What Happened After

Chapter 13

"You want to wash my hair?" 

Chapter 13.

          We didn’t say anything on the car ride back to Ruesso’s house, but it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. His eyes were still a bit red and I could tell he wasn’t up for much talking. The radio had been turned on and was playing an old 80s rock ballad very faintly in the background. I focused on that song rather than the boy sitting next to me. He was so sad, and I couldn’t bear to look at him for very long.

      At the last turn before Ruesso’s street, he glanced over at me, then pulled over. “What are you doing?” I asked, “This is your street, right? You’re almost home.”

          He stared down at his lap and mumbled, “I don’t want to go in there.”

          Oh.

       He went on: “My siblings don’t need to see me like this. I mean, you haven’t mentioned it because you're really nice, but I can only imagine how terrible I look right now. They’ll ask questions, and I’ll break down, and that’s too much of a hassle for me.” He chuckled a bit.

          “Okay. Where do you want to go then? Do you—do you want me to drive, or…?”

          “No. No, I can do it. I don’t know where to go, just, do you want to go shopping?” He looked over at me hopefully.

          “Shopping? For what?”

          “I’ve actually been dying to get you some hair dye ever since I saw you the day after Thanksgiving. Your hair looks terrible like that.” He nodded at my head.

         Well then. Apparently grieving the loss of your girlfriend and unborn child gives you the right to be a dick. But I decided to ignore it and just agree with him.

        “Um. Okay. Yeah, let’s go do that, then.”

          “Right.Okay.” With that, he shifted into drive and began driving again. Ruesso needed to get a few things off his mind, and I didn’t know how to help him. I figured the best I could do would be to just follow him around for the day, entertaining him with whatever he wanted to do. By this time tomorrow, I would be home with my own parents, and I wouldn’t have to see him for a while. After all, all he wanted was someone to visit the cemetery with. I had done that, so I was done.

          Entering the supermarket, Ruesso immediately marched straight to the hair care section in the back. I was surprised he even knew where it was; he didn’t seem like one for hair care. He probably woke up with his hair perfectly messy. Nevertheless, he began to rifle through the many shades of dye with great fervor. He seemed to know exactly what he wanted, looking for the perfect shade.

          Eventually, he pulled out a box labeled “Golden Grandeur” with a too-happy, smiling blonde on the front. “This looks like you, right?” he asked.

          I squinted at the exuberant girl on the box and shook my head, “Nope.”

          “Well, you know what I mean,” he said, exasperated. “This is your hair color. I mean, your old one? Before this?” he gestured toward my hair.

        It was then that I realized my hair wasn’t blonde anymore. I had dyed it just before moving out and heading to Berkeley. I hadn’t even thought of why he would want to change it. I had immediately thought that he was hating on my natural hair color, when in actuality, he just wanted it back. I stalked down the aisle toward the mirror on the end. Sure enough, I had a wide, blonde Mohawk looking strip down the center of my head, where my natural hair was growing back in. The rest of my hair—the brown part—looked faded and definitely not as dark as it was when I first colored it. “Holy shit,” I exclaimed. “Why hasn’t anyone told me it looks this bad?”