"I'm sure," I said firmly. "I'm tired of looking at a stranger every time I see my reflection." Ryder appeared behind me, a brush in hand.
"Then let's bring back our purple-haired warrior princess."
What followed was nothing short of chaos. Despite their careful preparation and apparent research, it quickly became clear that neither Cole nor Ryder had any natural talent for hair styling. Cole approached the task with the precision of an academic, carefully measuring and mixing the dye according to the instructions, while Ryder took a more intuitive approach, resulting in purple dye splattering across the bathroom wall.
"You're supposed to be painting her hair, not recreating a Jackson Pollock," Cole admonished, trying to wipe a streak of dye from the tile before Rosa noticed.
"I'm creating art here," Ryder defended, brandishing the tint brush like a weapon. "Besides, you're moving at the pace of a particularly cautious snail." I couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up, surprising all of us.
"You're both ridiculous," I said, but there was no bite to my words, only warmth. It felt strange, laughing. My body seemed to remember the mechanics of it, but the sensation was almost foreign after so many weeks of tears and silence.
Cole handed me the tint brush with an expression of mild horror.
"Maybe you should do the actual application. We'll be your assistants."
"Coward," Ryder teased, but he looked relieved as I took over, my hands steadier than I'd expected as I began applying the dye to sections of my hair.
We fell into a rhythm, Cole handing me clips and separating sections of hair, while Ryder kept up a steady stream of commentary and occasionally dabbed dye onto spots I'd missed. It was messy and imperfect, but there was something deeply comforting about the simple human contact, about being touched with gentleness and care after so long living with the memory of cruel hands.
"Shit!" Ryder suddenly exclaimed, examining his hands. Despite the gloves, he'd somehow managed to stain his fingers a vivid purple. "How did that even happen?"
"You poked a hole in your glove with your nail, genius," Cole pointed out, trying and failing to suppress a smile.
"It's a good colour on you," I offered, which set Cole off into barely contained laughter.
"Not funny," Ryder grumbled, but his eyes were bright with amusement. "I have meetings next week. Important, serious meetings where I'll now have purple fingertips."
"Just tell them it's a fashion statement," I suggested. "Very avant-garde."
"Or wear gloves," Cole added practically. "Though that might raise more questions than the purple fingers."
We were all laughing then; the sound filling the small bathroom and spilling out into the hallway. It felt good, this moment of normalcy, of shared humour. For a brief, shining moment, we weren't victim and rescuers, we weren't broken people trying to hold each other together. We were just three friends, making a mess and laughing about it. Of course, thatwas when disaster struck. Ryder, gesturing with the tint brush he'd reclaimed, sent a spray of purple dye arcing through the air. Time seemed to slow as we watched it land with perfect precision on the pristine white armchair visible through the open bathroom door.
The silence that followed was deafening.
"Oh shit," Ryder whispered, his face draining of colour. "Rosa is going to murder me."
"Murder us all," Cole corrected grimly. "Slowly and painfully."
As if summoned by the very thought of her name, Rosa appeared in the doorway, arms full of fresh towels. Her gaze travelled from our guilty faces to the purple splatter on her beloved furniture, and her expression darkened ominously.
"I leave you alone for twenty minutes," she began, her voice dangerously calm. "Twenty minutes! And you manage to-" She broke off, taking a deep breath. "I will skin you boys alive if that stain does not come out. And you will clean every speck of purple from this bathroom. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, ma'am," Cole and Ryder chorused, looking thoroughly chastened. Rosa turned her attention to me then, her expression softening as she took in the partially dyed hair piled atop my head. "But you, my sweet girl, you already look beautiful. The purple suits you much better than that sad blonde." She set down her towels and gestured for the boys to move aside. "Now, let me help you finish this properly before these two turn the entire house purple."
Rosa's expert hands made quick work of the remaining application, and soon my head was covered in dye, a plastic cap secured over it to keep the colour processing. As we waited for the dye to develop, I regaled her with the full story of the boys' hair-colouring attempts, exaggerating their ineptitude justenough to make her laugh while they cleaned up the bathroom under her watchful eye.
"They try very hard, these boys," Rosa said quietly during a moment when Cole and Ryder were arguing about the best way to remove a particularly stubborn stain from the tile. "They care for you very much." I nodded, watching their reflection in the mirror.
"I know," I replied softly. "Even when they don't know how to show it."
"Sometimes the trying is what matters most," she said, patting my shoulder gently. "Not the result."
When it was time to rinse, Rosa shooed the boys out of the bathroom, declaring that they had done enough damage for one day. She helped me bend over the tub, her small hands strong and sure as she worked the dye from my hair, massaging my scalp with a gentleness that brought unexpected tears to my eyes.
"There, there," she murmured, misinterpreting my emotion. "We're almost done. No need to cry." But it wasn't pain or discomfort that brought the tears. It was the simple human kindness of her touch, the maternal care in her actions. After so much cruelty and pain, the contrast was almost unbearable.
When the rinsing was complete, Rosa wrapped my hair in a towel and guided me back to the stool.
