Eyebrows

by Caitlyn Zawideh

The pretty blonde girls at school get the space between their eyebrows for free, but not me. My dark, stubborn hair grows back no matter how many times I try to banish them. I lean over my bathroom counter to bring my face closer to the mirror, run my fingers over the trespassers. I dab the cold white cream my mom gave me over the space. She says it will numb the skin.

The beautician has me lie back on the padded bench, sweeping my hair out of my face with sterile gloved hand. She pulls down the ring light inches above my face and turns it on. I close my eyes. Splotches of color dance in the darkness behind my eyelids.

Prick. She stabs a single hair in the space between my eyebrows with a needle, hot enough to zap the follicle.

Burn. She holds it there, pressing so hard it feels like as if she’s pierced through to my skull. My eyes water reflexively.

Pluck. With the hair follicle properly burned, she pulls the needle out, taking the single hair with it.

Waxing is quicker, plucking is less painful, but this is permanent. Supposed to be, anyway. My mom says when she was my age she went to an appointment every couple weeks for a few months. The hair was gone forever by the time she started high school.

Prick. I inhale.

Burn. I hold my breath, teeth clenched.

Pluck. I exhale.

Prick. Burn. Pluck. Prick. Burn. Pluck. One hair at a time, the beautician clears the space between my eyebrows. When it’s over, she dabs cold aloe onto my skin and I wince, expecting another stab of the needle.

“You’re done,” she says. “See?”

I open my eyes. My reflection hovers above my face in a handheld mirror. The hair is gone, replaced by angry skin, red and raised. She tells me the swelling should go down by tomorrow.

In the morning, before school, I lean close to the mirror and run my fingers over the new space. It’s not smooth. The swelling has given way to dark, rough scabs. Horrified, I steal concealer from my mom’s makeup bag, helplessly dabbing it over the irate skin as it stings in protest.

Eventually the scabs heal, but by then the hair has grown back, so I return to the padded bench and the ring light and the prick burn pluck. I scab. I heal. The hairs always return. Stubborn. Unwilling to stay dead. Insisting on being reborn.