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A few days ago, Kel mentioned in passing how he’d always wanted to dye his hair.
Now Aubrey was in his bathroom mixing up a foul-smelling concoction, his sink covered in all sorts of supplies she had brought from her house.
Hero had gone to the store to buy food for dinner, and his parents had taken Sally to a play date at a neighbor’s house.She had been pestering him ever since he mentioned the slight possibility of dying his hair, excited to finally have someone else to practice her hair dying skills on. They had been hanging out a lot more ever since Sunny left, and although he would never admit it, Kel enjoyed being friends with Aubrey much more than he enjoyed fighting with her.
Their bond had tightened ever since Sunny had told them the truth about Mari’s death. It was a horrible thing to process and they began relying on each other to get through it. Hero on the other hand, closed himself off just like he had before. It was hard on all of them, and this summer had been a difficult one. Kel tried to be his normal, upbeat self, but it was ridiculously hard for him to keep it together. Without his older brother to guide him through the situation, he started leaning on Aubrey a lot more. Their time together was one of the only moments they had to be their regular selves again.
Kel was sat on a stool in front of the sink, gazing at his reflection, while Aubrey put on the plastic gloves she had brought with her. She wrapped an old, bleach-stained t-shirt around his shoulders to protect his shirt from any staining.
“Well, you ready?” she asked, grinning at Kel.
“Ready as I’ll ever be!” he grinned back at her.
She picked up the container of Vaseline she had on the counter and pulled Kel’s bangs out of his face, glooping the jelly over his hairline.
“Ew dude, what the hell?” he asked disgustedly, pulling away from her touch.
“Shut up Kel, I know what I’m doing. This is so the dye doesn’t get all over your stupid face!”
He sighed leaning back towards her and allowing her to finish applying the jelly on his forehead. She took a small brush and dipped it into the whitish substance she had mixed up earlier.
“Okay, no backing out now!” she smiled wickedly and smeared the bleach onto the roots of his hair.
“Just so you know, if my parents get pissed at me, I’m blaming you.”
“Whatever, it was your idea in the first place.”
“Was not!”
“Was too!”
Aubrey continued dipping her brush into the bleach then applying it to Kel’s hair, making sure to cover every strand so he didn’t look like a total mess. Their bickering was oddly comforting to them both, giving them a sense of normalcy despite the events of the past month.
“You know”, Kel laughed, “I think part of you wanting to do this is just a remainder of your obsession with dressing me up when we were younger.”
When they were little, Aubrey always begged Kel to let her braid his hair, paint his nails, and dress him up in all sorts of dumb outfits. He remembered her whining so much he would give in just so she would stop bothering him.
“Oh my god, I totally forgot about that. I used to make you look idiotic.” she giggled, covering her mouth with her hand that wasn’t holding the application brush.
“Yeah, you did! I wonder if Basil has any pictures of that.” he said without thinking. He saw Aubrey’s smile quickly dissipate in the mirror.
“Shit, I’m sorry…” he muttered. The usual feeling of comfort quickly left the room, filling it with the cold emptiness of realization.
They carried on in silence for a bit, the only sound in the room their soft breathing and the scratch of the brush on Kel’s hair.
“Have you talked to him?” she asked, voice quieter than Kel had ever heard it.
“N…. no.” he replied.
“I haven’t either. I’ve even been scared to run into him in town. I feel awful, but I’m terrified of even looking at him.”
Kel looked at Aubrey through the reflection in the mirror. Her face was devoid of all emotion but her voice was wavering.
“He was our friend, Kel. We used to hang out with him everyday. Now I’m scared of him.”
He sighed heavily. He knew exactly what she was feeling. He felt it too.
“I know. I’m sorry we haven’t been talking about it much, I just didn’t want to bring it up while we were having a normal time together.” he confessed.
“It’s okay. I just don’t know how we’re going to ever go back to normal after all this.”
