My Boyfriend Let His Junior Cut My Hair

While I was asleep, Oren’s junior colleague, Lila, cut off my long hair and posted humiliating photos of me in our group chat to sell them. I was shaking with rage, but Oren just said, “Lila’s just being childish. Don’t stoop to her level.” So I gave her a taste of her own medicine. I shaved Lila's head, hung a sign on her that read "Academic Trophy," and posted it for sale in the same group chat. Oren roared at me, “Victoria, are you even human?!” Later, Lila sent me a photo of Oren accompanying her to a prenatal checkup, complete with a taunting voice message. “Once Oren’s research is published, we’re getting married. You’d better come to the wedding, Vicky!” She didn’t know that the research lab Oren was so proud of was funded entirely by my family, the Byrnes. And now, I was done with Oren. The brilliant man she saw, the one with the dazzling future, was about to lose everything. 1 I woke to a series of sharp, stinging sensations. The first thing my eyes focused on was Lila. She was holding my phone in one hand and a pair of medical scissors in the other—the kind with blunt tips, used for cutting gauze. A sly, triumphant smile played on her lips. “Oh, Vicky, you’re awake! I gave you a new haircut. You’re welcome.” My hand flew to my hair, and my blood instantly ran cold. My fingers didn't find the smooth, waist-length waterfall I was used to, but a jagged, butchered mess. The left side was prickly against my scalp, the right a chaotic jumble of varying lengths. The back of my head felt terrifyingly bare. I scrambled into the adjoining bathroom. The fluorescent light hummed to life, illuminating a bizarre, laughable monster in the mirror. Was that me? My left temple was crudely sheared to the earlobe, the stubble uneven, revealing patches of sickly green-white scalp. In the center of the back of my head, a palm-sized chunk was gone, like a patch of turf violently ripped from the earth. The long hair on my right side was hacked into a hideous, step-like pattern, the longest strand barely brushing my shoulder. The hair I had spent seven years growing was utterly ruined. I remembered Oren whispering in my ear how much he loved the feel of my long hair brushing against his cheek, like the softest feather. For that, I had turned down every stylist who suggested a shorter cut, treasuring it like a jewel. Now, it was a joke. My fingers trembled as I tried to smooth the mess, only to have more fine strands of hair fall through my fingers. My eyes reddened instantly, not from sadness, but from a profound, soul-crushing humiliation. Lila followed me into the bathroom, the phone’s camera still pointed at me, recording my every devastated expression. “Auctioning off a ‘brand new look’ for Oren’s girl! Starting bid $10, comes with a free academic waste recycling service.” She typed as she spoke, her voice laced with faux innocence. “Oh dear, does a princess like you even know what PCR is? Or cell culture? The lab isn’t a place for you to be playing with your hair, you know.” My phone began to vibrate uncontrollably. It was the "Kingston Inner Circle," a small, private group chat with only thirty-two members, all of whom were friends who had been with Oren and me from our undergraduate days to our PhDs. I opened it. Messages were flooding the screen. Mark, Oren's lab mate: [??? Lila, you’re playing with fire.] My best friend, Sophie: [Lila, are you fcking insane?! @Oren Get your girl in line!]* Someone else posted a laughing emoji: [Not gonna lie, it’s kind of a punk look.] In three minutes, there were over ninety-nine new messages. Each one was a tiny knife, twisting in my already wounded heart. Just then, the door to the inner lab was yanked open. Oren stormed out, noise-canceling headphones around his neck. He had just finished an online meeting. He froze for a second when he saw the scene in the bathroom. Me, with my ridiculous, ruined hair, glaring at him with red-rimmed eyes. Lila, holding my phone, smiling innocently. He frowned and took off his headphones. “What’s going on?” “Oren!” Lila scurried to his side like a startled fawn, her tone so guileless it sounded like she was seeking praise. “Vicky’s hair was so long, I was worried it would get contaminated in the lab. I just wanted to help her trim it a bit.” She waved the phone. “Everyone in the group chat thinks it’s creative!” On the screen, messages