Sunflower

Chapter One

Faded light and an old mattress. The room was dark and the details fuzzy, and the air Curly Shephard had awoken to was stale. He took a deep breath in, oxygen filling his lungs with that sort of hollow feeling that came with being alive.

Curly sighed, staring with his eyes half open at the pale wall of his room. It was morning, probably around ten. A dull sunlight illuminated his room, tinted blue through the old navy curtains.

He was laying with his face half pressed into the mattress, random springs of his short, curly hair obscuring his already-blurred vision. With a final groan he pushed himself up on his elbows and stared bleakly out the window.

Curly watched a couple kids run past a neighbor's yard, deciding maybe it was time to get up. His hair fell in front of his eyes again and the 15 year old nearly squeaked- it was turning blonde again.

Not many people outside of his sister and brother- Angela and Tim- knew Curly Shephard was blonde. No one even suspected it either. Both his siblings had dark hair, and his parents had sandy-brown and black hair. He blamed his shitty luck.

So every month or so Curly dyed it- usually with Angela's help or by himself, granted he usually needed help. He'd been dying it dark ever since the 3rd grade, when he'd began to notice all the other greasers had dark hair. Even his older siblings had darker hair than his. In Curly's opinion, it was an awful color. He wasn't just blonde, his hair was downright yellow- a bright, sunshine yellow that disgusted Curly. It didn't match him at all. Curly Shephard. The trouble-maker, daredevil greaser kid with the piercings and the leather jacket. And he was blonde...

The only person outside of his family who knew was Dallas Winston- a hood who usually hung around at Buck Merril's parties. Curly barely knew him when he found out. He had been downstairs at their house while Tim was having a party. Everyone was drunk, it was pretty dimly lit too- he didn't know how he possibly could have noticed...

Curly had forgotten to dye his eyebrows.

There they were, hidden under the springy black curls were bright, sunflower-blonde eyebrows.

He didn't know how Dally even saw them through his hair, in a dark room. While slightly drunk too, no less.

But nevertheless, Dally Winston saw them, and in his drunken state he called Curly out.

"Hey- yeah you! Shephard kid!"

Curly's mind screamed 'abandon ship' so with his internal panic he turned on his heel and scurried back up the stairs. He had just planned on running down real quick to grab a Pepsi before he went to bed, trying to drown out the noise of the party. With his eyebrows like that- he didn't even think anyone would notice honestly- he just wanted to get in and out of the kitchen as quick as possible. Curly hadn't even gotten to the bottom of the stairs before he was discovered. Just his luck..

Now, unlike Buck's place, the Shephard house had rules about the upstairs during parties. Namely, Tim, Curly, and Angela's rooms are off-limits (unless you're actually with them, that is). Pretty much everyone was welcome in the guest rooms, though.

Curly internally cringed when he heard the blonde greaser follow him upstairs. Still in a panic, the younger ran full-sprint down the hallway, skidding to a stop and turning on his heel to dart into his room, all in one motion.

Apparently determined to follow, Dallas marched up the remaining stairs and down the hallway. The loud rapping on his door made Curly groan- why couldn't he just let. it. go?

"Hey- blondie boy, c'mon man lemme in I just wanna talk t' ya," the older greaser's voice was muffled from the other side of the wood.

Curly's chest heaved up and down rhythmically. His back was pressed against the door, feet splayed forward dramatically across the carpet in an attempt to keep the door shut despite Dally trying to pry it open with his hands.

"Come. On. Kid..." he huffed, straining against the wood, his efforts to try to push it open met with resistance.

Finally, Curly groaned and let his arms fall limp, dragging himself over to his bed and flopping onto it face-first. As expected, Dallas opened the door, a slight grin between his lips projecting his triumph. He walked over to the bed.

"Curly- right?"

The older blonde asked, poking Curly between the shoulder blades lightly.

"Yeah so what..." the younger mumbled into the mattress.

"Man, and here you had me thinkin' I was the only blonde grease round this neighborhood, huh, Curly kid?

Curly just growled in the back of his throat and shoved his face further into the sheetless bed.

"Shut up, Winston," he muttered grimly.

"I won't tell anyone man, don't worry," Dally laughed, "hey so, I gotta get back to the action, but uh... just try and remember the eyebrows next time ya decide to dye your hair kid." Dally laughed, ruffling Curly's curls and turning away to leave.

With that the older blonde had left, and Curly had to add another name to the list of people who knew his natural hair color. The teen had planned on finishing dying his eyebrows after the party, figuring he'd just lay low until it was over. Sue him for wanting a pepsi...
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The fifteen year old blinked wearily, clearing the dim memory from his head. The sun's glare burned his eyes to the point where he turned away from the window. Curly was tired still, but he knew going back to sleep would only make his head hurt more...

It was time to get up anyway.

[More to come soon]