BalDina and the Long

Nine-year-old DINA has no hair. The other kids call her BalDina.
Dina has alopecia, an autoimmune condition that stripped her of every strand. But the loss she feels most is not physical. She has stopped going outside. She watches other children from her bedroom window, pressed against the glass like a face at an aquarium. Each night, before sleep takes her, her mother comes and presses a kiss to her bare head. It is a small, quiet ritual.
Her brother DEAN is everything she is not. His hair falls past his shoulders. He is loud where she is still, bold where she flinches. He is also her twin, which means he knows the architecture of her fear better than anyone. He watches her watch the world from that window. He cannot fix what is broken, but he refuses to stop trying. One afternoon in the garden, Dean asks her to close her eyes. When she opens them, he is holding flowers stripped of their petals. Bare, exposed, undone. He brings them to her nose. They still smell of summer. He tells her the flowers lost their hair. Her mother, who has been listening, steps into the light and tells Dina: never let anyone convince you that you are less.