ROACH

On Friday night, alone in my room, I sucked down a can of Dark Fruits while the bleach worked its magic. I was concerned that the strong, swimming-pool stink of ammonia would be harmful to Bleep, so I opened the window to keep the fresh winter air circulating. My scalp tingled and burned, which felt like a bad sign, but sometimes you just have to trust the process.

Absorbed in an amateur YouTube documentary about Lee Frost, I lost track of time. When I rinsed my hair under the kitchen tap, it was more of a yellow-blonde, the colour of melted vanilla ice cream, with patches still tinged a light pink where the purple dye had failed to lift. As I ran my fingers through the lengths of my hair, the ends frayed and came away in my hands. Undeterred, I took a pair of scissors and snipped off all the straw, leaving me with a blonde jaw-length bob just like Laura. Blonde suited me. I snapped a photo and sent it to Sam. Do blondes have more fun?

U look like Myra Hindley, he said, which I knew to be a compliment.

Work Christmas party tomorrow, I said. U wanna come? Maybe come to the pub after, meet my mum?

The Christmas party was to be the evening that my fractured self would become whole again. Sam’s Brodie and Spines’ Roach were going to come together as one. It seemed like as good a time as any to bring my third self, Jackie’s daughter Brogan, into the mix too.

At the crossroads where Brodie, Brogan, and Roach met, I needed to figure out what to wear. I’d never really been the kind of girl that wore pretty things. My own wardrobe was a mix of black jeans, black leggings, black T-shirts, and black hoodies, and so of course I turned my sartorial eye to Laura and conceded to one more creepy-crawl.

I turned to look at myself in the mirror, wrinkled my nose and tried to laugh like Laura, and the girl in the glass laughed at me, and she looked like she meant it.