When My Shift Ends | ✓

fourteen | first draft

"I'm sorry," she says through her laughter, trying her hardest to catch her breath. "I thought you said that you were going to do my hair."

His smile widens. "I did."

She wipes away a loose tear, letting out another healthy chuckle. "Good one, Cooper. Not happening."

His grin fades and he crosses his arms over his chest, sending her a challenging stare. "Why not? The slip said 'dye my hair.'"

She lets out a sigh of relief, finally calming down from her laughing fit, before standing behind him once more to finish his hair. "Exactly. It said dye my hair. You wrote the slip. 'My' would be inclusive to only you."

He shakes his head and Ellie yanks down on his hair once more as a warning, eliciting a small hiss in pain from him. "We both do the slips in the jar. That was our deal."

"I'm not dying my hair."

"So you just want to be brown and boring forever?"

Biting down on her lip, she pulls on his hair once again and he screams, "Ow! What was that for?! I wasn't even moving!"

"That's for calling my hair boring. Besides, I'm literally dying your hair brown right now. If you really thought that brown was boring, you wouldn't be letting me dye yours that exact boring color."

He laughs, though she seems to fail to understand what's humorous about this situation. "I don't think brown is boring, El. I think normality is boring."

"There's nothing wrong with being normal, Cooper. Most people strive to be normal."

"Most people are boring."

"I swear to God I will not hesitate to rip every last strand of your hair out if you keep insulting me."

"Remind me to never let you dye my hair again. I did not expect this amount of aggression." He shakes his head and she's half-tempted to pull on it again, just to remind him that he needs to stop moving, but she resists, instead deciding to calmly continue stroking the brush across his light locks.

"People get aggressive when you call them boring."

"Stop reading into it, loser. I didn't call you boring. I said, normality is boring. The idea that we always have to be the same to be normal. Change is cool. It helps remind us that we're alive when we do things out of our comfort zones. We have to do something with these beating hearts while we can."

As always, he has a point. And as always, she doesn't want to admit that he may be right. So instead she settles on saying, "Don't call me a loser, loser."

Cooper's familiar laugh fills the room and Ellie's lips twitch up into a smile at the sound. She continues brushing away as a sense of calmness falls over them. After being sure she's applied the dye to every inch of hair on his head, she sets the brush back down in the bowl and lets him know she's finished. He stands up from the chair and turns to her to reveal his slicked back dark hair and she has to hold in her laugh.

"You look like you're either about to projectile vomit onto me or faint. Either way, neither of those seem to be a good sign," he says with a frown, turning to the mirror to finally see himself. When he sees his reflection his frown deepens. "Well, I mean, it probably will look better when it's finished, right? This is just the dye. Slicked back hair isn't really a good look on anyone."

He turns to her with an unsure look on his face and a soft grin spreads across her lips. "It'll look better when it's washed out. Anything will look better than this."

"Gee, thanks." He glances over at his reflection one last time before taking a seat on his bed and returning his gaze to Ellie. "So how about it?"

"How about what?"