Reilly comes up behind me. "Reece said she needed the room to herself for like an hour after school." She shrugs and heads up for the attic, her backpack still on. Typical Reilly, I'm guessing she's planning to get a jumpstart on her homework tonight, so she doesn't have to think about it for the rest of the weekend. Odds are, Rhiannon is already up there.

Which leaves me to my usual routine of City of Ages and trying to figure out what I'm going to say to Reece the second she gets out of the bedroom. I have no clue what she could be up to in there, and part of me suspects I don't want to know. But she couldn't have picked a worse moment.

I make my way upstairs to the attic as well, being sure to leave the door open so I can hear when Reece makes her reappearance. As I suspected, both of my sisters are already hunched over their desk and working. If I were smart I'd do the same, but taking on a quest or a boss in the game might be the only thing that can distract me right now.

I log in to find Nadine already in game and almost log off immediately.

All week, I've been avoiding thinking about Nadine. And she hasn't exactly reached out either, leaving me to wonder if this wasn't just a best friend break up but her telling me she didn't want me in her life at all. I mean she's the one who did this to me. So she should be the one to make it less weird.

But I'm also not going to let her scare me away from my favorite game.

A minute later, she messages me a quick h.e.l.lo and I mentally exhale. She's not trying to avoid me completely, but that also means I have to deal with this now.

Kinsey: Hey. Didn't think you'd be online.

Niddles22: Sorry about the disappearing act. Just had a busy week.

And just like that we decide to take on one of our favorite quest lines together, teaming up to help the Allied army storm the castle on Mount Flaimver. We both throw ourselves into it, staying as a group of two while we work with others to take on the horde of trolls. While I'm sure we're both thinking about it, neither one of us brings up the last weekend or any of the things that happened. I almost feel bad for not reaching out sooner. Almost.

And just when it seems like things could be normal again, I stick my foot in my mouth and ask her what she's getting up to for the weekend.

Niddles22: Laney's mom is taking us to this craft show in the suburbs. She has a table there, selling a bunch of crochet stuff. We're going to help out for the morning, and she'll pay us a little money. Which we'll probably use pretty much right away, buying jewelry at the fair. Laney has all this great stuff from going last year, and there's already a bunch of things I want to get.

Right, Laney. Nadine's new best friend. And of course Laney's mom has a cool job and will pay Nadine to help out. And I'm not even surprised that she has this awesome style, and great jewelry that Nadine wants to. She probably even likes Laney's mom more than she likes me.

All the bitterness I've been trying to push back over the last week comes right back up. But the game keeps moving and I'm forced to push back the response I'm already trying to craft in my head, somehow getting in a subtle dig. It's just enough time for me to take a breath and decide not to be an idiot after all. Because I know if I say something harsh now, there's not going to be any coming back from it later. This is the first time I've hung out with my oldest friend in a week because things have been so weird. If I make it weirder, then there will be no one to blame but myself. Well, I'm sure I could still blame her a little.

But I can't help but pretend that I have more interesting weekend plans than I actually do, claiming I'm going out with Rosie and Jen to do some shopping for Christmas presents. Hopefully she just doesn't ask me about it again later.

The quest ends, and our side is victorious. Just as a message from Nadine pops up on screen, asking me if I want to go again, I hear a door shut down stairs.

Kinsey: BRB, first. Have to go check something.

I should log off completely, but I'm already busy going back over all the things to ask Reece as I charge down the stairs. She's not in the hallway, but the door to her bedroom is now wide open. I peek my head inside. Still no Reece.

I find her in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. But she can't be looking at herself half as hard as I am looking at her. Because something is very, very different. It takes my brain a second to catch up, to figure out what part of this picture doesn't belong.

Reece turns and looks at me, and for the first time I don't see someone who looks like a near identical variation of me. Still mostly identical... The face is all the same, but Reece's hair is blond. Gone is the light brown color that looks just like mine. Just like Rhiannon's and just like Reilly's.

