The Anomaly Affliction

Twelve

"So...what do you need me to do?"

I'm sitting on the closed toilet seat in Lake's bathroom, with a small grey towel in my hands. Lake herself is sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor, with her back against the bathtub opposite me. Her hair is currently wet, sticky and green; about 30 minutes ago she coated her thick mid-length blond hair in green dye. She set a timer for 20 minutes, but now that time is up.

"I need you, dear girlfriend, to grab the handheld shower and rinse my hair," grins Lake. "Until the water runs clear."

"Handheld shower. Until the water runs clear. Right."

"You got it?"

"Got it."

Lake kneels and puts her head over the bathtub. I carefully place the grey towel round her shoulders and pick up the handheld shower from my left. It's different to my handheld shower at home, so I find myself struggling to turn it on.

"How does this thing work...?"

I press a button and suddenly water comes spewing out the shower head, straight into my face.

"Fuck!" I exclaim, turning the shower head away from me and spitting out water.

"What did you do?" asks Lake, sounding unimpressed.

"Oh, nothing," I say jokily. "Just managed to turn on the shower while it was facing me."

"And you got water in your face?"

"Yep."

Lake laughs and I can't help laughing too. Her laugh is the most beautiful sound...even if she's laughing at me being an idiot.

"Well done, clever," she jokes.

"Thank you very much," I reply, grinning.

Now I get on with what she called me over to do in the first place: rinsing her hair. I have to adjust the water temperature a couple of times, which I struggle with, but eventually I get it to a comfortable warm temperature. It takes quite a while for the water to run clear because of the thickness of Lake's hair. At last, the water does run clear, and I turn the shower off.

"Done," I say.

Lake shuffles away from the bathtub and I give her a dry towel to dab her wet face.

"Thank you," she smiles.

"You're welcome," I smile back.

"Right, now I need to blow dry it." She stands up and starts towards the door. "When I come back I'll have green hair. You should wait in here to make it a surprise or something."

"Cool. I look forward to seeing it."

Lake comes over and plants a quick kiss on my cheek, before leaving the bathroom and calling out behind her: "Back in a few minutes."

About five minutes later, when the sounds of a hairdryer and a hairbrush have stopped, I hear Lake shout from her bedroom: "You ready, Violet?"

"I'm ready," I call back.

"Close your eyes."

I do as I'm told. "My eyes are closed."

I hear her bedroom door opening and the sound of footsteps down the landing. Then I hear her loud voice say: "Okay, open your eyes."

I open my eyes and see a transformed Lake standing in front of me, posing like a supermodel. Her hair is now a deep shade of green, the colour of forests. It's beautiful. And she looks so happy - I don't know if it's because of the sunlight shining through the bathroom window or her infectious smile, but she's glowing. This is one of the biggest smiles I've seen on her...and I can't help but smile too.

"Wow," I say, in awe. "You look...beautiful."

Her smile, believe it or not, broadens. "Does it suit me?"

"Yeah, definitely," I grin, standing up. "It looks amazing."

"Thank you. I'm really happy with how it turned out."

I can tell.

"Yeah, you should be," I say. "God, I'm one lucky girl."

Lake places a hand on my arm. "No, I'm the lucky one."

In my head I disagree with her, but I don't say it out loud. Instead I just stroke her newly dyed hair and pull her into a kiss.

My girlfriend was beautiful with blond hair, and now she's beautiful with green hair. I don't think there are any changes she could make that would make me love her less. She's just...she's perfect. And she always will be.