“Then keep an open mind and bend right over the bath, I don’t want to get this everywhere.”
I did what she said. What was me? That was a very good question. I had the opportunity to reinvent myself, but the only person I wanted to be was the one I was before Dad died, and since I didn’t know how to go back there I was pretty much screwed.
Sophie washed my hair and went back downstairs so she could wait with the others to see it. I stayed in my room and kept it wrapped up in a towel. Jesus, I was an idiot. It was just hair. Plenty of people changed the colour of their hair every day and I was stressing about it so much I felt sick.
“Tegan, come on!” Kai said, coming into the room and laughing at me. “Are you gonna take the towel off anytime soon?”
I shrugged. “Not sure if I want to see.”
“Well, I’m sure and I want to see. Let me look.” I scowled at him and pulled the towel off my head. It fell in a half dried tangled mess around my back
He just stood there staring at me. “It’s hideous, isn’t it?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Really?”
“Really. Fuck, you look so different but so you at the same time.”
Helpful.
“In a good way?”
“Yeah, in a good way. Look, I’ll leave you to dry it but if you’re still hiding out here in fifteen minutes I’m dragging you back downstairs.” He handed me my phone. “And Lucas called.” He turned around and walked back out.
I dialled his number. “Hey, shorty, how’s it going?”
“You’re tall and Sophie dyed my hair brown.” That about summed it up.
“Whoa. Why? I didn’t know you wanted to dye your hair.”
“I didn’t but I want to run around naked even less.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “So, you’ve just done this?”
“Yeah, I’ve not even looked at it yet.”
“Right…”
I frowned. “What? Don’t like brunettes?”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know, sometimes I feel like I’m the last to know everything about you.”
If he was here I would’ve hit him. “What? Lucas, I didn’t plan it, dying my hair was my dare.” Wow, I was definitely not telling him I was sharing a room with Kai!
“That’s not all I’m talking about.”
“Well, then would you care to enlighten me?”
He sighed. “I don’t want to fight.”
“Me neither but we’ll see how this goes. What do you mean?”
“I mean with your dad, with everything else in your life. I’m trying to help you but I don’t know how to do that when you won’t talk to me.”
“All this came from me dying my hair?”
“No, of course not, but you’re away and… God, and I don’t know. I just miss you and, shit, I feel like I should’ve helped by now.”
“You’re being a dick and I’m not talking to you like this.”
“Tegan.”
“No, don’t. Jesus, you have no idea what I was like before you–”
“Because you barely tell me anything.”
“How are we having this conversation right now?” Did I step into another dimension? “I have to go, Luke, I’ll speak to you later.”
“Yeah,” he said, sighing. “I’m sorry, okay. Enjoy the rest of your time away and we’ll speak when you get back. And send me a picture of your hair.”
“Okay. Bye.”
“I love you,” he said and hung up.
I had no idea what had just happened. Lucas, although asked questions, had never been that full on or crazy before. He was right that I didn’t volunteer that much information about my past but it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about and he’d never said that was a deal breaker.
With anger towards Lucas outweighing my nerves over my hair, I brushed it through, dried it and then looked in the mirror. I didn’t feel any different – just pissed off – but I sure as hell looked different. Brunette matured me, physically anyway. I didn’t particularly like it, possibly because it was such a big change, but I didn’t exactly dislike it either.
I waited for the big revelation, the thing that would click into place so I knew exactly what I had to do to get the old me back but it never came, of course.
Showing my new colour off didn’t seem like a big deal compared to my fight with Lucas and disappointment that I hadn’t changed at all so I walked downstairs and stopped in front of my idiot friends, who were drinking from the same whisky bottle with really long neon green straws.
Things didn’t seem so bad again, I could forget who I was, forget what happened with Lucas and enjoy the time I had with the people that never bitched at me for not being more open or more adaptable or not more like Ava.
Sophie and Holly were the first to see me. “Tegan, it looks amazing,” Sophie gushed.
“Brunette suits you!” Holly added.
Maybe it did.
“Thanks,” I said. “Now, gimme a straw, I need to get fucked.”
Kai raised his arm. “I can help with that.”
“Of course you can,” I replied sarcastically and took the spare straw. Screw everything, I was getting drunk.
***