Today has been nothing but sucky. Nothing but one problem after another. It’s not even like all of it has got to do with the stupid project or anything. Today’s just been sucky, sucky, sucky. There are so many tasks I want to do, that I need to do. But it’s not going to happen and that’s just as frustrating. It’s so depressing to know that I need to give myself some rest, but I don’t have the time to do it, or really the calm...

“Lola!” Hanna bounces down in the chair next to mine, breaking the quiet of the library.

“Yes?” I look her way.

“You’re still coming, right?” She’s got a huge grin on her face.

“Coming?” I have no idea what she’s talking about.

“You promised.” She play-pouts at me, and it immediately reminds me of how Lizzy always gets me to do things for her.

“What did I promise, exactly?”

“You promised that you’d come with me to the kids’ theatre group today. I need an extra pair of hands there.” She puts her finger to her chin, acting like she’s thinking. “And after that, we’d hang out at my place and watch movies and eat popcorn all night.” She grins.

“Pretty sure I didn’t agree to that second part.” I eye her, sighing.

“Really? I could have sworn that you did. Well, if you didn’t, you really should.” She taps at the edge of my laptop. “You need the night off, this is the perfect excuse.”

I look at the mostly empty page of the document I was working on, a résumé so that I can start applying for jobs soon. “I guess.”

“Really?” Hanna jumps up again. “Really?”

“Yes.” I start closing down my laptop. “You win.”

“Yay! You want to invite Lizzy?”

I shake my head. “She’s not even around. She’s doing something somewhere with H this weekend. I have no idea. She looked so excited that I didn’t dare to ask.”

Hanna raises her eyebrow at me.

“Long story.” I close the laptop and pack everything into my bag.

“Hmm?” Hanna’s not going to let this go.

“She looked excited in a way that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about. You know... doing something with H.” I pull on my jacket—it’s still too fucking cold outside.

“Ah.” She nods, realization dawning, and it’s kind of cute how she didn’t catch on immediately. “Right. You ready?”

“Yeah. I’m good. Just let me drop my stuff off at home.” I don’t want to drag everything with me.

“Fine with me. Meet me at my place in what... an hour?” She checks her phone. “Should give us enough time to prepare for the kids.”

The kids, plural, for the whole afternoon. I’m pretty sure I was not thinking clearly when I agreed to this. “Good.”

We walk down the stairs to the parking spots.

“Hey.” Hanna puts her hand on my arm. “We’ll have fun. I promise.”

I nod. “I know.”

“Good. Now get your ass moving. We need to get this weekend started.” She grins and darts off to her own car.

I don’t get that girl sometimes. Some days she’s closed off, not really here, and then she’s like this, all bouncy and active and way too involved in the lives of everyone around her. But I guess that I’ve at least got the rest of today filled, and probably the whole weekend.

The kids’ theatre group is exactly what it sounds like. A group of kids, doing plays, but mostly just playing around. They’re really young—some are only three or four years old. I think that the oldest one is six.

I spend most of the time sitting in the same spot, cleaning dirty noses, kissing booboos, and trying to keep kids from falling asleep in my lap. You know, just normal babysitting young kids things.

It’s fun to watch Hanna though. She’s all over the place, trying to get the kids to all participate in the games she’s coming up with. There also are a guy and another girl, both almost as bouncy as Hanna, and apparently also regulars here, as the kids know them well.

“Can I have a butterfly face? I want to be a butterfly.” A girl walks up to Hanna, grabbing her leg.

Hanna kneels down. “Sure, let’s get you a butterfly face.” She grins, taking the girl’s hand and coming over to me. “Time to let real magic happen.” She grabs one of the boxes from the top of some shelves, opening it and revealing a whole box full of face paints and other colorful things that they probably don’t like the kids to get into.

Hanna goes over to the sink and fills a cup with water, putting it on the floor next to the box, and then she sits down next to everything.

The other kids start flocking around Hanna too, calling out requests for frogs, tigers, more butterflies, and one of the girls wants a snail.

Hanna takes one of the palettes in the box, opening it and revealing a rainbow of colors. They’re well-used. “Okay, I’m doing a butterfly first for this young lady. I think that if you want a...” Hanna looks at me. “If you want a princess look, you can go over to my lovely friend over there.”

“Me! Me!” Two girls rush over.

“Princess?” I look at Hanna, not really sure that I’m the best person to be doing this, but the girls look so excited...

“Grab the book from the box, a palette, and a brush. You’ll be fine.” She grins.

“I’m not Lizzy.” She knows that, right?

“You don’t need to be.” She pushes the box at me more. “You just gotta go with it. The kids will love it anyway.”

“Okay...” I take the face-painting book from the box, and one of the girls immediately starts turning the pages.

“I want this one!” She points at a page with a princess, and I get why Hanna specified princess. The image looks doable for me. A princess face consists of something that looks like a crown, in cute colors, and potentially a few flowers.

“What color do you want?”

“Pink!” The girl sits down in front of me, grinning up at me.

“I want blue!” The other girl sits next to her. “We can be princesses together!” I’m not sure why they all have to yell the whole time. Maybe it’s got something to do with the world looking too big for them, or that adults are always so high up. But it’s been near-constant yelling in here.

“Okay. This is my first time. But I’ll do my best.” I grab a brush, dipping it in Hanna’s cup, and then start swirling it through some of the paints on the palette. I may not have Lizzy’s skill, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to paint.

I look at Hanna for a moment, watching how she works, and then I try to do the same with the girl in front of me. Starting in the middle, making sweeping motions and applying the pink in a way that I hope will look good in the end.

