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Erin remembered the first time she’d discussed hair properly with her mum. She was four years old, eating a bowl of dry cereal at the table and ogling her mother's pink hair.
“Ma, why’s your hair pink?”
Mary mulled the question over in her mind, unsure on how to properly explain it to a child, let alone her own.
‘Ah.. it means da loves me very much”.
Satisfied with her answer, Mary went back to folding clothes and separating them neatly into baskets.
“Will I ever get pretty pink hair?”
This seemed to stop Mary in her tracks. It was dangerous to promise a child that their hair would become coloured. So many things could happen in life and affect it. Her mind wandered to her sister, whose hair was now back to its original brown. Back to the colour it had been all their childhood, right up until she turned sixteen.
Sarah had met the love of her life, Patrick McCool, on a night out in town. Her hair had turned pink like Mary’s the following day, and she’d immediately known she had found the one.
Life, however, liked to throw a spanner in the works. In Sarah’s case, this spanner came in the form of a drunk driver striking Patrick on his way to work..
He passed away on a Tuesday.
The next Wednesday, Sarah’s hair had returned to its natural brown.
Mary didn’t want to squash her daughter’s dreams. Instead, she smiled and kissed her on the cheek.
“One day, love. One day”.
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She couldn’t believe it. Niamh O'Donnell had coloured hair.
Life really was just unfair.
To make it worse, Niamh was now waltzing around the school as if she owned the place, swishing her hair in front of everyone's face, and it was infuriating.
At lunchtime, everyone had gathered around her to find out who had caused her hair to turn. Niamh didn’t seem to know, and every time someone asked she’d just wave her hand in a dismissive motion, insisting on it staying a secret.
Clare pulled up beside Erin, staring wide-eyed at her hair.
“She looks very pretty”.
Erin’s eyes rolled all the way back into her head in distaste, her arms folded across her chest.
“I suppose so. I wonder who the fella is?”
“Fella?”
“Yeah, her ‘soulmate’, or whatever”
Clare hesitated before speaking softly, “It might not be a fella”
Erin’s head falls back in laughter, “Who else could it be then, Clare? A girl?”
“Ay, it could be!”, she retorted defensively, stomping her foot on the ground in frustration.
Erin just tutted at her friend's antics and walked off towards her next classroom, “You’re a funny one, Clare. ‘It could be a girl’, please. Don't make me laugh”. Erin’s voice trailed off into the distance, Erin not having realised that Clare wasn’t following her.
Clare was still staring at Niamh’s hair.
It did look pretty on her.
Very pretty indeed.
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Why were they making such a big fuss about graduating from primary to secondary school?
Everyone else seemed to be having the time of their life at their graduation disco, either dancing on the floor or stuffing their mouths at the buffet.
Erin, however, was sulking in the corner. She observed the girls in her grade and how nearly half of them now had coloured hair.
She was about to storm up to her mother and beg to leave when one of the boys from their brother school came up to her.
He had dark brown hair that fell just below his ears, shaping well his already pretty structured face. What was most intriguing about him, however, was his dark brown eyes. They almost looked black in the light of the dimly lit gym.
He reached out a hand and spoke confidently, “Hi, I'm David. David Donnelly”
Erin was frozen to the spot. She timidly reached out a hand and shook his.
“Erin. Erin Quinn”.
“Would you like to dance, Erin Quinn?”
“YES...yes. I'd love to”. She sighed with relief that her eagerness hadn’t scared him off, instead making him chuckle.
Throughout the night, David continued to make her laugh with his well-timed, witty jokes, his atrocious dancing, and his adorable smile. For once in her life, Erin forgot about her surroundings and just lived in the moment, not caring about the funny looks from Jenny Joyce or the cold stares they got from the chef when they kept eating all the fries.
The car ride home was a quiet one. Mary looked in her rear view mirror to see Erin resting against the window, the biggest smile plastered across her face.
Erin went to bed unusually early, looking forward to waking up the following day and looking into the mirror, her hair having finally changed colours.
It didn’t.
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“Motherfuckeeeeeeers. Motherfucker, it's my new thing”.
The girls were back at school for yet another year of learning.
Another year alone.
Another year of no coloured hair.
Erin spied a tall, lanky boy with curly hair trailing awkwardly behind Michelle, clutching onto his bag as if it were the only thing stopping him from floating off into space.
“Who’s this?”
“Well, ballache. You gonna introduce yourself or not?”
He seemed to hesitate for a few seconds before raising his hand in an awkward attempt at a wave, “Hi, I’m James. I’m Michelle’s cousin”.
The rest of the morning passed in a chaotic blur. The girls were barely back in a school a day and they were already in trouble. Typical.
Throughout the day, Erin couldn't shake this… strange feeling. It was as if the roots of her hair had gone static, as if she’d been zapped by a small dosage of electricity.
Whatever the feeling was, it was unnerving. She had no time to focus on it as Sister Michael had just busted her midway out the window.
The day really couldn’t have gotten any worse.
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He’d stood her up. John Paul had stood her up and Erin didn't understand why.
She really did just have the shittest taste in men.
Her ascent up the stairs was interrupted by a tingling feeling on her scalp.
No sooner had it started when the doorbell rang.
Opening the door, she was shocked to find James staring back at her.
“Your mum rang me”.
Her hair was now alive, the feeling coursing from her roots all the way to her ends.
It was strange, to say the least. All through the night, whenever she would look at James and he was smiling back at her, the feeling would return.
When she finally got back home, she nearly collapsed into bed from exhaustion. That tingly feeling was starting to piss her off. It felt like her hair was itchy all over, but no amount of scratching eased it.
Every time she closed her eyes to sleep, she was interrupted by flashing memories of how James had come to her aid, of Jenny Joyce getting carried in front of the entire school, Clare screaming at them to help her stop Mae, and most of all, the way James had smiled when she opened the door.
The way James had held her arm like a perfect gentleman. The way James had looked at her. The way James had made her twirl in her Easter dress.
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Her head was pounding.
Rays of early morning sunlight filtered through her curtains, stabbing her in the eyes. Erin sat up slowly and yawned, spotting Orla curled up on one of her armchairs, still in her Easter dress. She could hear the regular commotion of a Saturday morning coming from downstairs.
The memories of the previous night slowly started coming back, including the memory of James showing up at her front doorstep.
Her hair was no longer itchy, thank god. The odd feeling had started to get unbearable by the night's end.
Making her way into the kitchen, Erin overheard her parents talking about the events of the formal, including the staining of her Easter dress.
“I’ll never get those stains out, Gerry”
“You’ll be fine, love. It’s only a dress”
Mary shook her head and turned to her daughter, “Mornin’, Eri- oh my god”.
Every adult was now staring at Erin, Mary looking the most shocked out of all of them.
“What? What are you lot staring at?”
“Uh”, Mary hesitated, her eyes flicking to her husband for support, “it’s… it's your hair, love. It’s kinda..”
Erin sprinted into the bathroom, staring in shock at the mirror
“...blue”, Mary finished, taking a long sip from her tea.
Erin didn’t know whether it was the shock from her hair finally changing colour, the pounding headache or the exhaustion from last night. All she could remember was one minute being fully awake in front of the mirror, and the next being out cold on the floor.