“Your hair is dry.”
The words mean nothing to Gwen. They flow in one ear and out the other, another meaningless dig made by a girl prettier than her, a girl dumber than her, a girl who submitted herself to the rule of misogyny and thought her beautiful blue eyes meant everything in the world. Gwen has dealt with mindless drones like Lindsay before, she knows how they work. She knows how to make them leave her alone.
“Yeah. It’s more flammable that way. I want to be a walking hazard.” She quips back. She’s being sarcastic, a concept too complex for someone as dimwitted as Lindsay to understand. So, she dumbs it down, and adds on, “I really don’t care. Go do something else.”
Lindsay frowns, her bright blue eyes sparkling in an attempt to incite any sort of emotion within Gwen. It doesn’t work. But, Lindsay continues on with her pity fest, as oblivious as always.
“I mean it! There’s so many split ends. You’re dyeing your hair wrong.”
“Excuse me?” Gwen looks up, her eyebrows furrowed. “What do you know about dyeing hair? I know what I’m doing.”
Lindsay takes off her blue bandana and sets it on the communal bathroom counter. She runs her fingers through her hair to flatten it out, and then dips her head towards Gwen, pointing her finger to the part in her hair.
To Gwen’s surprise, the roots of her hair are not the soft yellow tone she expected. They’re a darker, dirtier brown. It’s hard to see unless you're looking for it, it’s obvious that Lindsay recently bleached her hair. But, the pristine, smooth, natural look of her golden locks hide that fact. They look as natural as can be.
“You can’t even tell, right?” Lindsay reads Gwen’s mind and stands back up straight, running her fingers through her hair. They soar through effortlessly, no tangles.
“No, not really. I had no idea.” Gwen experimentally runs her hands through her own hair to see if she receives the same lack of struggle. No luck. It’s knotted.
“Yeah, it’s nothing like yours. You did it yourself, right?”
“Yup. How could you tell?” Gwen asks rhetorically, rolling her eyes.
“The colors are blotchy, you have too many split ends, it’s frizzy, the back is uneven, and I can still see some brown hair on the underside.”
Gwen self consciously covers her hair with her hand, wondering even why she suddenly cared so much about hiding it. “You weren’t meant to answer. Besides, I like it this way, it has more character. It’s much better than your perfect bimbo blonde.”
Something flashes in Lindsay’s eyes, too quick for Gwen to decipher, but she moves on without a shred of further acknowledgement.
“Here,” Lindsay takes a step towards Gwen and takes one of her pale, white hands. She rests a strand of her hair in her palm. Gwen is taken aback at first, her initial instinct to be to swat Lindsay away, but, as the golden lengths caress her skin, she's surprised at how it doesn't only look soft, but feels soft as well. Against her better judgment, she strokes the surface and even reaches further up to Lindsay's head to feel more of it.
Maybe Gwen has been near Cody too much, but the scent of it enchants her, as well. Thankfully, she fights against her impulsiveness this time and backs away, crossing her arms.
"Huh. It actually feels quite nice. It's not a wig, is it?" Gwen jokes, smirking. Though, a part of her would've been intrigued if it was a wig, too. She's cosplayed a few times and was in desperate need of a good hair resource.
"It's all natural! I can show you how I make it so soft, if you'd like."
The proposition is hilarious, and Gwen laughs, but after a few moments she realizes: Oh, Lindsay was serious about this. Lindsay wanted to force Gwen to spectate her little Barbie makeover session, and she would gossip about boys the whole time, and blah, blah, blah.