The girl giggles, constantly moving in her place and she keeps looking to the side to talk to her friend. It’s adorable and annoying at the same time.

As I keep working, I realize that I like doing this. It’s fun, and doesn’t require too much of my brain, just simple focus to keep going. I get into it more and more, and after I finish the paint on the first girl, the second girl is already in her place. Happy, giggling, excited.

It lifts my mood in ways that I haven’t felt in a long, long time. Doing this isn’t complicated, there are no expectations on me, as long as what I make resembles a ‘princess’ face somewhat.

After two princesses, I also get to do a butterfly and two wolves. And, just like that, the afternoon is coming to an end. After all the kids have left and we’ve cleaned up the space, Hanna turns to me.

“Did you like it?” She grins, somehow still filled with energy.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I take a deep breath. “I guess I needed that. Something uncomplicated.”

“And you can do the makeup for the movie now.”

“Only if they want princesses or butterflies.” I grin too, grabbing my jacket. “But I think I need to restock on energy. Kids are exhausting.”

“Yeah.” Hanna also grabs her jacket and her bag. “Let’s get going. I know a great pizza place. Let’s get a pizza to go and then we can just veg out with a movie for the rest of the evening.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I follow her out and shiver at the cold. I really wish that it would get warmer again, but apparently, it’s only going to get colder in the next couple of days. Brrr.

Hanna has her own place, so when we get inside and close the door, it’s just the two of us.

“Drop your things anywhere.” She waves around and places the two pizzas on the table. Then she puts a plastic bag next to it.

While we were waiting for the pizzas, we stopped by a drugstore and Hanna bought makeup and hair dye. I’m not exactly sure what she’s planning on, but apparently, a lot more than I was told. Although Hanna also has a lot more energy left than me.

I sit down on her couch, looking on as she walks around, putting a few things away, and then she drags the table closer to the couch. She doesn’t actually have chairs to go with the table—it just moves around the room, depending on where she needs it. It was a little weird the first time I was here, but now I’m used to it. And, honestly, eating pizza on a couch is much more comfortable than sitting on chairs.

I grab a piece of the four-cheese pizza and start munching on it. Now that we’re out of the loud and busy world, I suddenly feel so much more exhausted.

“Do you want a drink?” Hanna holds up a bottle of wine.

I think for a moment, but then nod. “Sure.” I’m staying over here tonight anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I drink some.

She grabs two wine glasses and pours us both. Then she grabs her laptop, putting it on the table before finally sitting down. “What do you want to watch?”

I shrug. “As long as it’s not a romantic comedy.”

“Really?” Hanna eyes me. “Fine.” She opens Netflix. “Action or horror?”

“Action.” I’m not that good with horror.

“Superheroes or just teens trying to change the dystopian world they live in?”

I eye Hanna now.

“Fine. Dystopian it is.” She clicks on one of the movies, and it starts playing.

Then we lean back. The couch is really comfy, though kinda old, but that makes it only better to veg out in. I take another piece of the pizza and grab my glass. Time to forget everything but the stupid movie.

I’ve seen this movie about four times already, but that doesn’t matter. It actually makes it easier to watch when you don’t want to think. I relax, letting everything happen around me, the movie transporting me to a different world. Time slipping away...

“OMG! Let’s do that!” Hanna sits up, staring at me.

“What?” I blink, pretty sure that Hanna’s tipsy. We’re about halfway through the movie, and the bottle of wine is gone. So are the pizzas. I was zoning out, not paying attention to anything.

“Let’s do it! It would be so cool!” She grins.

“Do what?” I still have no idea what she’s on about.

“Bleach your hair.” Hanna stands up.

“Wait. How did we get here?” I obviously missed something.

“You need something new. You desperately need something new. Get you out of that funk. And I’ve already got the bleach.” She digs through a drawer. “We can even bleach it and then dye it a bright red.” She holds up a couple of boxes, stacking them next to the plastic bag from before.

“Ehh...”

“Why not? I think I’ve got some blue too.” She turns back around.

“No. No. Just blond is good enough.” I hold up my hands.

“Really?” She looks even more excited now, definitely tipsy.

“Sure. Why not?” I can’t do red. That was Tessa’s color.

“Awesome!” She grabs a couple more things from the drawer.

“Wait...”

She looks at me, standing still right in the middle of putting the items on the table. “Yeah?”

“Why do you have all those colors?” She’s got black and red hair herself. I don’t think I’ve seen anything else on her since I met her at the start of the year.

“Oh.” She shrugs a little as she goes to grab more things. “I sometimes dye other people’s hair. I don’t just do makeup and kids’ butterflies.” She grins. “We all have our interests that we like to do that don’t directly involve our degree.” And she’s now digging through a closet. “Here.” She throws me a t-shirt that’s stained all sorts of colors. “Put that on.”

“What?”

“You don’t want your shirt to get dirty, right? This way, even if I accidentally spill something, it’ll be on the old shirt, not your nice clothes.”

“Right...” I hold the shirt up, then I look at Hanna.

“You know where the bathroom is.” She grins. “Get a move on, before you chicken out.”

“Chicken out?”

“Yeah. Chicken out. Think about this too much and rationalize yourself out of it.”

I shrug and stand up. I guess I’m doing this. Like... really doing this. And I’m pretty sure the wine helps, not making me question things too much.

It’s been a long time since I last dyed my hair. A very long time. It was a better time, a happier time...

Maybe I can get some of that girl back.

Maybe.