Kiwi |H.S.|

two

"Your hair is so beautiful." Ariana gushed wildly as she ran a comb through my dirty blonde hair. Or at least attempted to do so until it stopped midway through my thick strands, making me wince. She pulled the comb out and tried using her fingers to detangle the knots. I knew this wouldn't help but I figured I might as well let her struggle for a bit.

Abby shook her head from the other side of the room, flicking through channels on her television as she shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth. Her lips were greasy by now, coated with the butter she'd drenched the popcorn in earlier. A small amused smile played on her lips, "Stop trying to run a hairbrush through her mane Ariana, you're only making it poofy." She advised, giving me a look of humor and sympathy.

"It's tangled though, how am I suppose to get the tangles out?"

"You don't." Abby and I answered in sync, she looked at me and laughed as Ariana frowned.

"I don't get it though, your hair is so soft, it looks easy to do..." Ariana let out absentmindedly as she ran her fingers over a knot, biting the corner of her lip in concentration.

I closed my eyes, wincing again, "I'm mixed so my hair is curly and it gets frizzy when you try to run a comb through it." I explained, remembering the countless amount of times that I had people try to do my hair for me expecting that it'd be easy, only to give up hours afterward. My hair was thick with light curls and got frizzy easily when exposed to water or heat; it was a mixture between my white mother's hair and my black father's.

Abby blew on the wet nail polish that coated her left foot and shrugged, "I was guessing you were part black, maybe Hispanic." She observed, starting on her other toes, completely unbothered.

Ariana's hands dropped from my hair and a sudden relief came over me, "I give up trying to tame the beautiful beast that is your hair," she started, unsurprisingly. She leaned forward from behind me to look at my face, "Can I just French braid it instead?" She asked, a look of excitement on her face.

I nodded, "Of course."

After Ariana moved all her stuff into our dorm and got her stuff in order, her and Abby invited me to hang out with them for the day. Figuring it was a nice offer, I took them up on it and we spent the rest of the day touring the campus. It made me more comfortable having them show me around instead of me trying to figure everything out on my own. It turned out the high school campus was way larger than I'd expected, with a lot more enrolled students than I had originally thought. In a week the desolate campus we walked through today would be overflowing with students.

    It hadn't taken long for me to get used to Abby and Ariana. They were nothing but kind to me, and always tried including me in conversations -- although most of the time I had no idea what they were talking about. Both of them were well off, and had different interests than me. The two of them were very much so into fashion and new trends, and I wasn't. The fashion I knew was the clearance section at forever 21, but most of the lengthy conversations they had were about the newest Balmain fashion shows.

    I closed my eyes as Ariana grouped my hair together, her fingers skimming over my scalp as she worked like a weaver, braiding as she went. I let out a quiet hum as the 'Friends' theme song played in the background of Ariana and Abby's conversation. They must've been talking about their other friends.

    "Beckett is coming later today with Julian, they're supposed to be bringing a huge UHaul for all their shit." Abby informed her best friend with amusement, "Beckett will drive their Tesla and Julian is taking the UHaul."