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My shoulders and chest are the worst. My face is mostly okay, aside from a few streaks of blue down my cheeks and a few splotches poking out from under the towel. The blue has run down my arms, and when I look down at my feet, I realize they’re just as bad as my shoulders.
“Oh god,” I mutter, the words barely audible. My eyes drift to the towel on my head. Like I’m ripping off a band aid, I yank it off. Hair, stained in blue patches like my body, spills over my shoulders.
Everything seems to stop as I stare at my reflection, and I’ve even forgotten about Penny until she’s suddenly by my side, picking up a lock of my hair.
Without saying a word, she walks to the bathroom, flicking the light switch. When she sees the light doesn’t work, she pulls her phone out and turns the flashlight on, stepping inside. “Fuck me.”
Moving in a daze, I follow her into my bathroom.
Penny has the door of the shower open, and the light is picking up the white tiles stained with blue. If it were blood, it would look like a massacre. She reaches inside, pulling the shampoo off the side and squirts it into the base. The liquid is white.
It’s only when she reaches to swap the bottle for the container that she stops. I’m not sure why until she shines her light up towards the shower head. The water dripping is tinged with blue.
Penny sets the bottle down then faces the sink, turning the faucet on. The water that comes out is clear.
As she turns the tap off, I walk to the shower, reach up and pull the head off. There’s a rush of water spilling from the showerhead, which makes it seem like ink is coming out of the pipes, but as Penny appears behind me, shining the light upwards, I can see the water there is clear.
I tip the shower head upside down, and a small cube falls out. It’s so dark, it looks black, but the water it sits in instantly turns a vivid blue.
“Have another shower,” Penny tells me. “I’m sure it will wash out.” She steps out of the room, leaving the door open. She also leaves her phone on the toilet, the flashlight shining up at the ceiling to give me extra light.
Tossing the showerhead and whatever the block is, into the sink, I turn back to the shower and turn the water on. Water comes gushing out of the pipe, but it’s thankfully clear.
Keeping the shower door open so I can see myself in the light, I do my best to wash the blue off. My skin feels raw from all the scrubbing, but I’m finally able to get my skin to change from blue to bright red, everywhere but the palms of my hands, my feet, and a small section on my collar bone. The whole time, despite the intensity of the pouring water, I keep my hair under it, hoping it will take the worst with it before I attack it with almost all of what’s left of my shampoo.
When I step out into my room, Penny stands from the corner of my bed she was sitting on. “You look much better.”
I walk in front of my mirror and stare at my reflection. My skin does, mostly… my hair, not so much. “Sure,” I say. I’m exhausted, and I feel like all my energy has been wiped out of me.
“But I have nail polish remover and an idea,” she tells me.
“I don’t think nail polish remover is going to fix this.” I hold up a bit of my hair. Because my hair is blonde, parts are still tinged with blue, only it’s blotchy and ugly. “Penny, you should go.”
With everything else that’s happening, this seems so insignificant, but I’ve been fighting back tears, and right now, I’m about to lose the battle.
“Just sit down and do what you need to,” Penny tells me as she tugs me over to my desk. She pulls out the chair and doesn’t move until I sit.
On the side of my desk, sits a small free-standing mirror, so as I pull that towards me.
Penny grabs the towel I’d taken off my hair and abandoned on the floor earlier. She quickly looks it over then turns back to me, using it to scrunch the ends of my stained hair hanging down my back.
I’m too tired to fight her, so I just sit there, staring at my reflection. I thought I’d manage to get the blue, but as the redness from my earlier scrubbing eases, it’s obvious there are still blue marks all over me.
When the hair is dry enough for Penny’s satisfaction, she sets the towel over my shoulders and pulls my hair out from underneath it. Then she gets my brush and starts to work through the knots.
“We’re past the campus curfew now, which means I couldn’t get to a store, but I think if we pull it back into a braid and then you wear a cap until the weekend, we can get this fixed when we’re in the city,” she tells me.
I’d been thinking about that, but I wouldn’t be allowed to wear a cap in the dining hall when I’m working.
“I wish I hadn’t washed it out,” I say as I stare at the splotches. The longer I’ve been staring at the blue stains, I’ve managed to switch from upset to angry.
“Really?”
Using the mirror, I look at her. “Whoever did this, did it because they want a reaction out of me, to upset me. And yes, it did when I first saw it, but I wish I’d left it all over me and then walked around not caring if I looked like a Smurf.”
Penny’s eyes widen. “Wait here.”
She runs to the door and leaves my room. My door has barely swung closed behind her before she’s back, brandishing two boxes of hair color, a plastic bowl, and brush.
