“Really, Art? Orange? Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” Luke asks, looking at the garish-colored hair of the girl on the box of dye.
“You said I couldn’t do yellow! And don’t call me Art, it sounds like a guy’s name.”
“He has a point, Artemis, it doesn’t sound like a good idea, even for you.”
“You too? I thought my girlfriend was supposed to support me in things!” I kiss her on the cheek.
“No, Arti, your girlfriend is supposed to keep you from making stupid impulsive decisions like dying your hair bright orange.” She pouts. “Why not go blue again? I always liked the blue.” She gives me an incredulous look.
“My hair was blue just last month! I can’t just go straight back, it’s too soon!”
“Yeah, Adaline, don’t you know anything? God!” Luke sarcastically imitates my girlfriend, and I try not to laugh when she hits him.
“You could always try a different shade of blue.” She glares. “Or- not. Are you sure there isn’t any other color you want?”
“I have dyed my hair almost every unnatural color there is at one point or another, except for orange. And so now, I want to go orange. Is that so hard to understand?” I sigh.
“Fine, but if we do it and you hate it afterwards, you aren’t allowed to complain to us okay?”
“Right then, let’s go pay and then get home so we can get this over with.” We go to the register to pay for the dye, and then Luke drives us to his house so we can dye Artemis’s hair without fear of parental interruption. We tried to do it at mine once, but that happened to be the time she was going red, and well- let’s just say my mom nearly called 911 because she thought the sink was covered in blood. We haven’t tried it since.
After being friends with Arti for three years (and dating her for two), I’ve gotten remarkably good at dying hair. So it goes off without a hitch, even with Luke’s terrier underfoot the whole time. However, when we’re done and Arti sits in front of the mirror to check it out, her face falls.
“What?” Luke asks. She turns to me, looking resigned.
“You were right. This looks awful.” She was right, her hair is the bright orange of a tangerine, and it looks ridiculous. I want to laugh, but I do feel kind of bad. Luke has no such reservations, and breaks into a wide grin.
“I mean, not to say I told you so, but we so fucking told you so.” She sighs.
“Do you want to change it?” She shakes her head.
“I want to at least stick out the week. I feel like an idiot, but I refuse to just re-dye my hair when I fuck up.”
“You are so stubborn!” She pecks me on the cheek.
“Yeah, but you love it.” Luke groans.
“You two are too fucking cheesy. C’mon, let’s go watch a movie or something.”
“Only if there’s popcorn!” We say at almost the same time, and grin at each other. He rolls his eyes.
“When do I not make popcorn when we’re watching movies? Christ, I’ve known you guys for years. Who do you take me for?” I can tell he’s trying to hide a smile as he leads us out of the bathroom. Arti slings an arm around his shoulders.
“Just checking, big guy.”