of shock and amusement were still scrolling rapidly. I stared at Oren’s face, waiting for the explosion, waiting for him to defend my honor. He glanced at the group chat, and the corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably. It was the face of a man trying desperately not to laugh. Then he turned to me, his eyes holding no sympathy, only a tired sort of blame. “Victoria, Lila just had her research data accepted by a Cell Press journal. She’s just excited and playing a joke on you.” He paused, his gaze resting for a fraction of a second on my mangled hair before flicking away. “It’s just hair. It’ll grow back.” Such a casual dismissal. Seven years of care, reduced to “it’ll grow back.” My gaze involuntarily dropped to the collar of his lab coat. Tucked underneath was a hand-knitted, grey-blue scarf. The stitches were clumsy, uneven, and a few were even dropped at the end. It was endearingly amateurish. I recognized it. Three days ago, Lila had posted a picture of it on her social media. The caption read: [A thank-you gift for my mentor. Knitted until 3 AM, my hands are about to fall off! ~] The accompanying photo was an intimate shot of Oren, head bowed, as she wrapped the scarf around his neck to test the length. My mouth opened, but the words, “Do you remember I grew my hair for seven years for you?” wouldn’t come out. “Hey everyone, come and judge for yourselves!” Lila deliberately raised her voice, calling out to two graduate students who were peeking out from down the hall. “Don’t you think Vicky’s new hairstyle is so refreshing? She won’t have to worry about maintaining it anymore!” The two of them sucked in a breath, their eyes a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity. Oren’s patience finally snapped. He glanced at his watch. “Victoria, I have a thesis defense rehearsal tomorrow at 8 AM. Dean Albright is personally attending.” “Just go home, please? This… Lila’s just being childish. Don’t stoop to her level.” I took one last look in the mirror. The woman in the silk dress stared back, her hair a disaster, her eyes so red they looked like they might bleed. I grabbed my bag and stormed out of the bathroom. As I passed Oren, I caught the faint scent of gardenias. It was Lila’s perfume. 2 I stopped at a vending machine, leaning against it, feeling like I might collapse. Oren caught up, grabbing the corner of my sleeve. “Victoria.” He sighed. “Lila’s from a poor family, her parents always favored her brothers. She fought tooth and nail just to get into Kingston. It hasn’t been easy for her. I’m just… looking out for her a bit, the same way you used to look out for me.” “Looking out for her?” I yanked my arm away and spun to face him. “Looking out for her means adding her to our private group chat? The one with only thirty-two people? The one my own cousin isn’t even in!” I pulled up the chat history and shoved the phone in his face. Lila posted in it almost daily, like a conqueror planting flags. [Oren teaching me how to run a gel electrophoresis, step-by-step. He’s so gentle~ [Image]] The picture was a close-up of Oren’s focused profile. [Late night in the lab! Just me and my mentor burning the midnight oil again! [Image]] The picture showed two coffee cups side-by-side amidst a scatter of research papers. [Oren says I have a real talent for research~ [Blushing Emoji]] Every post was a new provocation. And the friends who had witnessed our love story were now either silent spectators or active cheerleaders for her. “Everyone in the group is so nice!” a cheerful voice called out from the stairwell. Lila sauntered down, smiling like a victor. “One of the senior members even offered to help me find an internship. Oh, Vicky, a princess like you who was born with a silver spoon wouldn’t understand the bond we scholarship kids have, sticking together to survive.” My mind flashed back five years. Oren was crammed into a dingy, eight-hundred-dollar-a-month apartment, his eyes red from sleepless nights spent writing a grant proposal. I ached for him but didn't want to wound his pride. So, I had my father’s foundation secretly approve his project under the guise of a “high-scoring blind review.” It was the first major funding of his career. The night he got the news, he held me so tight, his voice thick with emotion. “Vicky, you are my only anchor.” The ding of an elevator door pulled me from my reverie. Oren’s