It had been months since Kelly had put a name to the horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, the feeling that made her not want to leave her bed, made her dread going to school.

Depression.

It was a stigma that stayed with you, her friend had told her. Something which needed work to handle, constant self reflection to understand when you need help and when to take a step back or make a change to your routine.

She had thought she was okay, she hadn’t felt like this for ages and today it hit her like a steam train. She recognised it this time though. It took a monumental effort to call her friend, any time previously she would have just hidden away from the world. This time was going to be different.

“Yeah, just… a bit down.” There was a moment's silence on the other end of the line.

“Want to do something fun?” Charlotte asked her eventually.

“I don’t know that I’ll be very good company though.” Kelly admitted, fighting the urge just to say no.

“That’s okay. It’s not like I’m doing anything anyway. I’ll come over on the bus.”

Kelly sighed, “Okay… Thanks.”

“Hey, it’s fine. Even if we end up vegging on the couch watching cartoons, at least you won’t be alone.” Charlotte said with more enthusiasm than Kelly could imagine mustering. “See you in a half hour.”

They ended the call and Kelly looked around her room, it was a tip so she half heartedly picked up the dirty laundry and dumped it in her washbasket. It was all she could be bothered doing so she opened her top drawer and pushed the mess from her desk in without even trying to sort through it. She glanced around the room, taking in the unmade bed and the annoyingly huge collection of shoes littering the floor.

“Meh.” She said, deciding to just not invite Charlotte in.

She left the room and shut the door firmly.

Traipsing down to the kitchen she could feel her feet dragging, she took a deep breath, ‘Fake it till you feel it Kelly’ she thought and straightened her back, making an effort to walk confidently.

“Hey Mum, Charlotte is coming over soon.” She said, sitting at the breakfast bar.

“Oh, erm, okay. You may want to tell your sister, she’s looking after you today.” Her mum said, busily making a packed lunch, “I’m off to work for the day.”

“Oh.” Kelly said meekly.

Hearing the tone of her reply her mum looked around with a frown, “I’m sure it will be fine, I think Abby will be round soon so you probably won’t even see them.”

Kelly took a deep breath and repeated her mantra to herself, “Yeah, I’m sure she won’t mind. I’ll just go tell her.”

Her sister was fine with it, dismissive in fact. Likely distracted by thoughts of a day with her girlfriend with no adults around. It was probably a good thing that Charlotte was coming over, otherwise she would probably be completely alone for another day of the school holidays.

She skulked off to the living room and put on those cartoons Charlotte had alluded to. She huffed, “Anime is not cartoons.”

Charlotte let herself in, unnoticed, and the first Kelly knew of it was when she vaulted over the couch and landed next to her, the hard composite of her blade leg coming down casually on the glass coffee table with a clink.

“Wait until you hear what you’re doing today!” She said excitedly, dropping a shopping bag directly on Kelly’s gut.

“Oof, holy crap!” Kelly laughed, recovering from the shock. She realised a second later that she had laughed, possibly for the first time in days. ‘Perhaps this is a good idea.’ she thought.

“Go on, look in the bag!” Charlotte’s excitement was palpable.

Peering into the bag the first thing Kelly saw was clippers, “Erm… are these for my hair or yours? Cos’ I don’t think Mum would like me cutting my hair.”

“Mine, silly! Remember when I was getting fitted for my new leg? Mum told me I could change my hair and then totally backtracked?” She bounced on the sofa, “Well, after like the millionth time nagging her, she said yes!”

“Oh my god, there’s dye in here too!” Kelly was getting excited for her friend too, “Is she letting you dye your hair?”

“She says I can do anything I want. Only thing is, I can’t spend much money so we have to do it ourselves.” She smirked, then punched Kelly’s leg, “Or rather, you get to do it for me.”

Kelly’s heart dropped as she realised how much trust Charlotte was giving her, “Woah…”

Seeing her reaction Charlotte nudged her, “Hey, worst case you shave my entire head and I look like MegaSonic Teenage Warhead.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s Negasonic. With an N.” Kelly said with a smile, she took another deep breath, this time not needing the mantra, “Let’s do it!”

