Page 44 of Run Away With Me

She moved us into the bathroom so I could sit on the edge of the tub and she didn’t have to bend over to work the color through my hair. My butt hurt from the edge of the porcelain digging in. I took deep breaths and made sure not to complain.

‘It says we should leave it for thirty to forty-five minutes,’ Brooke said.

When I looked around, she was at the sink, stripping off the gloves from the box dye and washing her hands.

‘Okay.’

‘Then you can shampoo it out.’

I nodded, not wanting to say ‘okay’ again. I knew Brooke didn’t like it when I went along with plans instead of giving an opinion, and I was getting better at it, I really was, but right now I felt picked apart and raw with nerves.

‘Come watch TV with me,’ she said, wandering out of the bathroom.

The hair dye smelled so strongly of chemicals that it made my eyes water. I didn’t want to complain about that, either, or confess that this was the first time someone had dyed my hair. That was a normal thing, at seventeen, right? To dye your hair? Or get a nose piercing, or something dramatic to piss off your parents? My mom seemed pissed off with me most of the time anyway, so normal routes to teenage rebellion felt mostly pointless.

We watched an episode and a half ofFriends, then Brooke ushered me into the bathroom again to wash my hair.

‘Shampoo it twice, then condition it.’

‘I know how to wash my hair, Brooke,’ I said lightly.

‘I know you know. Just do what you’re told,’ she said with a laugh.

‘Get out, then,’ I said, already shoving her through the door and pulling it closed.

The water pressure in this particular motel was terrible, the water spluttering out from a well-rusted showerhead. I tried really hard not to think of all the people who had used this shower before me, and how well it had been cleaned in between reservations.

When I was done, I wrapped my hair in a towel and dressed again in pajama pants and a loose T-shirt. Even though I was desperate to wipe the steam off the mirror and look at the results, I had a feeling Brooke might kill me if I tried.

‘Are you finished?’ she yelled through the bathroom door.

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m going to blow-dry it for you,’ she said when I opened the door. She was waiting for me, her hands on her hips: business mode.

‘I usually just let it air-dry.’

‘I know you do. But I’m going to dry it so you can see the color.’

Brooke led me back to the chair in the bedroom and ran her fingers through my hair, her fingernails gently picking out the knots and tugging at my scalp. At every tiny movement I had to fight a shiver. This time I wasn’t going to run away, though. I’d decided I liked this, and if Brooke was happy to do it, I was going to let her.

It was a typicalfalling in love with a straight girlstory, one I’d read a hundred times. She was the classic beauty, I was the plainest of boring, plain Janes, and only in the hearts and imaginations of queer teenagers did we end up together.

I was a queer teenager. With a very active heart and imagination. Neither of those things were exactly revelations.

But … I didn’t care. I couldn’t make myself care that it was going nowhere. I didn’t want Brooke to stop touching me, to stop smiling at me or laughing at my bad jokes. Because, actually, she was starting to become my closest friend.

God knew, I needed a friend more than I needed a girlfriend. One who didn’t care about my tragic family situation and my inability to open up to people. I could keep admiring her from afar, and be her friend up close. That worked for me.

I would make it work.

Brooke shut off the hairdryer. ‘Are you ready to look at it?’

‘No,’ I said, suddenly terrified in case it looked bad. How could I tell Brooke I hated it when she’d spent so much time and effort helping me?

She laughed. ‘Well, you have to.’

She tugged me to my feet, then took one of my hands and covered my eyes with the other.

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