Her hair is blond. How is that possible?

My gaze finds the box of product still sitting on the counter and I piece together what she's done.

"Do you like it?"

"Uhh..." I've forgotten how to form words.

"I thought a lot about what you said to me the other day and realized I needed to make a change. This is a new town, so why not throw a new Reece into the mix? Please tell me it isn't awful."

"Mom and Dad are going to kill you." It's not the compliment she was looking for, but it's all I can come up with. Whether or not it looks good is way beyond what I am capable of in this particular moment.

Reece frowns but then squares her shoulders. "You're right. The first thing is going to be dealing with them. Do you think I should just come out and tell them? Or do I wait for them to notice on their own?"

"Well, they're going to notice the second they see you. You can't exactly hide this."

"Okay, so I'll face this head on. This is happening. No going back." The slightest quiver in her voice is the only thing to betray that she's not quite as confident as she's acting.

And with that, Reece sidesteps around me and makes her way toward the stairs heading to the first floor. I sprint up the stairwell in the other direction. First things first, I tell Nadine that I need to log out for a few minutes.

Kinsey: Gotta go. Donovan apocalypse is incoming.

I shut down my computer and turned to my sisters. "You guys are going to want to give the home work a break. There's about to be a Donovan showdown of epic proportions." I don't bother explaining to them what Reece has done because I don't want to miss whatever's coming next. My parents gave up on trying to get us to dress similarly years ago, but they've never once budged on our dying our hair until we get older. Sure, it would have given us a quick and easy way to differentiate ourselves, but they didn't care.

A second later, I hear the sound of both Reilly and Rhiannon following after me.

Chapter 20.

We crowd together at the bottom of the stairs. The main floor of our house consists of a fair sized hallway leading from a foyer at the front of the house. If you go straight down the hall, it leads to the kitchen or you can hang a right and go to the living room which connects to the back of the house by the dining room. From the sound of it, my dad and, I a.s.sume, Reece are in the living room. I didn't hear my mom come home yet, but it's possible I missed it. So I'm not sure what to expect when I take a breath and step through the hallway to the living room.

It looks like my dad had been watching TV, but he's now standing up in front of the couch with Reece ten feet away from him. She's also standing, with her hands in her back pockets and her newly colored blond hair hanging down loose over her shoulders. I wish I knew what she'd said when she'd walked in the room, but the aftermath is impossible to miss.

My dad inhales a sharp breath fueling himself to start yelling at Reece, it's a stance I know well. But instead his eyes lock on me. "Reagan, not now."

Reece turns around to look at me and I can see plainly on her face she has regrets about the last few seconds. If she'd taken even a second to think things through, she wouldn't have announced it like this. Or maybe she knows she shouldn't have done it at all without talking to all of us. Because this affects all of us.

I'm about to back out of the room and retreat to Reilly and Rhiannon who still don't even really know what's going on, when we all hear the rumbling of the garage door being opened from outside.

Mom's home.

"Do you want to tell her what you've done, or shall I?" My dad asks pointedly.

"Pretty sure she will figure it out on her own."

I move back toward the hallway and find my sisters waiting for me. I c.o.c.k my head toward the kitchen and the three of us make our retreat. It would be just as easy to watch what's going on from the other side of the room, but none of us wants to be anywhere between Mom and Dad for whatever happens next.

Rhiannon spots Reece for the first time from the kitchen. "She actually did it? Her hair is blond!" She stammers out, and I nudge her to get her to be quiet.

"Yup," I whisper. "There was a highlighting kit in our bathroom. That's why she wouldn't let any of us in."

"That is a lot of highlights," Reilly points out. And she's right. While, looking closer at Reece, who can see us staring at her, I can tell that her natural color is still the base of her hair, but the top is almost entirely streaked with a natural looking blond.

"You guys would not believe the day I had," my mom's voice cuts through everything else as she enters through the front door and dumps her stuff in the hallway.

