Page 27 of Right Side of Paradise

Always Been You

I walked to my bedroom door, frowning at the sniffling I heard coming from the other side.

My music had been blasting before I finally heard the knocks, so I didn’t even know who it was.

Sometimes I got lost in music while I did my homework. It helped me focus. But my mother liked to remind me that I wasn’t the only person in this house.

Shit.

I hoped she wasn’t dealing with one of her migraines and this wasn’t her knocking on my door.

Swinging the door open, I blurted out an apology but froze when my eyes clashed with Harlow’s puffy ones.

“Harley, what are you doing here?”

She sniffed again and I noticed the raised bumps forming along her jaw and forehead. “Can I come in?” She looked over my shoulder, like my room held the refuge she was seeking.

I didn’t hesitate to step aside, letting her in. And she went straight to my bed before falling across it diagonally, crying into my comforter.

“Harley, what’s going on? What happened?”

I sat beside her short legs and rubbed her back.

“My hair!” Her muffled wail shifted my attention from her back to the box braids splayed across her back.

“What’s wrong with them? I thought you were excited to get them.”

“I was,” she cried. “But now my face and neck are breaking out! I’m allergic to my hairstyle.”

Her little shoulders shook with her next cry, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.

It wasn’t funny, but the first place she came was my house.

That meant something. Right?

Maybe now wasn’t the time to analyze my crush on Harlow Westbrook but hope still ballooned in my chest thinking about it.

Harley rolled over with a huff and that’s when the first seed of panic formed. In the time she’d been in my room, the bumps on her face had doubled. Red and puffy around the edges like welts.

Dang. She really was allergic to her hairstyle.

“Help me!” She sat up, eyes ping ponging around the room. “Scissors. I need scissors.”

Before I could stop her, she dived for the school supplies I had set up in front of my bed and held the scissors up to a pile of braids.

“Harley, wait!”

I pried them from her hand and watched her eyes swell with more tears.

“Soul, you don’t understand. I need to get these things off me.”

Keeping my voice calm, I pulled her down on the floor with me and moved the hair away from her face, making sure it didn’t touch her skin.

But when the braids kept doing what they wanted, I ran to my closet and wrapped her shoulders in one of my favorite beach towels.

“Hold that tight until I can get the braids down, okay?”

She looked up at me, eyes sad, lips trembling but nodded.

I didn’t know anything about hair, but I knew Harlow had a lot of it and I couldn’t just start snipping anywhere I wanted.

I started at the bottom and tried to talk her through her tears.

“How’d you get in?”

“Rain let me in,” she sniveled, staring at my hands while I chose a place to cut.

“Hmm,” I said, frowning in concentration. “What made you come here?”

“Rico is on a date with Lyric. Our parents are out of town. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” Saying that brought on a fresh wave of tears. I really needed to work on my conversation skills when it came to Harley.

“My bad. I wasn’t trying to make it sound like I didn’t want you here.”

It was the opposite. And I still couldn’t believe she was here. In my room. Letting me help her.

It took me a good ten minutes to get the first braid undone, and when I did her natural hair sprang free, coiling tightly toward her scalp.

“Just cut them,” Harlow whined, scratching at her face until the welts grew fatter and redder.

My eyes widened. That didn’t look good.

But I could only process one emergency at a time.

“You have way too much hair to just cut, Harley. Just give me a minute, I promise I’m going to fix it.”

She calmed at my words, but the itching didn’t stop. And the more she scratched the more it felt like welts would raise on my skin.

Harlow stopped talking but tears still leaked from her eyes, every single one of them breaking my heart.

Thankfully the braids weren’t small or else we would have been here for hours trying to figure this out.

“This is so embarrassing,” she hiccupped between tears. “I just wanted to look pretty.”

“You always look pretty, Harley baby.”

She didn’t believe me. I could tell from the way her gaze narrowed before she looked away.

Every time I took out a braid, I tossed it aimlessly on my bedroom floor.

Harlow looked around after braid ten, shock playing over her face. “Were you doing homework on a Saturday?”

I bowed my head briefly, a little ashamed. “Yeah.”

“Why.”

“Because it’s due Monday and I put it off all last month, and I really need a good grade in Ms. Baldwin’s class.” At least a C. Then I’d be done with English class forever.

Harlow dragged the back of her hand across her face to itch her welts without using her nails.

“What’s the project?”

“I already wrote the report, but I have to make a comic strip to represent the book.”

“Ooh, that sounds fun,” Harlow chimed in.

It didn’t but she wasn’t crying anymore and that was a win. “For my project, I decided to make a symbolism scrap book.”

And I bet she finished it the weekend it was assigned too.

Harlow was my best friend for a reason. She was smart. And sweet. And loyal. And honest. But she was also hella pretty. So pretty I couldn’t think straight around her sometimes. Even when she had tears and bumps covering her cheeks.

Speaking of which…

They weren’t going down. I needed to figure out what to do about them.

As soon as I had that thought, my mother opened the door and uttered under her breath, “I know you lying.”

She still had on the black apron she wore when she helped my dad at the restaurant but jumped into action right away when she saw my best friend.

“Soul, go get my comb off my dresser. The one with the rattail.”

I dropped the scissors, relief flooding me. “Yes, ma’am.”

I made it halfway out my door before she yelled, “And go in my medicine cabinet and get the calamine lotion. It’s pink.”

“Okay!” I called back, already walking through her room.

I came back with another towel, the comb and calamine lotion.

Harlow looked more at ease now that my mom was here and so was I. We needed an adult, and my mom was the best one I knew.

She got Harlow’s braids down in thirty minutes, fussing the whole time. “Whoever put these braids in your head didn’t prep the hair right.”

Harlow rested her head in my mom’s lap.

“Don’t you cry over this, pretty girl. You want your hair done, you come to me next time. You hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

My mom smiled. “Soul go see if y’all have any shampoo left in your bathroom. If not, I’ma have to ask your daddy to stop on his way home.”

After my mom took down all her braids, I helped Harlow wash her hair in my bathroom. She was on my floor now, head wrapped in a towel and looking over my empty poster board.

“I can help you,” she said softly.

I squeezed more calamine lotion in my palm and smoothed it over her irritated skin. Her face was still puffy, but washing her hair seemed to help. She wasn’t scratching as hard as she had been and the tears had been gone for over an hour.

Success.

“Soul, did you hear me? I can help you with your project.”

I stopped what I was doing and wiped my hand on my shorts. “Why?”

“What do you mean why ? Because I’m good at it. Why wouldn’t I help you?”

She tapped her chin. Cute .

“I wish you’d told me earlier, but we can still make it good before you have to turn it in.”

“Y’all want pizza?”

My mom was back at my door. Harlow nodded while I said the toppings we wanted. I’d eaten pizza with her enough times to know she loved extra pepperoni and bacon on her pizza.

My mother headed back to the front of the house, and I ducked my head to hide my smile again.

Harlow was reading my paper, and I basically just got a guarantee that she would be here through dinner.

Today was a good day.

But Rico would kill me if he knew how bad I had it for his sister.