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"What the fuck are you doing here?" Derek spat, his body blocking the doorway so I couldn't see around him. "How did you even get in?!"
"Turns out the desk boy hands out keys for cleavage." A woman replied.
"You didn't answer my question. What are you doing here?" He still didn't move, and I still couldn't see. I tried peering around the side of Derek and got a peek of a woman's black boots and skinny jeans.
"Brady kicked me out and I need a place to stay." She paused. "Who the hell are you?"
Derek spun around, revealing me to the woman. She was tall and lean with short black hair and the most piercing glare I've ever had the displeasure of being under. Who was she? An ex? A distant cousin? Friend?
"I-I-I-" I stammered, but was interrupted by the woman.
"What's wrong with you?" She spat, turned to Derek and placed a perfectly manicured hand on her hip. "Derek, thump her on the back, see if you can restart her."
"Shut up, Tori." He barked and gently squeezed my arm. "This is-"
"Chloe." I said after I quickly collected myself. "I'm Chloe. Nice to meet you." I held out my hand. She looked at it as if it were covered in dog shit, so I lowered it back to my side.
"Yeah, uh, Chloe, this is Tori. My-"
"I'm this brute's sister." Tori leaned on the arm of the couch as Derek closed the door behind us. "So Der, you finally got a catch. Where'd you find her, the local high school?" She remarked, jabbing a thumb towards me.
I could see what she was getting at. There was nothing about my physical appearance that screamed "adult". I was five foot nothing with curves that showed only if I wore clothes tighter than my own skin. My baby fine hair didn't help me all that much either. The only time somebody would look at me and think, 'yeah, she must be older than 15' was when they'd see me get in the driver's side of my car. Even then, who's to say I wasn't 17?
"Tori..." Derek warned.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Who is she anyway?" She asked him.
"I-I am here, you know." I glared at her to the best of my ability. "I'm his flatmate."
The spiky haired woman snorted a laugh. "You look like you're barely out of high school."
"I'm twenty three." I snapped before hobbling to my room and slamming the door behind me.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I heard Derek's hushed voice on the other side.
I eyed the bottle of hair dye that had been sitting, no, taunting me from my bathroom counter for the last two weeks. Derek's sister wasn't wrong. I did look pretty young, but up until now I had never let any of those comments get to me. My eyes gazed over the instructions that seemed easy enough to comprehend. Liz told me that hair dye changed the texture of your hair, sometimes making it thicker and easier to manage. I hoped she was right as I opened the box and eyed the contents. The dye looked a lot darker than the picture showed, but Liz warned me about that too.
"Might as well." I murmured to myself as I cracked open the bottle. The smell of chemicals assaulted my nose and I screwed up my face.
I followed the instructions to the T, but I was scared. The dye in my hair looked even darker on my hair than it did in the bottle, and the dye in the bottle was darker than the picture on the box. What if I ended up with black hair? I was pale enough, I didn't need the assistance of black hair to make me look like a zombie girl.
Woman. I was a woman, damn it. Too many people used the phrase 'girl' to describe me.
"Oh, you're such a polite young girl." An elderly woman told me as I held the door open for her at the mall.
"Young girls like you..." I heard many times. Mostly from weird old men who'd eye me suspiciously, as if I was going to get into a bunch of trouble.
I shuddered. Hopefully this dye would help me shed that childlike look.
It was finally time to wash out the dye. The water ran a brownish grey color for a while before finally becoming clear. I took that as a sign it was all gone.
I stepped out of the shower and dried myself off. Looking into the mirror, my stomach dropped. My hair looked darker than I had hoped.
"Relax, Chloe." I muttered to myself. "Liz said it would get lighter once it dried." I grabbed the hairdryer from the second drawer and turned it on, focusing it on my hair. Wet strands flew everywhere, eventually drying up.
I set the dryer down on the counter and smiled. It was perfect. Instead of wispy strawberry blonde, my hair was a dark ashy blonde with the perfect amount of highlights instead. It did make me look older and I felt kind of... sexy. Not really a word I would have used to describe myself beforehand.
I ran my fingers through my hair, it feeling softer and thicker than it did before. Liz was right, and I swore to myself that I'd never doubt her again.
