Little Flower Girl

Chapter 3

Lillian stood in her bathroom, a towel around her shoulders and an old shirt clinging to her body. Lilly decided that just for good measure she was going to kill her hair a little bit more and bleach it. She took out the powder and the peroxide and mixed the two before putting the cap back on the applicator bottle and beginning to shake it. The smell of the bleach caused her eyes to water as she broke off the applicator tip and began to apply the bleach to her roots, pulling the bleach down to the tips of her hair. The smell of the bleach seemed overwhelming, but she dealt as she emptied out the bottle onto her hair. Beginning to run her gloved fingers through her hair to make sure she covered everything.

Lilly wrapped her hair up into a makeshift bun out of her own hair, before pulling on a plastic bag and tying it tightly to her head. Lillian took off the gloves and threw them in the empty box after taking out the dark dye. Lilly walked out of the bathroom and to her kitchen, setting the timer on the oven for 30 minutes. The rattling of the doorknob caused Lilly to jump as her mother pushed through the front door.

"Hey mom!" Lillian called as she stopped fiddling with the timer and went out into the hallway.

"What's that smell- oh! You're doing your hair," her mother replied with a smile. "It was getting a little messy, I'm glad you're doing it," she continued walking past Lilly with groceries in her hands.

"I thought you were only going to drop the boys off?" Lilly asked following behind her mother.

"I got a little side-tracked after dropping them off and figured we needed milk, so I stopped by the store," Her mother responded. Lilly nodded before making her way back over to the couch and sitting down, "You never started the timer," her mother called, the beep of her clicking a button to start the timer echoed from the kitchen to the living room.

"Thank you," Lilly yelled back before picking up the remote controller and beginning to flick through the channels like she had before. After putting on some crime channel, Lilly got up from her seat and walked from the living room to her bedroom; grabbing her laptop and making her way back to the couch. As she sat down, Lillian opened her laptop up to the facebook tab that she never closed out. 1 notification was placed next to the closed chatbox in the right bottom corner. Lilly clicked on it, reopening the message and her eyes scanning the hello's both her and Oliver exchanged, before looking at his newest message.

Oliver Corzett: "whats up?"

seen 1:51 pm

Lillian found that responding to this message much easier than the single hello she had received before.

Lillian Bryson: "just doing my hair,,, you??"

Lilly shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she sent the message. Lilly scrolled through her feed as she waited to get a message back from Oliver. Every so often Lilly looked up, interested in whatever show had been playing on the TV. Lillian closed out facebook and reopened a new tab, typing in Tumblr.com and pressing enter. The page redirected Lilly from the google homepage to the Tumblr homepage. Lillian began scrolling down her Tumblr feed, reblogging things here and there. The itchy sensation that seemed to turn into a burning sensation on Lilly's head, she couldn't wait to get the bleach out of her hair so she could just scratch her head. A distant beep came from the kitchen and Lilly flung her laptop to the side, jumping up from the couch and running to the bathroom. Lillian pushed open the shower curtain and detached the shower head, turning on the faucet. The water felt lukewarm, she held it above her head; using her free hand to massage out the bleach. After about 15 minutes Lillian's neck began to ache as she then conditioned her hair and repeated washing it out.

Once Lillian was pretty sure she had gotten all of the chemicals and conditioner out of her hair, she turned off the faucet and reattached the shower head to the shower. Lilly grabbed a towel hanging from the shower rod and began towel-drying her hair. Lillian turned to the mirror as she squeezed the water out of her hair with her towel, her roots had turned a pale yellow while the rest of her hair seemed to appear as a white color. Lilly threw the towel back over the shower rod, before turning back to the mirror and ran her fingers through her hair. After a few minutes of staring at herself, Lilly walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen.

"Mom, do we have any gloves I can use?" Lilly asked leaning up against the fridge.

"I don't know, you'll have to check the cupboard," she said, busy unloading the groceries into the fridge. Looking over her shoulder at Lilly for a split second, before turning back and smiling. "I like that color!" she exclaimed standing up and going towards Lillian, grabbing strands of hair and looking at them closely. "What color are you going to be putting over this?" Lillian's mother asked.

"Purple," Lillian responded, twirling her own strand of hair in her fingers. Lillian's mother nodded and went back to unpacking the groceries. Lilly began searching the cupboards, not being able to find any trace of gloves; she gave up and made her way to her brother's room. Lillian knocked on the door, which caused the door to be pushed open. Teagan turned his chair around and looked at Lilly from inside of the room.

"What do you want now?" he asked.

"Do you have any gloves?" Lillian questioned as she peeked in his room and looked around. Teagan spun his chair around, opening one of the drawers next to his desk and grabbing two gloves from a box, turning his chair back around and throwing them at her. Lilly barely caught one and picked the other up from the floor. "Thanks," she said closing the bedroom and door and making her way back to the bathroom. Lilly pulled the gloves onto her hands, grabbing the bottle of dye and opening the bottle, she traded the simple top for a spare applicator tip that had come in the box. Lillian broke off the applicator tip like she had before and began squeezing out the dye into her hand. Lilly rubbed the dye into her hair, massaging it in to make sure she covered everything. Lilly did what she had before with the bleach and when she was finished put her hair up in a makeshift bun like she had before and wrapped another plastic bag over her head.

Lillian didn't feel like setting a timer, so she just figured she would wait about an hour before washing out the hair dye. Lillian cleaned up the mess she had made in the bathroom and threw away the hair dye box. Lilly grabbed her laptop from the living room and retreated into her room, sitting down on her bed and placing her laptop in front of her. Lillian reopened her laptop and went back to her tumblr page, wasting time on scrolling through her familiar feed while she waited for the hour to pass by.