December, 2010

Dying my hair red was no simple feat, or at least not for me. With my tan skin and chocolate brown hair, I had always felt self conscious dying my long wavy strands anything other than black, but I was taking the plunge so it would match my favorite male icon: Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance. I had colored matched my hair throughout his music history; black for when I first discovered their albums Bulletproof and Three Cheers, bleach blonde for Black Parade, black again for touring, and now cherry red for their latest album Danger Days.

In the upper right corner of the bathroom mirror I had tacked a picture of Gerard with his floppy red hair, absentmindedly looking up to the stars, to encourage me to paint my pre-bleached hair with the red dye I bought from Manic Panic. I hesitated with my hand curled around the bottle.

Did I really want bright red hair? Wild wasn’t really my thing. I was always a pretty sedate kid, and I was only dying my hair in honor of my favorite musician. Blonde was one thing, definitely still unnatural, but at least something that could blend in well. But red different. Red was a stop sign, a lightbulb, a cry for attention. I could picture myself walking down the aisles of the supermarket with my mother as she pushed the cart along, my hair ablaze, drawing the eyes of every old lady in the room to my head like a magnet. I decided to put the bottle down.

Ketchup hair was for the angsty girls who sat in the far corner of the lunchroom writing fanfiction in their notebooks. It was not for people such as moi or my friends Amber and Cate, who actually knew not to overcake their eyes with makeup or wear the same pair of skinny jeans every day.

I pushed my foot down on the pedal of the trashcan, ready to dump the color out of the bottle, when I looked up again at the picture on my mirror. The closeup of Gerard made his eyes glow in a sort of determined fashion, while his hair splayed out like a beautiful frame around his face. It was nearly hypnotic; and I held eye contact with the image for a full two minutes.

I took my foot off the can and placed the bottle back down on the table, running my hands through my hair while I contemplated. I could work this. So maybe I didn't have Gerard’s moonlight pale complexion, but red blouses had always looked great against my caramel toned skin. I spooned out a dollop of the red goo when I heard my mobile rang from the other end of the bathroom counter.

Peeking over the clutter of my hair dying supplies, I peered at the letters on the little screen that read: CATE. My stomach sank like a rock.

“Not now,” I thought to myself, my eyes burning in the the digital characters. Cate was my best friend, but I knew if I answered her we’d end up talking about her latest boy, and then what we were gonna wear for whatever party was coming up, and pretty soon I’d be lying on my queen bed snacking on sesame cookies while we gabbed about how horrible school and all of our teachers were but which ones we actually thought were pretty cute. And if I walked away from the bathroom now, i’d never have the courage to dye it red again.

The bottle of color was in my left hand, the phone in my right. It rang once. Twice.