. Talked about restoring it, driving us off into the sunset in a fully restored ’67 Mustang. He was so obsessed with it.”
My stomach clenched. A ’67 Mustang. My ex-fiancé, the man who’d shattered my world, had been obsessed with restoring a ’67 Mustang. He’d even bought parts for one, stored them in our garage, talking about “our future” as he tinkered. No. No, it’s a common car. A common dream. It’s a coincidence. I forced myself to smile. “That sounds like a beautiful dream,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, dismissing the sudden cold sweat.
A man walking in the rain | Source: Midjourney
The hours passed. I cut, I colored, I styled. The transformation was incredible. When I finally spun her chair around to face the mirror, her gasp was audible. The matted mess was gone, replaced by soft, flowing waves of rich, glossy brown. Her eyes, once hollow, now sparkled with a hint of hope. She ran her hands through her hair, tears streaming freely, but these were different tears. Tears of relief.
“I… I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “Thank you. THANK YOU.” She fumbled with the twelve dollars, pressing them into my hand. “It’s all I have. But I promise… I’ll come back. I’ll pay you more.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. I squeezed her hand. “Just take care of yourself. And that beautiful baby.”
She left, a little taller, a little steadier. I watched her go, a strange mix of satisfaction and lingering unease in my chest. The Mustang. It just wouldn’t leave my head. I told myself it was just exhaustion.
I started cleaning up, sweeping stray hairs from the floor. Underneath my styling chair, a small piece of crumpled paper caught my eye. It must have fallen from her pocket. I picked it up, intending to throw it away.
It was a pharmacy receipt. Dated yesterday. And on the back, hastily scribbled in a familiar, hurried hand… MY HEART STOPPED.
It was HIS NAME. My ex-fiancé’s name. The man who had walked out on me, leaving me utterly devastated.
A navy notebook on a bookshelf | Source: Midjourney
And beneath his name, in smaller, neater letters, was a doctor’s appointment: “Baby’s first scan – Tuesday 10 am.”
A guttural cry tore from my throat. My vision blurred.
HE DIDN’T JUST LEAVE ME FOR HER.
HE LEFT HER TOO. PREGNANT. BROKE. DEFEATED.
The trembling woman with twelve dollars, the woman I had just spent hours trying to mend, was the “other woman.” The one I had demonized, the faceless entity who had stolen my future. And he, the man I had loved, had betrayed us both, leaving a trail of destruction that led right back to my salon.
I dropped the paper. My hands started to shake. I could still smell the lingering scent of her perfume, mixed with the fainter, almost imperceptible scent of his cologne, a scent that now felt like a curse.
OH MY GOD. I HELPED HER. I FIXED HER UP. AND HE WAS THE FATHER.
The irony was a brutal, physical blow. I had unwittingly poured my kindness, my empathy, my pain, into the very woman who had (unknowingly) brought about my own heartbreak, only to discover that we were both just different casualties of the same monstrous lie.
A smiling woman standing outside | Source: Midjourney
HE DESTROYED US BOTH.
And now, the woman I had fixed, the woman I had given hope, was carrying his child, alone, just as he had left me, alone. The quiet hum of the salon suddenly felt deafening. The silence, a scream.
