4. Dumb Brunette
I shouldn't go to parties, because I'm unpredictable and I'm self-destructive, and I never know when I should quit. I never know when to quit anything. Fortunately, I was with Quinn, and he has so much more restraint than I do. He wasn't aware of me enough to stop me before I was drinking my fifth beer, though.
So I woke up and I wasn't sure where I was and I had another awful hangover…why do I keep letting myself do these things? …And I think I'm not at home. Oh yeah, I ran away. Oh, somebody turn off the light, it's killing my head…
I moved just a little, and I realized I was lying on top of someone. So I hugged whoever it was really close and rocked slightly back and forth. "Ooh, somebody turn out the lights…" I moaned.
"Dude, the lights are out, that's the sun."
"Oh." I recognized that voice.
"How's your head?"
"Like it's been impaled."
"And the rest of you?"
"Like I've been run over."
"Nice."
I hid my face in Quinn's chest from the sun. I felt his hands gently massaging my back for a moment before he started pushing me. "Okay. Get off, Bert, I'm going to get up and go to work."
"You're going to go to…work?" I asked, completely distraught. What was this new torture? He was going to leave me alone?
"Yes, I want money today. I go to work, I get money. You do realize what money is at this hour of the morning, don't you?"
"Yes, Mommy," I whined, letting him push and wrestle his way out from under me. I hid my face under the blankets and listened to Quinn moving about the room, getting ready to go into work. This was so unfair. I was completely smashed, shouldn't the rules of life require him to stay here with me until I feel like moving again?
"When are you coming back?" I asked, throwing the covers off of my face and ignoring the stabbing pain of sunlight.
"Noon. We get a half-day at work on Fridays. So I'll be back in no time." I squinted through the dingy light filtering through his window to see him pulling on a blue hoodie and walking out the door. "There's some coffee in the cabinet if you wanna make some…" I heard him calling from down the hallway.
Coffee…Gerard absolutely adored coffee. I hid my face under the blankets again. This was disgusting.
My stomach squirmed for hours, and for hours I refused to get out of bed. Then finally, feeling slightly better, I got up and wandered my way into Quinn's tiny kitchen. I opened several cabinets before I actually found the coffee, and my shaking hands spilled some over the counter as I was making it. I stuffed my cold hands into the pockets of my hoodie as I wandered away from the kitchen, letting the coffee brew. This house was so fucking empty. Everything about it was lonely right now. I've been in Quinn's house several times before, but all those times it's been either dark or so crowded with people that I haven't noticed anything about it. It's really small – it's always seemed that way, but I usually attributed that aspect to the massive crowds – and was probably a fairly nice house decades ago. The walls are all white, made interesting by the dirt, fingerprints, and band posters Quinn put on them. The floors are all hardwood, but some of it looks slightly rotten and they creak almost everywhere. I walked into the living room and fell down on the couch there. Quinn's guitar was leaning against the armrest, still jacked into his amplifier, just waiting for him to come back to play. I reached for it absentmindedly and played a little while as I waited for the coffee. It took my mind off the pain.
I must have been in bed for longer than I'd thought, because I hadn't finished my mug of coffee when I heard someone unlocking the door, and Quinn came into the room carrying a plastic sack full of something. He set it on the table before pulling out his wallet and fanning a fistful of cash in my face. "Payday is awesome," he informed me, sitting next to me on the couch. "Dude, I need some."
I handed him my coffee mug and he took a quick swallow before handing it back. "We've got a hundred dollars. The rest is in my account. I hope we don't need any more of it."
I sipped more coffee – it made my head hurt less.
"I owe four hundred for the rent. That's for this month. Next month, if you're staying, you're paying half of that."
"Okay. I will do that. Somehow. Don't know how yet. But I will."
"Awesome." Quinn leaned forward and pulled open the bag on the coffee table. "And I brought these," he said, handing me a warm sandwich wrapped in white paper. "The best sandwiches in Bloomfield come from Sub Shop," he stated, pulling out another for himself.
We ate lunch sitting on the couch, the conversation slowly picking up as my head began to hurt less.
As soon as I was finished, Quinn gave my arm a push and he pointed back down the hallway. "Now go and get dressed, we're going shopping. Hurry up."
"I assume that means I can take whatever I want from your closet?" I asked as I walked back down the hallway.
"Sure. But find your old clothes, we'll go to the laundromat."
Quinn followed me back so he could gather his most dirty clothes from the bedroom floor, and then we climbed into his car…which is falling apart, by the way…and began to drive.
"Turn out the lights," Quinn snorted.
"What?" I asked, his comment making no sense at all.
"Dude, you woke up this morning and told me to turn out the light. The sunlight."
I blushed a little, not bothering to respond as Quinn laughed. "I'm kind of a dumb blond, sometimes," I said, looking out the window.
"Yeah, sometimes you are."
That gave me an idea. I turned back to Quinn. I must have had that weird light that people claim I get in my eyes, because he looked at me the way those people always do when they say I have it. "But what if I wasn't?"
"If…you…weren't…dumb?" Quinn asked, really confused.
"If I wasn't blond?" I said, getting excited. Why had I never thought, among all those other things I'd done to defy my mother, that I could've dyed my hair?
"You wouldn't be Bert," Quinn answered, glancing at me uncertainly. "But we could try it."
"You buy the hair dye?" I asked hopefully.
"No, you buy the hair dye. I'll help you apply it."
We were in town all the rest of that day, buying sustenance and doing laundry and choosing hair dye. I wanted black. Quinn looked mildly concerned about the huge change black hair was going to make on me, but he also looked really interested to know the outcome, so he didn't try to dissuade me. When we got home it was already after dark. I was really excited about my hair dye, so Quinn put away the groceries while I went to play with my hair.
I came into the living room a half hour later with my new hair still wet around my shoulders. Quinn was lying on the couch, watching a screaming and bloody movie that I wasn't really sure if I should classify as action or horror yet. Quinn looked around as I came in.
"Whoa," he said, his eyes fixed on my hair. "Whoa, dude. That actually looks good."
"You think so?" I asked, turning a full circle so he could see my hair from every angle.
"Yeah," he said, nodding. Quinn yawned and shifted on the couch. "It's actually kind of sexy."
His yawning made me yawn too, so I walked across to his couch and climbed in next to him. I wasn't thinking about it till I was already down, but as soon as I was lying next to him, memories of Gerard pounded against my brain. I have spent so many nights watching horror movies on the couch with Gerard. So many nights. That was practically my every night last summer. The pain was like razors slicing through my brain. I hid my head against Quinn's chest, whimpering slightly, feeling tears at the corners of my eyes. Quinn put his arms around me, holding me against him…or maybe just making sure I wouldn't fall off the couch. It felt warm and secure, so I closed my eyes and let the screams from the movie wash over me, sounds I could relate to so well, 'cause I wanted so badly to be the one making them.
This chapter name comes from prom night, when I was explaining to my brother about Bert and Quinn's conversation... "If...you...weren't...dumb?" "If I wasn't blonde." And my mom was like, "Then he'd be a dumb brunette!" And that cracked me up. :P
Xoxo,
Rebel Rose