“Yes!” Charlotte shouted, punching the sky. She jumped off the couch and hauled Kelly up by the wrist. “Where are your old towels?”

“No way! The old ones are the best. We can use Anne’s ones.” Kelly said, horror in her voice.

“You’re not using my anything!” Anne called through the house, obviously rubbernecking, “Mum has some ones she uses for dye in her cupboard. Use them.”

The two girls sniggered and Kelly led the way to her parents bedroom.

As she rifled through the contents of her parents linen closet in their ensuite bathroom she mused, “I’m not normally allowed in here but I guess Mum would rather this than me destroy a good towel.”

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“Ever wonder what she doesn’t want to looking at?” Charlotte teased from the doorway.

“Oh god, I don’t even want to know!” Kelly said, throwing the stained towels at her friend, “And I don’t want you knowing either!”

“Spoilsport.” Charlotte said with a smile.

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Kelly looked at the clippers Charlotte had brought with her, they were cheap and light with hardly any combs to set the length.

"Erm, Charlotte? My dad has an attachment he made for his clippers that fits on a vacuum cleaner, I'm fairly sure he said you could adjust the length on it up to shoulder length." She told her, hoping she would let her use that.

"Okay, but I really want it short." Charlotte said in a slight pout.

"Can we try something different though? I can cut it short afterwards if you hate it."

"Hey, if you want to spend all day cutting my hair, have at it!" She said, smiling at Kelly.

"Okay, it's in the garage I think." Kelly rushed out, intending to just grab the clippers and hoover and be back before she missed her but she heard her footsteps following slower behind.

She threw open the garage door and started rummaging before she got there, her dad kept all his little projects in the garage so that her mum wouldn't throw them out.

"Wow!" Charlotte gasped from the door, "It's like a full on workshop in here."

"Yeah, Dad has some cool stuff. We built the 3d printer together at Christmas, he's been printing all sorts of stuff since then." She found the printed adapter for the clippers and showed Charlotte. "He wants a lathe and a mill but mum won't let him spend that much money."

"Cool, hey what's that sitting in the printer just now?" She asked, peering at the print bed, "it doesn't look finished."

"It is, it's just one part though, Dad is trying to turn the printer into a CNC router using a dremel."

Kelly told her, idly peeling the part from the print bed, "It takes ages to print so he only does one part a day."

"Do you know how to use it?" She asked, "Can we see it running?"

Kelly had a quick look at the parts laid out on the bench, "Yeah, I think I can just print the next part." She probably should have been doing that for him the whole time they were on holiday but she really couldn't motivate herself.

Kelly quickly did the setup for the printer, checked the bed was level and that there was enough filament, then kicked off the next part. "It takes a minute or so to warm up." She told Charlotte and they both stood and watched the temperature on the LCD screen tick up until finally the machine whirred and clunked into life.

"It's kind of mesmerising." She said, staring at the print head shuttling around and squirting hot plastic. They both watched it in silence for a minute.

"The plastic is okay but I really would like to play with a metal sintering one, they cost a ridiculous amount though, like the price of a car!" Kelly told her, imagining being able to print cool parts for robotic hands.

"Cool." Charlotte said quietly, her head following the shuttling print nozzle as it moved onto the second layer of the print.

"Anyway, hair?" Kelly suggested, waving the plastic adapter in the air.

Charlotte dragged her attention from the machine, "Erm… yeah." She said, blinking in confusion.

They hurried back to the bathroom, Kelly grabbing the vacuum on the way and then spent a few minutes working out how the contraption worked. The pipe from the vacuum went in a round hole over the top of a clipper comb which had been screwed into the plastic. There was then a clear extendable tube with another comb at the far end, the way the airflow passed through the tube caused the hair to be sucked up over the blades of the clipper. It only seemed to extend about eight inches, less than the shoulder length that Kelly had promised but way longer than the no8 comb which was the largest they had otherwise.

"Okay, are you ready for this?" Kelly asked nervously.