Kel thought about it for a few moments. He was so happy the day he finally convinced Sunny to leave the confines of his house and go out with him. He thought he could finally restore everything to the way it was. Before Mari died, before Hero went off to college, before Aubrey had gotten involved with her “gang”.
“You know… what if there is no normal? What if there’s just the past and… right now.” he finally replied. “I am so, so angry with Sunny and Basil, but I know that if they could, they would absolutely go back in time and change what happened. But they can’t. They can only live in the present. We can only live in the present.”
Aubrey stayed silent for a second, then let out a halfhearted chuckle. “Since when did you become a philosopher?”
“Fuck off,” Kel complained, “I’ve just been thinking about stuff a lot recently.”
“Huh, that’s a first.”
Kel scrunched up his face in the mirror which only caused Aubrey to let out a bigger laugh than before.
“But for real,” Aubrey admitted, “That’s a good way of thinking about it. Thank you.”
She stepped back a bit to survey Kel’s head.
“All done. Now we’ve gotta wait for it to do its job.”
Aubrey threw her gloves in the trash can by the toilet and pulled herself up onto the counter, sitting down on the cold surface.
“How’s Hero doing with… everything?” she asked quietly.
“To be honest… not great. You know him. You saw him when Mari died.”
“Yeah, I figured. We all loved her, but he knew her better than anyone else. If we’re pissed, he must be fuming.”
“I’ve been trying to give him space. Last time I kept pestering him to talk to me, he just blew up at me. I know a bit better now. He’ll talk when he’s ready.”
Aubrey looked at him and smiled. “Yup. He’s annoyingly stoic and will never ask for help.”
Kel laughed, she was right. The bleach on his scalp was starting to tingle and he had the intense urge to scratch it.
“When can I rinse this stuff out?” he asked, annoyed at the unpleasant feeling.
“Soon, it takes a while ‘cause your hair is so dark.” Aubrey replied, kicking her legs back and forth while she sat on the counter.
Kel looked at himself in the mirror, his eye bags were much worse than they had ever been before, no doubt from late nights of staring at the ceiling, mind too full to fall asleep. Acne scars crowded his jawline, a product of his recent descent into puberty. He wanted to go back to his smooth 12 year old skin and his stupid 12 year old mind.
“Okay, you can rinse now. Stick your head in the sink.” Aubrey said, hopping down from her spot on the counter.
Kel did as instructed and Aubrey turned on the water, allowing his hair to rinse. Kel scrunched his hair in between his fingers, glad to finally be rid of the irritating sensation.
“Where are your towels?” asked Aubrey.
“In the cabinet near the bath.” he replied.
Aubrey removed the shirt draped across Kel’s shoulders and replaced it with a new one.
“Come back up, dummy.”
She covered his soaked hair and scrubbed, ruffling it with reckless abandon.
“Ow, ow, dude, you’re drying my hair, not wrestling a raccoon!”
“Same thing.” she grumbled, removing the towel from his head and combing a hairbrush into his now messy locks.
Kel pouted like a child while she fixed his hair, combing it down and back into place. When she was done she took a look in the mirror to examine her work.
“Kel, I hate to say this, but you look fucking awesome.”
Kel ran his fingers through his newly bleached hair and smiled up at her.
“You did a damn good job, I must say. Although you did have quite a handsome base to work with.”
“Shut up, Kel” she retorted, sounding annoyed despite the self-satisfied look on her face.
“My parents are gonna be so mad.” Kel said, flashing his signature shit-eating grin.
“Fuck it dude, we already have enough to deal with. One argument with your parents isn’t gonna change anything.”
“Although, I think it could look a bit better…” Kel said, stroking his chin dramatically
“What? You asshole, I spent an hour doing thi-” Aubrey was cut off by Kel raising his hand towards her, signaling her to stop talking.
“Do you have any pink dye?”
This time Aubrey’s grin matched Kel’s.