Our field trip is pretty successful. We grab everything we need and lunch from In-N-Out. When we get back to my house, I grab some towels my mom won’t care about and make sure the dogs have their quick pee break before I put them back in their crates. Saylor and I can do whatever we want, but the dogs cannot be an accidental part of our makeover. Mom would kill me. The goal is to keep from getting hair dye all over my bathroom.
Saylor gets comfortable on the edge of the tub, and I put on one of my favorite lo-fi playlists before I look over the directions on the dye container.
“Why did you start wearing your hair back in a bun like that?” Saylor asks. “And don’t play dumb. All those pictures going up the stairs tell the truth.” It would be easier to lie if there wasn’t proof all over the house. I just had to be my parents’ only child. “I mean, I get wearing it back and out of your face, but you wear it the same way every day.”
“My dad used to do my hair all the time. He refused to be the dad who could barely do a ponytail, so he learned how to do all the cute styles.”
“Then what happened?” Saylor asks.
“I don’t know. Racism, mostly. When I was out with my mom, white women would come up to us and question her claim over me. Plus, the cuter my hair looked, the grabbier people got, so I started slicking it back. It’s out of my face when I skate so that’s good, but yeah, I just got sick of people touching it.”
“Ugh, relatable. Some lady touched my hair in Sprouts a couple months ago,” I tell her. “Glory said next time someone does that to me, touch their hair back until they let go.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s genius. Okay, let’s do this.”
I’ve never dyed hair before, mine or anyone else’s, but the instructions are pretty clear and I’ve seen enough videos of other people getting the job done. I spread Vaseline around Saylor’s hairline and get to work. Once I get about halfway through, I realize there’s no turning back. I scoop a few fingers full of the dye and just start spreading it everywhere. No one should hire me in their salon, but it’s doing the trick. Finally, her blond-brown curls are covered in Electric Fox’s Autumn Sunrise, wrapped, and secured in a disposable shower cap. Now we just have to wait.
“Okay, it’s your turn,” Saylor says.
I look in the mirror like I’m never gonna see this person again. “You wanna shave my head, don’t you?”
“No.” She laughs. “I just want you to wear it down or like half-down. We gotta try something different.”
“Fine,” I groan. “Switch with me.”
Saylor hops up and I think she’s gonna stand by the sink so I can get to the shower and rinse my hair in the tub, but she stops right in front of me.
“Hi,” she says, and before I can say anything, her fingers are on my hips and she’s kissing me again. Once quickly, on the lips like she’s not quite sure if this is the right way to say hello. She leans back just a few inches with her eyes roaming over my face, and then she kisses me again. It’s short, but not as short as the first. I never considered how different kisses could be, but the second kiss gives me a lot to think about.
Saylor steps around me after a few moments, and I take the hint and head over to the tub so I can dunk my hair. My heart is beating in my throat and stomach at the same time as I carefully pull down my hair. The front is slicked into the next lifetime, but I feel my damp curls fall down my back.
“Heaven. Are you kidding me?”
“What?” I glance over my shoulder and Saylor is staring at me with her hand on her hip.
“You’ve been hiding all that hair this whole time?”
“Yeah, I don’t like people touching it.”
She puts her hand up in surrender. “That’s fair, but damn.”
I quickly wash the gel out of my hair then wrap it in a towel before I check my phone again. Saylor still has another five minutes for her dye job. It’s gonna take a while to finish both our hair, but I can manage it. And it’s something to do while I quietly panic.
I work my leave-in through my curls, trying to ignore theway Saylor is looking at me, but it’s not working. My bathroom isn’t small, but it feels so with her in it—like she takes up my whole world. I know it’s not the cool thing to say. Still, I don’t have any experience with this sort of thing and I need to know.
“So, are we still friends?” I ask, my voice giving out at the end like I’m dying of thirst, which let’s face it, I totally am. I really want to kiss her again. Saylor grips her bottom lip between her teeth before she nods. My heart drops a little bit. I know getting over her is gonna hurt, but I’m okay still doing the bingo. Kissing and holding hands and just being friends, even though I want it to be more than that.
“But like friends who are more than friends?” Saylor suddenly says.
“You wanna be more than friends?” I ask cautiously.
She nods again. I realize then that even though Saylor’s kissed someone before and maybe more, she doesn’t have experience with this. I’m the first girl she’s kissed and that is a big deal. So maybe it’s okay if we just let this ride for a little while.
“Okay.” I nod back. Saylor smiles that big smile of hers and I think we might be able to figure it out, together.
24
Saylor