“I said: right DeeDee?”
“Ah, ouais, right.” I follow the two of them into the living room. “Don’t touch it, Zach, you dork. You will wreck it.”
Hope sits down on the couch, perching at the front of the cushion so her hair doesn’t stain anything.
“I like that you call him a dork,” she tells me. “It’s cute. You two are really cute together.”
I look at Zach and see his eyes going wide with the same alarm that’s shooting through my chest. He opens his mouth to say something, but Hope holds up her hand.
“Ah, ah, ah. I know you’re not together, but whatever it is you’re doing, it looks good on you two.”
Zach’s eyes shift back to me. I can see his face going red, and my skin is starting to feel hot too.
“I made it awkward, didn’t I?” Hope doesn’t wait for us to answer. I thought I talked fast, but, mon dieu, this girl is something else. “Moving on. How about I order something that isn’t frozen for dinner, and then we can all go out to show off my new hair? Halifax bars are total shit, and I want to see some of that famous Montreal nightlife.”
I get my face back under control and sit down with my legs tucked under me on the cushion next to Hope. “Parfait! We can go dancing!”
“Dancing?”
Zach is still standing in the middle of the room, and he does not sound as excited as Hope and I are about the plan. The two of us are already scrolling through delivery choices on Hope’s phone. I glance up and give him an extra sweet smile.
“Pleeeease, Zachy Zach?”
After lots of arguing between Hope and Zach, we decide on getting Thai food for dinner. We all eat way too much curry, and Zach tries to persuade us to just stay in and watch a movie, but Hope and I are on a mission. Every new hairdo deserves a night out. It’s part of the full DeeDee Beausoleil Dye Job experience.
There’s no blow dryer in the apartment because Zach and Paige are savages, but I have a mini one in the kit I brought over to do Hope’s hair. This is the second time I’ve hung out with the two of them, and as soon as she found out I did my own hair, Hope told me she wasn’t leaving Montreal until I did hers too.
“Okay. You can look at yourself now, ma belle.”
I put the blow dryer down, and Hope grabs her glasses off the bathroom counter. Since her hair is pretty dark, I started with a quick balayage job to add some highlights and make the teal really pop like in the photos she showed me. I didn’t have any of my normal bleach left, so we had to use drug store stuff. The transformation is probably not going to be as dramatic as she was hoping, since I didn’t trust the product enough to leave it on for very long. I step back and cross my arms, not taking my eyes off her face as I wait for a reaction.
She stays very still for a few seconds, except for reaching up to run a few strands through her fingers.
“Oh...my god.” She pulls a lock of hair in front of her face to stare at it with crossed eyes. “Oh my god.”
“Quoi?” I ask. Nerves are starting to shift around in my stomach. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Her head snaps to look at me. “It’s perfect!”
Then she screams so loud Zach comes running.
“What? What the hell is going on? Oh.” He does a double-take. “Wow, Hope, you look amazing.”
“All of my dreams have come true!” She throws her arms around my neck, and I hug her back. “Oh my god, DeeDee, it’s perfect. I swear I’ve been dreaming of this hair since I was like sixteen years-old. You’re a genius!”
I pat her head. “Oh, I know, chérie.”
“You need to open a salon.” She freezes in my arms as soon as she says it and then pushes me away. “Why haven’t you opened a salon yet?”
I fake a laugh as I lead the way out of the tiny bathroom. “I don’t think I would ever want my own salon. I wouldn’t say no to my own chair at one, though.”
“You should do it!” Hope bounces along behind me, still tugging on random pieces of her hair so she can stare at them. She’s going to wreck everything I did with the blow dryer. “Seriously, this is beyond professional quality. I can’t believe you can do this without even going to school for it.”
“Mmm.” I nod and fold my arms around myself, running my hands up and down my forearms.
I liked hearing her tell me I did a good job, but now that’s she’s going on about salons and hairdressing school, I just want her to stop talking. Thinking about the future only ever makes me think about the past.
I head into the kitchen and pretend to be looking for something in the fridge. When I glance back into the living room, I notice Zach staring at me.
“I think we should do shots before we go,” I call out, closing the fridge and opening the cupboard above it instead. “One for the road, hein?”
We’ve been to two bars already by the time we end up at some kind of punk club with a tiny dance floor. It’s past midnight, and I’ve had enough to drink that it feels like the thump of the bass is calling my name the second we step inside.
Hanging out with Zach and Hope tonight has been like falling into rhythm I’ve somehow always known, like getting pulled into a dance and discovering your feet already know the steps. The way we talk and laugh and tease the shit out of each other is so natural, so easy. At first I really did treat Hope like a celebrity, like a girl from a storybook who jumped right off the page, but the longer I spend with the two of them, the more this starts to shift into something that’s both huge and crazy and simple and small all at once.
This feels like family. This feels like home, and it doesn’t make any sense because my home was never like this. My home was the place I was always trying to run from—out into the street to find the other kids, into houses that were full of more noise and people and fun than mine, into parks and parties and eventually the arms of whatever guy was standing there when I came looking. I was always running away from the wolves, running away from the silent places I could hear the howling.
I never really thought much about what I was running to. It didn’t really matter, only this—this bubbling feeling of belonging I get when I think about Zach’s grateful smile after he saw Hope’s hair or how he’s held my hand under every table we’ve sat at tonight—this is something to run to, cling to, to hold onto and never let go of.
I’m just so sick of being the girl who holds on too tight. I’m so sick of the fear that’s waiting to swallow me around every corner.
“No fucking way!” We’re heading to the bar to grab a round when Hope starts waving like a crazy person at someone coming off the dance floor. “Tasia!”
The girl, who has jet black hair and about five different piercings in her face, looks around at the sound of Hope’s shout and then starts waving too as she rushes over.
“Hope! What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m visiting my idiot brother!”
Zach crosses his arms where he’s standing beside me. “Um, hello.”
Hope pats him on the shoulder. “This is him, and that’s his, uh, friend, DeeDee. Zach and DeeDee, this is Tasia. She’s on my lacrosse team at school.” She turns back to her friend. “Now, what the hell are you doing here?”