I slipped a sweater over my head and pulled on a pair of shorts before I walked out of my bathroom. Derek was in the kitchen with his back to me and heard me coming.
"Lasagna okay for dinner?" He called over his shoulder.
"Mmm, sounds good." I replied as I sat on a bar stool and glanced around, noticing the absence of his sister who was there only an hour ago. "Where's Tori?"
Derek spun around, a stern look etched across his face which eased up once we made eye contact. He dusted his hands off and leaned over the counter, picking up a strand of my hair that rested against my collarbone. "You changed it." He muttered, almost sounding confused.
"Y-yeah, thought it was time for a change." I mumbled, feeling awkward at this new contact.
Derek dropped the strand of hair. "Looks good." He grunted and turned back to the stove top. "I sent Tori to a hotel."
"Why aren't you letting her stay? You let Simon-"
"Because she's a bitch." He interrupted me. "She doesn't get to barge in here and make demands to stay, especially after insulting you. I let Simon stay because he's an honest to God good person. Tori, not so much, and Brady is lucky to be rid of her."
"But she's your sister..." I started. "It sounds like she's going through a rough time."
"She also burnt her bridge with me long enough ago." He spat, his voice becoming more stern and angry. He threw a look behind his shoulder at me and sighed when he saw my face, eventually making his way around the counter and sitting on the bar stool next to mine.
"We went to the same college for a short while. Both for law until she transferred to computer sciences. Some shit happened between us when we were nineteen. She didn't put in the effort and was flunking. Tori wanted me to help but I refused, told her that she needed to stop partying so much and pay more attention but she didn't like that." He picked up an apple from the fruit bowl and studied it before taking a bite. "So she hacked into the administration and changed my grades, fully knowing that I was on a scholarship and had to keep them up. It caused a lot of trouble and I had to jump through hoops to get everything fixed and prove that I did, in fact, have near perfect grades. So yeah, you could say I'm not the biggest fan of the person who almost ruined my life." He finished.
"Well... shit." I muttered, thinking. Derek said this all went down when they were nineteen, surely Tori would have changed and grown up after all of these years, right? Sure, she was rude to me straight off the bat and a little bit abrupt, but would a mid twenty year old woman do the same things she did when she was nineteen? I didn't think so.
"Do you think she's the same person now?" I eventually asked him. "Everybody did stupid shit when they were teenagers." I suppressed a cringe, thinking way back to the days of MySpace.
He pushed himself off the bar stool and made his way back to the stove. "Not everybody almost got their brother kicked out of college just over a stupid, trivial fight." He told me while stirring the pot of marinara sauce, dipping his finger in to try it. "But you've got a point."
"So why not let her stay?" I asked, walking around the counter to try the sauce for myself. "Needs more chili powder."
Derek nodded and added a few dashes of the red powder. "I've never really thought about rekindling my relationship with Tori. So far we've stayed out of each others way and I've been just fine with that."
"I bet that's made Christmases awkward." I snorted a laugh.
"A little bit. I never really stuck around long enough for it to get awkward."
"So... you agree that she might have changed?" I prodded.
"I mean, probably. We haven't spoken for the last seven years so it's hard to tell, but if today was anything to go by then I think she has a lot more changing to do."
I thought for a minute. "I think you should give her a chance. She's probably stressed and upset about getting kicked out. Maybe she could use something good in her life... like hanging out with her brother again."
It was Derek's turn to snort out a laugh. "Oh yeah, I'm sure she'd love to spend time with me." He paused deep in thought. "You know, you're too nice for your own good, Chloe."
"So you'll give her a shot?" I asked, hopeful. I wasn't sure why exactly I was getting so involved in Derek's personal life, but if I could help him and his sister then maybe that was a good thing.
"Can I make her grovel first?" I gave my flatmate a pointed look. "Fine." He grumbled. "But if this doesn't work then it's on you."
I put my hands up in mock surrender. "I'll gladly wear the blame." I told him before reaching around him to the fridge and pulling out a carton of orange juice.
"Okay..." He said hesitantly. "I'll give Tori a call."
