The Blue-Haired Boy Read Online Free

lovers.”
    “I don’t have any lovers.”
    “And why in the name of the pope not?”
    “Question,” I say.
    “I have hair the color of a Florida golf course, and my girlfriend is dead. I get to ask questions,” Gerry says.
    I exhale. “Okay, I don’t have any lovers because I don’t talk.”
    “Bullshit,” she says. “Try again.”
    I’m catching on that every time Gerry says bullshit , she puts her pointer finger to my heart. And usually she’s right.
    “I’ll tell you why if you tell me about your hair,” I say.
    “What do you want to know?” She twists a green lock around her finger.
    I don’t fire back with sarcasm, even though it’s on the tip of my tongue. “About the color.”
    “This, my blond-haired friend, is genuine Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid.”
    “The kids’ drink?”
    “Gerry and Lewis’s favorite kid drink, to be exact.”
    What happened to Lewis? My brain screams the question, but it’s one I won’t ask. If Gerry wants me to know, she’ll tell me.
    “You really love her,” I say. And I choose not to say loved . Because while I don’t have a lover, I understand that love wouldn’t care about dead or alive.
    Gerry takes a deep breath. Then she surprises me and flips the tables. “ You love someone. And they love you. It’s in your eyes.”
    I sigh. “Probably my mom.”
    “That’s refreshing. Lewis’s mom hated her.” She unties both her boots and reties them—a nervous habit. “Now, the Kool-Aid.”
    Gerry tilts her head this way and that, examining me. Without warning—Gerry seems to do everything without warning—she grips my head like a soccer ball, and then runs both hands through the three-to-four inches of the mess I call hair. “You know, you would look amazing with some Berry Blue.”
    “No, I wouldn’t,” I say.
    “Yes, you would,” she says. She leans over the seat and tapsthe man beside us on the shoulder. He’s asleep, but she’s willing to wait as he rouses himself. “Excuse me, sir. Do you think my friend would look good with blue hair?” she asks.
    “Yeah, fine,” he says, without looking, and resituates himself in his chair.
    “See, Sleepy Pants agrees with me.”
    “I hardly think”—I lower my voice—“Sleepy Pants is the authority on Berry Blue.” As far as I can tell, he hasn’t cut his hair in twenty years.
    “Then I’ll be the authority,” she says. “What would your mom say?”
    “That it’s only hair.”
    “Jesus, she’s right. I should have that tattooed across my forehead,” Gerry says. “You want to do it now?”
    “Here?”
    “No. There.” She points to the bus’s one-seater bathroom.
    Now, this is another of those moments I should think about longer than I do, but Gerry’s a witch—a bona-fide spell caster—who makes me want to be brave and do things I’d never do. Because I look right at her and say, “You have the stuff with you?”
    “Ooh,” she squeals. Sleepy Pants gives us death eyes, but Gerry’s already dragging me from my seat and toward the bathroom door, three packages of Berry Blue in her hand.
    Two people do not fit here, I think, once she closes the door and turns the little latch that says OCCUPIED . If either of us had eaten today, we’d be out the door. I’m a dude, but even Ihave reservations when she closes the toilet seat and shoves me down onto it. I also have reservations about God’s decision to give humans a nose. Totally not necessary right now.
    “We have time to do this?” I ask.
    “’Course. These buses are slower than Lewis’s grandma.” Her hands are in my hair again, and I close my eyes at this intimacy. It’s not sexual at all, but it is something. I’ve needed a friend for a long time, and I didn’t realize how badly until Gerry fell off the bus, and I, for better or worse, fell on after her.
    “Hey,” I say, trying to find some words that go with this crazy, swirling emotion. “You know how you work a puzzle, and then you get to the end, and there’s a