The second shock was Jon’s brilliant idea to simply just dye Karyn’s hair back to it’s red color. So about two weeks after the wish, and 10 days after the break up, Karyn tried dying her long, beautiful blonde hair, back to it’s red color. This was a disaster. She came out looking like a circus clown, it looked nothing like what was on the box, instead it was a bright fire engine red, like someone had taken a red sharpie and colored in her hair. It made sense then that the rest of the world saw this as a cry for help, something was seriously wrong.
The red didn’t wash out, her head stood out like a beacon. She was now worse off than before, and school was waiting for her the next day. She snuck home, something her parents noticed and worried about, but would address in the morning.
The next day she pulled out her green jumper and hid her new hair behind it’s hood. She hoped she could keep it hidden long enough for it to fade, or get it fixed, but of course that didn’t happen. A freshman, trying to be funny, pulled the hood back from behind her in the middle of the hall, and everyone saw. You’ve never seen a school hall go silent, because that’s not what school halls do, they are made for the noise of a thousand gossips and jeers, but in that moment everyone just stopped and looked, shocked. In that moment Karyn felt the most embarrassed she had ever felt in her life, her face burned as it turned as red as her hair, and as she ran out of that hall way tears in her eyes. It was as if the whole school had seen her naked, and she cursed herself for making that wish, she cursed the stone for placing her in this world, and she especially cursed Jon, for not only had he introduced her to this situation, he kept making it worse by trying to help.
An intervention was called. Sarah, Melissa and Tiffany, who were supposed to be Karyn’s friends, sat her down and told her how unacceptable this was, how she was hurting the group, how she was hurting Tom, and how she was clearly hurting herself. And Karyn just sat there and took it all in, here they were talking to her as if she was some other person, but as they described her she began to understand who this other her was supposed to be. She was one of them, they cared for her, and wanted them to have a life like theirs. She was welcome, but only if she stopped “whatever melt down this was”.
Karyn was offered a choice, play along, or be outcast. Looking at her strange reflection in the mirror behind Sarah’s still chattering head, Karyn made the hard choice, she’d try to fit in, little did she know how hard, and what a strange journey it would be it give up who she was for this new version of herself.
As she relented, and the girls all hugged, Karyn felt a strange sense of foreboding inclusion.
