She cut her hair against her parents’ orders in the summer of ‘86. They were furious and grounded her. She snuck through the window and lost her virginity to the first boy who noticed and liked her hair.

She cut her hair in the winter of ‘90 the day after dropping out of college and telling her roommate Vanessa (hair as long as her nose) to keep it a secret. She didn’t. Her parents cut her off.

She cut her hair in the fall of ‘91 because it kept falling in her face waitressing in the diner. She had been trying to grow bangs. Forget it, she thought as she took the chicken shears to them in the kitchen.

She cut her hair in the summer of ‘93 after her live-in boyfriend drove her to the clinic. He held her hand the entire time. She left him the following week.

She cut her hair with manicure scissors in a motel bathroom in the spring of ‘95. She had been living with a man who hit her for the first time a week before she met you.

You met her in a crowded bar and she wasn’t convinced you weren’t “an asshole.” You asked for soda, and she laughed at you. You complimented her short hair.

It took a year to draw the stories out of her. Her history grew long before you, and you wondered why she hadn’t forgiven her parents, kept a boyfriend or a job. You desperately wanted her.

It was the turn of the century, and her hair was long. You watched her braid it every evening and twirl the curls around her fingers every day. You loved her completely, and she called you her home base.

You asked her to marry you and she said no. You had thought six years together would have changed her mind on the matter, but it hadn’t. She was furious at you for even suggesting it.

You spent the next month apologizing in little ways. You knew it was hard for her; it always had been. “This can be enough,” you told her, and you meant it.

You came home to discover she had cut her hair, short like when you first met her. She didn’t look you in the eye when you complimented her. She silently packed while you were asleep and left you before dawn.