Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,17
for at least twenty-five minutes, though the Internet suggested much longer, so while they waited for
his hair to really grab hold of the green, they changed spots again. He
tested the dye against her arm, then mixed the two liquids together as
she had. He shook the bottle, careful not to spill. When he took his
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finger off the top, though, a single pink drop that clung to his gloved
hand dripped off and landed right in the middle of Debbie’s forehead.
“That’s what she gets for being so in love with you,” Julia said,
looking down at her cat rubbing her side against Dave’s leg, unaware
of the splotchy dye job she was receiving.
Dave squeezed out the dye onto his fingers, and for the next twenty
minutes he became lost in the task. He worked slowly, not because he
wanted to stretch out the time, but because it was Julia’s hair, and
everything to do with Julia he did with care. When he was done, he
decided to wait with Julia, so that they would rinse the dye off at
the same time. They tried to wipe Debbie clean, but she kept moving
around and the drops of pink and green she’d absorbed spread across
her fur.
“She looks like a tie-dyed shirt gone wrong,” Julia said.
“That doesn’t bode well for our hair.”
Julia sat on the counter and looked at herself in the mirror, leaning
in to examine the pink stains by her hairline. “The genius in this is
that if it turns out shitty it’s even more of a cliché.”
“That’ll be a comfort when everyone’s laughing at us.”
“Look at you worrying about what others think. Way to get into
the spirit.” She smiled, then gave him a friendly tap with her foot. “I
think that’s long enough. Time for the big reveal.” She hopped off the
counter and turned on her shower, grabbing the removable head and
waiting for the water to warm up a bit.
They helped each other rinse the excess dye from their hair, which
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resulted in more dye getting all over the bathroom. “It looks like a
couple of cartoon animals were blown up in here,” Dave said.
They turned to face each other, and when Julia asked how her
hair had turned out he had to swallow down the word sexy. “It looks pretty good,” he said. “How’s mine?”
She cast her eyes up at his hairline and bit her bottom lip. “I
couldn’t have hoped for better,” she said, then laughed. “Maybe you
should just look for yourself.” She moved aside to let him step in front of the mirror.
“My God.”
“I think the lighting in here is bad,” Julia said, suppressing another
laugh.
“Julia, it looks like someone vomited on my head.”
Dave looked at her in the mirror, petrified. She brought her hands
up to her mouth, her perfectly pink hair framing that lovely face of
hers as the laughter tore through her.
“This is seriously the worst shade of green I’ve ever seen.” Dave
turned on the faucet and ran water through his hair, and the pretty
shade of green water that poured into the sink only made the joke
crueler. “There’s no way I’m walking around with this on my head.”
“Oh, come on. You really pull it off.” Julia was doubled over in
laughter, trying to catch her breath.
“I’m shaving it off.”
“No, don’t! The Nevers!” She dropped to the floor, not taking her
eyes off of him, her hand clutching at her stomach. “Oww, Dave, the
laughter hurts.”
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“The Nevers just said dye your hair. They didn’t say anything about
keeping vomit on my head for the rest of the school year. I’m gonna go
to the mall to get this cut. Right now.”
“If I keep looking at it, I might pee myself.” She laughed again,
either pretending to wipe a tear from her eye or actually doing it,
Dave couldn’t tell at this point. “Wait until the morning. Maybe it’ll
look better in daylight.”
Dave grimaced but stayed put. “Only because I’m such a good
friend and you’re clearly enjoying this.” He lingered by the mirror for
a second, looking down at Julia, who was trying to fight off another
giggling fit. It was hard not to want this to go on, whatever his hair looked like, hard not to chase after the idea of the Nevers, too, when
the result was a whole day spent with Julia laughing at his side, her
cheeks as pink as her hair, her eyes suffused with joy. “It’s going to be a strange end of the year, isn’t it?”
The next morning Dave’s hair not only looked like puke, but like puke
that had been allowed to sit out overnight.
Julia practically woke up laughing, and she refused to let