The Blue-Haired Boy Read Online Free Page A

piece missing, and you look everywhere for it, and can’t find it, and so eventually you give up and put everything back in the box, and maybe even throw the puzzle away? But then, like a year later, you find the piece under a couch cushion?”
    “You talk in run-on sentences,” she says.
    “I think you’re one of those lost pieces,” I say.
    From her smile, she knows this is a compliment.
    “What I’m trying to say is . . . not only do I not talk . . . I don’t have any friends,” I whisper.
    Her automatic “Bullshit” happens as expected.
    “No. It’s not.”
    And something in my voice must tell her I’m serious, because she releases my hair and drops onto my lap. She gives me the is this okay? look, and when I nod, her two arms feellike a spider’s eight, and they wrap me up in the most genuine hug of my life. “Listen, Lennox”—her voice is at the back of my head—“from everything you’ve said, you have a mom who loves you. Sometimes that’s enough.”
    Tears have a sound. They slide down a face in silence, but the quiver they put in a voice is unmistakable. And Gerry’s voice screams of tears.
    I don’t know what to say now. So I choose to hold her back as if I, too, have eight arms and a thousand souls. Beneath us, the road hums and bumps us against each other, but neither of us lets go. We rattle around this tiny gray, plastic world like a two-body pinball.
    Finally, Gerry leans back to look at me. “You’re maybe . . . the perfect guy. If only I were straight.”
    Straight or not, I am the least perfect guy. She stops me from shaking my head. Physically stops me.
    “No. I mean it,” she says. “You are a guy who gets on buses to figure things out. You listen more than you talk. You . . . you hold on to broken girls after everyone else lets go.” She flares her nostrils and adds, “In a bus bathroom. That says something about you. And I think someday that’s going to make all the difference.”
    “To me or to someone else?” I ask.
    Gerry smiles. “Both.”

Chapter 5
    GERRY tears open three packets of Berry Blue, pours them and some conditioner into an empty Styrofoam cup, and says, “Okay, hoss cat, let’s do this.”
    It’s safe to say this is not how I thought I would spend my morning. God help anyone who really needs to pee, because it looks like we’re going to be in here for a while.
    “This seems like a terrible idea,” I say, as she nearly spills the blue paste she’s made. “What’s in there?”
    “Three packs of Berry Blue, water, and conditioner. Wet your hair.”
    There is no way to get my head under the faucet, which means I’m going to get wet. I slip off my white V-neck, exposing the rainbow of bruises she already knows is there, and wishing they didn’t make me feel like such an underdog.
    “No worries,” she says, as if she understands my embarrassment.
    My words are gone again, so I splash my hair until Gerry approves. Then she has me sit on the toilet lid again. “Shouldn’t you use gloves?” I ask.
    “Yes. One should always use protection.” She cackles at herself, and I smile. Gerry proceeds, without gloves, to coat my hair with the blue paste. First, I’m straight-back-fifties. Then, curly-eighties. She leaves me with a punk-rock Mohawk on top of my head. “This is going to look great,” she says.
    “What color is your normal hair?” I ask her.
    “Blond like yours.”
    “How long has it been green?”
    “Two months. It was cherry before.”
    “Tell me about Lewis,” I say. Without Gerry explaining, I know these colors have to do with her.
    “She loved the Ramones, that stuffed bear in my duffel, and Kool-Aid.” Gerry washes her hands, and when she’s done there’s a little smear of blue beneath her eyes where she wiped her face.
    I smile and clean her face with my thumb. Something I wouldn’t have done before our hug, but now seems like the right level of kindness.
    “Tell me something about your mom.”
    I think. My mom is a