advisor, Dean Albright, stepped out with several other professors. The Dean’s eyes immediately landed on my disastrous hair. He froze, his brow furrowing slightly. Lila instantly shed her provocative persona and put on a mask of obedient diligence. “Good evening, Professor Albright! We were just discussing our experimental design!” I saw Oren’s body tense up. He instinctively shifted, trying to shield me from his mentor’s view, before offering a polite smile. “Professor, all the data for tomorrow’s rehearsal is ready.” He never introduced me. Not a single word. It was as if I was an embarrassing problem that shouldn’t be there. Dean Albright gave Oren a long, meaningful look, nodded, and walked away with his colleagues. The moment he was gone, Oren’s voice dropped to a near-plea. “Victoria, please, just go home. I’ll come find you after my rehearsal tomorrow, okay?” I didn’t answer. I turned and walked towards the building’s entrance. Just as I pushed open the glass door, my phone vibrated again. It was the same group chat. Lila had posted again. It was a carefully staged photo: the longest lock of my severed hair, placed inside a clean petri dish, like a trophy specimen. The caption read: [Oren says my haircutting skills are pretty good. Maybe I should switch careers and become a stylist! [Winking Emoji]] My finger scrolled through the list of group members. All those familiar faces, all people who had witnessed the seven years of love between me and Oren. They had watched Lila invade my life, watched me be humiliated, and had either stayed silent or joined in the fun. Except for Sophie, not a single person had said a word in my defense. I closed the app and opened a chat with my father’s personal assistant. My fingers were cold, but my movements were steady. [Uncle Lee, I need a complete financial breakdown of all three phases of Oren’s lab project. Immediately.] 3 At two in the morning, I returned to my high-rise apartment. The sudden ring of my phone was jarring. It was my family’s butler. His voice was hesitant. “Miss Byrne, Mr. Vance arrived about an hour ago… with a Miss Miller. He said it was an academic emergency, that he urgently needed to use the Leica DMi8 microscope in your study. I… I couldn't stop them.” My heart sank. That microscope, worth over a million dollars, was a gift I’d bought for him at an auction in Germany to celebrate his acceptance into the PhD program. When he received it, he’d hugged the massive case, his eyes red, and choked out, “Vicky, I swear, I’ll use this to produce Nobel-level work.” It was his treasure, and our shared dream. I grabbed my car keys and raced back to the university. Through the glass window of the high-value instrument room on the second floor, I saw a scene that chilled me to the bone. Lila was hunched over the microscope, but she wasn’t looking at cell slides. She was examining a small diamond ring on her finger. Oren stood behind her, leaning in slightly, one hand on the back of her chair, the other adjusting the focus. They were impossibly close. “See the facets inside?” I heard his smiling voice through the glass. “The cutting process for a diamond of this quality is very complex. But don’t worry, Lila. You’ll have things like this of your own one day.” I shoved the door open. It slammed against the wall. Lila jumped, fumbling the ring. Oren looked up, startled. I walked straight to the microscope, switched it off, and stared at him. “I bought this for you in Germany to celebrate your PhD admission. You said you would use it to produce Nobel-level work.” “Vicky, don’t be so stingy!” Lila immediately clung to Oren’s arm, pouting. “Aren’t the centrifuge and the sequencer also paid for by the Byrne Foundation? Oren said sharing lab equipment is a virtue.” A flash of embarrassment crossed Oren’s face before he adopted a scolding tone. “Victoria, Lila has never seen such a high-end microscope before. She was just curious. What are you doing here so late? Don’t you have that important finance summit to attend tomorrow?” He was blaming me. Blaming me for interrupting him and Lila as they admired her ring with the gift I had given him. I said nothing. I just carefully packed the microscope back into its protective case. As I left, I saw Lila furiously typing on her phone. Five minutes later, as I drove off campus, my phone buzzed again. The same group chat. Lila: [Wow! Got to see a