My Brother's Best Friend 2 | ✓

18. "life's too short"

We barge into the 24-hour supermarket relentlessly. The exasperated and drowsy employees working the night shift roll their eyes at the chaos we bring into the empty aisles. My eyes scroll through the boxes of hair dye hectically, noticing the copious shades of teal, pink and purple. Until finally, one specific box catches my eye.

It's a Carolina shade of blue, that gives me a feeling of inexplicable serenity. It's semi-permanent of course; I am not going full throttle on this one. "That would look great with your eyes," Anthony comments.

I could sense the long night ahead of us, so I scurried and purchased the damn thing before I got the chance to change my mind.

~

The pungent smell of bleach quickly filled the empty girls' bathroom on the fourth floor. Unfortunately, since I was cursed with these dreadfully dull chocolate brown locks on my head, some bleach had to be involved in order to get my hair to the pretty washed out blue color that I desired.

I downed two large gulps of the whiskey Anthony and I were sharing which wasn't exactly helping our heavy eyes, though we didn't care. The lights were still off, which made the task of properly distributing the hair dye a lot more difficult, but for some odd reason, I had no trouble trusting Anthony with my hair. Maybe it was my lack of good judgment, or maybe it was the alcohol.

"I never thought University would be this hard," I lick what's left of the horrible tasting liquid from my lips and shudder. "All the stress, the assignments, and not to mention the exams." My mouth rambles on without a filter.

"It's not easy for anyone, but if it's what you're meant to do, it's all worth it in the end." His low voice echoes along with the sound of the dye being mushed into my scalp.

"I mean—I've always been interested—in the inner workings of the mind," I slur. "How do I know if it's right for me?" though I suppose it's a little late to be asking this now.

He takes his hands off my head and I move the flashlight I was holding up for him to see. I hadn't even noticed all this time my arm was aching terribly. "Only time will tell."

I lower my shoulders in disappointment. "Just like with your hair; only time will tell if I actually did it right," he chuckles, sitting down on the cold tiled floor right next to me. "Life is just too hard." I pout quite childishly.

"Is psych really the best choice for you?" he takes the bottle from my hand, and I'm feeling too cloudy to even process it. It's almost as if all his words and actions are in slow motion, so even thinking about his question takes me a minute.

"I love art, I always have. It comes so easy to me, like second nature."

"I just think life's too short for not doing what you want." He says. "Seems like you already know what that is."

"Anthony?" I stare at him, my eyes far too tired to move from his face. He speaks with such confidence and certainty that's it's hard not to believe him. "Yeah?" he stares right back, connecting the dots between my eyes and his.

"Thank you."

I have already well adjusted to the very dim and shadowy surroundings thanks to the power outage. Luckily for the flashlight, I'm still able to see around the room. Reading his facial expressions, however, is not as easy; I can't decipher what he's thinking. He clears his throat and gets up immediately.

Pulling me up along with him, he begins rinsing out my hair in the sink, surely staining it with vibrant hair dye. His perfect sobriety makes me feel like such a lightweight, though we both consumed roughly the same amount of alcohol. Still, I must say I've come a long way since my first party because that was a complete disaster.