"Hell yeah, chop it all off!" Her friend cheered.

The machine clunked on and with the hoover and the clippers running made a huge racket. Kelly gingerly touched the end to Charlotte's head and instantly could see hair being sucked up the tube. As she passed the contraption up her head she could see the effect.

"It's working!" She exclaimed, a smile creeping onto her face.

It turned out there was a flaw in the machine, it clogged as too much hair was sucked into the tube, the bulk preventing the hair from contacting the blades.

"Damn, I think I need to pull it all the way off and then start again." Kelly said as soon as she noticed this.

She ended up having to take two inch long strips, remove the device from her friend's head and go back from higher up, it took a little bit longer but once the bulk of the hair was removed it started to work better.

"It's sort of surfer chick style, very layered from about half way down." Charlotte commented, admiring her new cut in the mirror. "I like it but, perhaps it needs something else?"

Kelly finished the cut and stepped back, "What do you think? Undercut?" Her friend wrinkled her nose, "Okay, short at the back and long at the front?"

"A graduated bob? Nah." She messed with her hair for a minute, "You know, I think I want the back and sides short anyway, how about we leave the top long and see what that looks like?"

"An undercut you mean?" Kelly said cheekily. She quickly changed the clippers to a normal comb though and used a number of hair clips to hold the hair on top.

She spent a while getting the back and sides looking good, resolutely not thinking about how nice it was to touch her friend's neck. She used three sizes of comb to get the tapered look and was quite happy with it once she finished.

"Oh, we totally should have been taking photos!" She said, grabbing her phone and snapping a quick picture, she was disappointed at herself for not thinking about that sooner.

The hair did need to be shorter, they tried cutting it down an inch at a time with the clippers but ended up with it just slightly long and using scissors to make it neat.

"I think it would look great with some gel in there to spike it." Kelly said, admiring the finished cut.

"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we had red dye and had the tips of the spikes red with the rest neon blue?" Charlotte suggested, looking at the blue hair dye.

"Well, we have to bleach it anyway, we could leave the ends blond." Kelly mused, completely unsure how to do that.

"Mum has red dye, she wouldn't mind you using it." Anne said from the doorway.

Kelly jumped a mile, "Holy crap Anne! Why are you skulking like that?"

Anne just smiled and walked away, "I'll grab it from her bathroom." She told them over her shoulder.

"Hey, how about the blue back and sides, blonde for the longer hair and red at the tips? We could totally do that!" Kelly suggested, wishing she could just Photoshop a picture to find out how it would look.

Anne returned with a half packet of hair dye, "You should use vaseline to stop the dye getting on her skin." She told them helpfully, "There's a big tub under the sink."

"Why do we have a big tub of petroleum jelly?" Kelly asked, frowning. She got no answer though as Anne just shrugged as she walked away.

She fished the tub out anyway and found it was completely untouched, "Okay, reading the instructions might be a good idea." She said, pulling the giant folded sheet from the bleach.

It took them over an hour to finish the hair dye, by which time Anne's girlfriend had arrived, giving them timely advice about using kitchen foil to make sure the red dye stayed only on the tips of Charlotte's hair.

"Oh man, that is so cool!" Charlotte gushed, turning her head left and right. "I'm going to have to buy some hair gel though."

"You can keep this stuff, I got it for Halloween a couple of years ago and haven't used it since." Kelly told her, handing the tub of 'insane hold' gel to her. She was thrilled the haircut had come out so well. Realistically she had been expecting Charlotte to go home with a patchy blue Sinead O'Connor cut, and to be upset and angry with her. She was actually rather envious of the end result though.

"I guess we aren't going swimming today though." She said, assuming her friend wouldn't want the dye to fade so soon.

"You have a swimming cap don't you?" Charlotte asked, "Not that we can go swimming today anyway, I don't have enough money for bus fare and swimming pool entry."

"You don't have a bus pass?" Kelly asked.

"I live like two minutes walk from the school, why would I need one? Anyway, it's not like it's valid during the holidays."

"I'm pretty sure it is!" Kelly told her incredulously.