legendary million-dollar microscope today. My mind is blown! A huge thank you to Vicky for being so generous and sharing! [Image]] There were two pictures. One was a dazzling shot of the diamond’s interior, taken through the microscope’s eyepiece. The other was of me, my back to the camera, carrying the enormous case as I walked away from the lab, a solitary, forlorn figure. I pulled over, staring at the photo for a long time. Then, I called Sophie. “Sophie, did you see the picture?” “I saw it! I’m going to kill them! That cheating bastard and that little snake! Vicky, are you…” I cut her off. “I need you to find me four reliable people. Good with their hands, better at keeping their mouths shut. I need them tomorrow afternoon.” There was a beat of silence, then Sophie’s voice came back, low and thrilled. “Consider it done.” 4 The next day at 5 PM, in the underground parking garage of the science building. Lila was humming as she walked towards Oren’s white Audi. She was wearing a new dress and her makeup was perfect. When she was about ten feet from the car, two men in sunglasses stepped out and blocked her path. “Who are you?! What do you want?” she yelped, startled. “My mentor is Oren Vance! He’s coming down any second!” She reached for her phone, but one of the men snatched it away with swift precision. I stepped out from behind a concrete pillar. My hair had been expertly styled by the city’s top hairdresser into a chic, sharp bob. Every strand seemed to gleam with a cold light. “Lila,” I said, watching the panic bloom on her face. “Yesterday, you put my hair up for auction. Today, I’m giving you a sign to wear.” Before she could process my words, one of my men produced a pair of electric clippers. “BZZZZZZ—” The roar of the clippers echoed in the cavernous garage. Lila’s scream followed immediately. She thrashed wildly, but the two men held her fast. “Victoria! You’re insane! You wouldn’t dare!” I ignored her curses and nodded to the man with the clippers. Locks of her hair fell to the cold concrete floor. Three minutes later, the girl with the beautiful curls was gone, replaced by a pale, shivering woman with a freshly shaved head. The other man produced a pre-made cardboard sign and hung it around her neck. In bold red letters, it read: ACADEMIC TROPHY, $5 OBO, FREE SHIPPING. I took her phone, unlocked it with her fingerprint, and took a crystal-clear photo of her pathetic, tear-streaked face. Then, I opened her social media and posted the picture to her feed and to the “Kingston Inner Circle.” The caption: [Priced to sell. Comes with a bonus ‘Humble Beginnings’ sob story.] “Ding!” The elevator doors opened, and Oren walked out, carrying his laptop bag. He froze when he saw Lila, bald, with the sign around her neck, trembling in the corner. His face turned ashen, then a deep, furious red. “Victoria! What are you doing?! This is assault!” he roared, his eyes blazing with a rage and disappointment I had never seen before. “Just a little joke,” I said, even managing a small smile. “Didn’t Miss Miller say that academics are supposed to be the most open-minded people?” I took a step closer to him. “Besides, compared to you letting her waltz into our lives, humiliate me, and trample all over our past, what I’ve done is nothing, is it?” Lila finally snapped out of her shock. She touched her bald head and let out a bloodcurdling shriek. Oren immediately shrugged off his jacket, rushed over, and wrapped it around her, pulling her into his arms. When he looked back at me, his eyes were full of a murderous hatred. In the dead silence, Lila suddenly clung to him as if he were her last hope, her voice a hysterical, tear-choked cry. “Oren, I’m pregnant with your baby! You have to protect me!” The fury on Oren’s face vanished, replaced by an incredibly complex expression. It was a mixture of shock, panic, and… was that a flicker of relief? I took half a step back, my nails digging into my palms. Just then, his phone rang. It was one of the lab's suppliers, demanding payment on a critical project. He glanced at the caller ID, his brow tightening, and rejected the call. Then, he scooped the still-sobbing Lila into his arms and strode towards the elevator. He didn't look at me again. But just before the doors closed, I clearly saw him bend down and press a gentle, reassuring kiss to her forehead.

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