Usually, I'd shout out a h.e.l.lo but today I stay silent. I don't know who will speak first, but it won't be me and it looks like Rhiannon and Reilly have the same idea.

"h.e.l.lo?" I can hear the sound of her heels clicking down the hallway toward us, but my dad's voice stops her.

"In here," he yells out. "And brace yourself."

I groan internally, not sure why my dad is insisting on getting my mom's back up before she's even seen what happened. "And you girls may as well come in here too since we're well aware that you're standing in the kitchen."

We come out of hiding as my mom enters the room from the front hall, looking confused and wary. But she's nothing if not observant and notices exactly what's going on.

"Reece. What did you do?" My sister turns around but not before casting the three of us a pleading glance. It's not like there's anything we can do to help her now. And the fact that she didn't even tell us what she had planned doesn't make me all that sympathetic to her cause.

Around this time last year, all I wanted to do was put one streak of pink in my hair. My sisters and I had all come up with different things we wanted to do to alter our own styles just a little. Back then, not one of us wanted to do anything drastic, just something to stand out a little. We came up with this big PowerPoint presentation, showed it to our parents. We'd all been on the same team, even when we lost miserably.

Reece decided she was doing this one on her own so she'd have to fight for it on her own too.

"I put in a few highlights," Reece says, stating the obvious. My mom doesn't respond, she simply collapses down into the armchair behind her.

"Did you know about this?" She asks my dad. "You'll let them talk you into anything."

"Wait, what? No. I did not know about this. She did this all on her own. When she came home from school today, she looked just like the rest of them. And now she's a blonde. I didn't even realize you could do this kind of thing at home by yourself."

Reece shrugs but doesn't point out just how easily someone can die their own hair. The whole thing cost her ten bucks and an hour of her life. "She knows what our rule about this is. None of them would die their hair until they were at least sixteen, and even then we would have to discuss it. There were no guarantees. They have beautiful hair and adding chemicals to it is just a bad idea." My dad stamps his foot a little to emphasize his point. I'm honestly surprised he's as upset as he is. "How easy do you think it will be to dye back to its natural color?"

Everyone looks over to Mom as one. She furrows her brow but doesn't speak.

"I'm not dying it back. It's my hair and I can do what I want with it. I needed a change, and this the best way I could think to do it."

c.r.a.p. I fix my eyes on the far window guiltily. I had wanted her to do something to mix things up, but I never considered that she would just out and out make such a permanent change. I can't even guess how long it would take for those highlights to grow all the way out again. Even dying over top of the highlights would still end up looking different from before.

Everyone stands still, waiting for my mom to place her verdict. There's no way Reece isn't at least getting grounded for this one, but I'm surprised that I can't see the smoke coming out of my mom's ears yet.

"One, you know you should've talk to us about this. We have rules and they aren't just there for your amus.e.m.e.nt." My mom's voice is steady but I can tell by the tone of it that her mind is racing with some idea or another. Which is kind of terrifying.

"But, Greg, I think she has a point. It is her hair. It wasn't too long ago that I didn't like the idea because most of our girls couldn't be trusted to stick to one decision from one day to the next, let alone for months at a time. And we weren't about to make rules that applied to some and not all of them. But, what's done is done."

I can't read Reece's expression, but she has to be sensing the triumph coming her way. "I think we should let her keep it."

"Our rules are there for a reason. What's this going to teach her?"

"I'm not sure this is as black and white as all that. You tell me that all the time!" How often are our parents talking about this kind of thing when we're not around? "We need to take the punches as they come. But at the heart of every decision," she turns toward Reece, "it's just us looking out for you girls. And I for one don't think anyone else should make decisions about your bodies. Except for punching holes in them. That, I still hold the right to weigh in on, but only because I've seen just how wrong those things can go."

My dad stammers but he doesn't formulate any real response. I don't think this was the moment he'd had in mind when he called my mom into the room. It's not at all what I thought as coming. If she'd waited just a little longer to come home, this could have gone very differently. "So much for a united front," he grumbles.

