“Umm, Mitta? I think I’m out of dye.”

“What? That can’t be right,” she said, taking the bottle from me. My heart thudded in my chest as I looked in the mirror – I was about to have half a head of black hair. Half. “Oh my God,” she said, clearly holding back a laugh. “It’s gone alright. How much did you get done?” I ran my finger straight down the middle of my head. I’d known this was a bad idea. “Well, hey, at least it’s in the middle – it might look like you meant to do it.” She was trying so hard not to laugh, and largely failing. “Sorry,” she squeaked out as she covered her mouth with her dye-stained hand.

I’m really not sure if I started to laugh or cry, but I just covered my face with my hands and sat down on the floor, doing one of the two. It was one of those moments that would be hilarious in a movie, or that you know you’ll look back at some day and laugh, but in the moment, it felt like the end of the world. I was going to look like a clown! I refused to even think about the fact that my shirt was completely ruined from all the dye, or wonder how long it would be before my hands weren’t black anymore. 

Mitta sat down beside me, still laughing, and leaned her head against the wall. Under her breath, obviously talking to herself instead of me, she mumbled, “What am I doing?” The exact question I’d been wondering since sitting down in that diner and asking for a plate of waffles. But why was my hair making her ask that?

An idea occurred to me. I lifted my head, and, in an attempt to get my mind off of the disaster presently soaking into my hair, or maybe to see what she was thinking, I went with it. “Don’t Get Me Started on hair dye. Go.”

She looked over at me, laughing and surprised all at once. “You’re going to start it this time?” She paused to laugh, then tried to calm herself with a deep breath. “Okay. Why are the bottles so tiny? Like, a lot of people have more hair than that,” she said as she gestured toward me, still giggling. “And it would be great if it didn’t stain your hands. Or, like, put a big thing on the front of the box saying that you need gloves, because that would have been good information to have awhile ago, not once the box is open and you’ve already paid for a shower. I guess they don’t really expect you to do it in a truck stop, but… you know, they should! Truckers dye their hair, too! It’s discrimination!” She leaned forward, laughing even harder. “Now you – discrimination against truck drivers in the hair dye industry!”

“And that is why chicken nuggets should not be counted as food,” I finished.

“You’re really getting the hang of it!” she told me and I smiled, strangely proud of that fact. Even I could tell that I was getting better. “It’s probably time to rinse it out by now,” she said as she stood up.

“Probably? Didn’t you look at the time on your phone or something?” She paused for a second, looking down at me.

“I didn’t, actually, bring my phone.” It hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d never seen her use it. But why wouldn’t she? That’s not something you just leave behind. I was still sad every time I remembered my fried cigarette lighter and dead-until-further-notice phone.

“Oh,” I said as I stood up to join her. “Okay.” She turned on the shower without saying anything else, this time actually turning on the warm knob instead of the cold one. As soon as it was going she stepped in, rinsing her hair out. It was soaking wet, but I could tell that the color would look good on her.

I tried not to think about what mine was about to look like as I leaned forward to rinse the dye on my own head out. Rather, the dye on half of my head. Mitta started drying hers with the towel, keeping her back to the mirror. I took the towel and did the same, envying how well hers had turned out. We both tried to comb our hair with our fingers, eventually turning to face the mirror.

I looked like a science experiment gone wrong. The left side of my hair and shirt were pitch black, and the right side completely untouched. It had actually managed to be worse than I’d imagined.

Mitta broke into a smile immediately. “Okay, yours looks freaking awesome. I wish I’d thought to do that.” Was she serious?

“You’re kidding. I look like one of those before and after pictures where there’s a line down the middle and it’s two halves that don’t match.”

“Marg. Stop expecting it to be bad and actually look at yourself. It’s genius,” she said as she turned away from the mirror. I leaned forward a little. Was it not as bad as I thought? I guess the colors weren’t too different, so if I stayed out of bright light, maybe no one would notice…

“Okay, smile,” Mitta said as she put her arm around my shoulder and held her camera up in front of us. I tried to turn away but her arm kept me in place, so I brought my hands up to cover my face just as the flash went off. 

“Why’d you do that?” she asked as she grabbed the paper that the camera spit out, leaving a faint red fingerprint where she grabbed it.

“I don’t, exactly, enjoy having my picture taken.”

“Well, you better get used to it,” she said, squinting at the film, like she was willing it to develop faster.