Broken Pieces

Everything Was Blue

Luke 

Calum was on FaceTime with Dash. He's always on his phone talking or texting her. Five months ago, that was me.

"It's so nice here in New York, but so cold! I'm missing LA already." Dash said. 

"Why are they in New York?" Ashton asked.

"Yeah, babe, what are you doing there? I thought you were home." 

"Oh, it was a last minute thing. Ria and I are staying with Elaine's family. We just decided we wanted to see the ball drop in Times Square for ourselves. Too bad we didn't have anyone to kiss at midnight."

"Hey, I texted you a kiss emoji!" Calum said defensively. 

"Yeah, on Sydney time! Way too early for me." She paused. "Elaine says hi."

"Tell her to get her butt over to you so she can say hi to my face." 

I straightened up a bit. I haven't seen her in a long time. Well, that's not entirely true. I've become an online stalker. The last selfie she posted was about two months ago. But she was in Ria's selfie on the day they moved out of their dorm, all three of them looking tired, but happy. The most recent picture with her face on it was from her sister's Instagram. She wasn't even looking at the camera. It was on Christmas morning, she was still in her polka-dot pajamas with her hair in a sloppy ponytail, sipping from a mug of what probably was coffee, sitting beside the presents under the Christmas tree. It's pathetic that I had to resort to stalking her friends and family, but what else was I supposed to do? She's not the kind of person who likes to post pictures of herself outside of her blog. But this was the first time I'd be seeing her in real time. My position was perfect because I could see the screen of Calum's phone without getting caught in the camera.

Elaine's head popped behind Dash's shoulder on the screen. "Whaddup CDizzle?" She smiled. 

"Hey, where's the rest of your hair?" Calum asked before I could react.

"Oh, that." Elaine ran her hand through the short locks. Her long wavy hair barely even grazed her shoulders, and was now a solid chestnut. It bore no traces of the blue that I love so much. "You know, new year, new me, and all that shit." 

"Let me see!" Michael paused his game and took the phone from Calum's hand. "You little shit, what happened to us being hair twins?"

I heard Elaine laugh. "It's not gonna be easy to keep up with your hair color anyway." 

"Aw, now you're back to the boring people with boring hair side. Traitor."

"I'm sorry, Mikey. I just didn't feel like having blue hair anymore." 

"I think it looks nice, squirt." Calum said.

"Yeah? Thanks. I wasn't too sure about it, it's the first time I've ever cut it this short. Even Harry says it's weird that his hair is longer than mine." 

"Do you like your short hair?"

"Well...I guess. I only had it cut two days ago so I'm still getting used to not needing so much shampoo anymore." She laughed. 

"But I liked the blue." Michael pouted.

"We'll see if I put the blue back, okay? I'll call you first thing, I promise." 

I liked the blue, too. I mean, she'll look gorgeous whatever she does with herself, I'm sure. But the blue ombre was special to me. I remember the day she decided she was going to dye her hair a weird color to shock her dad. She wanted to go with violet, but I convinced her blue would be a better choice. When she asked me why, I told her it was my favorite color. And that's all it took, she was sold. I loved that blue hair.

This is just another one of those things. Like the necklace; she stopped wearing it when we broke up. And let me tell you, that hurt. She once promised me I'll never see her not wearing it, no matter what happens. I bet she had the tattoo lasered off as well. I should probably ask someone if it's still there. And my clothes. She used to wear my clothes every once in a while. She doesn't anymore, as far as I could tell. She just keeps changing, ridding herself of any traces of me. 

But the biggest blow is probably the hair. Her hair was her favorite part of herself. The fact that she let me decide what weird color it got to be was probably one of the best and meaningful things she's ever done for me. And now she got rid of the blue. It's just another part of her that used to belong to me, but isn't anymore.