"You're right, and I wish we'd had the chance to discuss this. But Reece has taken matters into her own hands and since we're talking about this here and now, her vote needs to count for at least as much as ours. And Reece, I a.s.sume you want to keep your hair like it is?"

"h.e.l.l yeah!"

Mom's expression tightens, not enjoying Reece's enthusiasm. "Fine. Give us a few minutes. Your dad and I will discuss this and then we will rea.s.sess."

Reece knows when to call it, and heads back to the kitchen. We follow her in. I don't think anyone of us knows just how far we're supposed to go, or how much time to give them. But they don't start talking until we leave the kitchen and trudge back up the stairs so we can only here a faint whisper of voices. Rhiannon stops at the top of the stairs and we plant ourselves down on the landing.

Reilly leans over and touches Reese's new hair, pulling a strand toward her. "It's blonde. That's weird."

"You guys like it though?"

"Yeah, it's great," Reilly rea.s.sures her.

"I kind of wish I'd had one of you help me," she admits. "It was hard to do the streaks at the back on my own." She turns her head so we can see the back and sure enough a couple of the highlights she's put in are a little blotchy near the top. But I won't be the one to point that out to her. It's still too weird, looking at my sister and seeing her hair completely different.

I'd never have thought this would upset me even a little, but something about it is sitting weird in my gut. Reece now looks different from the rest of us. Before this, we were a matching set.

"So why didn't you tell us?" I ask, trying to keep the hurt out of my voice. "Why did it have to be such a big secret?"

"I don't know. It was kind of spur of the moment."

"How spur of the moment could it have been?" Rhiannon asks. "You obviously took the time to go buy the hair dye. And we all know you well enough that we know you wouldn't risk s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up your hair without at least giving it some thought."

Reece has the decency to look guilty. "Okay, so I've been thinking about it for a few days. But I wanted to make the change and this seems like a good way to do it. I loved the idea of having blond hair. I would've done my whole head, but I know you're not supposed to do that much bleach at home on your own, and I kind of wanted to see how the highlights went over before jumping in to something more drastic."

"Well, I think it worked. So, that's something," I say. This feels still like a betrayal. I was supposed to be coming home today to confide in my sister about something that I am supersensitive about. And instead she pulls this. Because deep down, everything is always about Reece.

Reilly slides down the wall she's leaning against slightly, until her head rests on Reese's shoulder. "I like it," she says. "It suits you."

"Then it would probably suit you too, if you wanted to do something like this. If I get away with this without permission, they're not going to hold the same thing back from you guys."

"Well, I have some ideas." Rhiannon is grinning and looking way too excited. I'm not sure I even want to know what she has in mind.

"I wish we'd at least gotten one last picture with the four of us having our hair the same," I say, pouting a little. "Who knows if we'll all ever have the same hair again."

"Yeah," Reece says, thoughtful. "I actually didn't think that. Eventually we'll all get old and stop caring about our hair so much. We'll be identical little old ladies."

"Oh good," Rhiannon says. "Something to look forward to."

Just then, my mom calls up the stairs. "Girls come on down. We've made our decision."

Reece was right. My parents agreed that it was our hair, and we were old enough to decide what to do with it. They even mentioned the bright pink highlights I'd been imagining last year. The only caveat is that we'll only be allowed to do it every few months, two maybe three.

Which means while the rest of us would get haircuts and professional coloring done that same weekend if we want it, Reece is stuck with the amateur job she did in the bathroom. A bathroom she'll have to scrub thoroughly, as part of her punishment, to get rid of the bleach smell that has now permeated everything.

"That is so unfair. If I hadn't done mine, you never would have agreed to let us do it at all. So there was no way for me to win that conversation."

"Oh, I don't know," my mom says. "You could've tried having a discussion with us."

"We tried that last time," she argues. "And it didn't get us anywhere."