Chapter 4 – White lies and purple skies

“There you are! I’ve been waiting. You know, trying to avoid another flowerpot fiasco. And if I’m completely honest, I did not have anything going on anyway.” She already greeted me when I was still a few meters away. It’s weird, how sometimes the littlest encounters can make your whole day. Instead of being grumpy that I was on delivery duty, I had actually been looking forward to at least this particular delivery. But when I looked up to the balcony the part of my brain that was about to come up with something clever to reply stopped. As did my whole body. I guess you should never underestimate the power confusion held over your nervous system.

“Hi there, how are we doing today? Here’s your package,” is what I should have said. That or something similar. Maybe something a little less boring. „You look different,“ is what came out of my mouth, eventually. And it was obviously the wrong thing to say, because her shoulders slumped, and she couldn’t have hidden the look of disappointment on her face if she wanted to.

“That bad, huh?” she sighed. “I knew I should have gone with the blue one. Luckily, it’s just one of those cheap dye products that wash out immediately. Or let’s hope so.” She gave me a shy grin that looked more like a pained grimace and sunk a little further into her chair. “Oh wow, sorry. There goes my professionalism again. You look great. The purple hair looks really nice. It kind of reminds me of what the sky looks like before a storm.”

“You’re a really bad liar.”

“That obvious?”

“You stopped in your tracks, glared at me and literally the only thing to come out of your mouth after what felt like a small eternity was that I looked different. I know I don’t really know you that well or basically at all, but I mean the message was pretty clear.” Embarrassed I took a step back and started to apologise when she cut me off, “Don’t worry, it’s okay. I just like to try out new things, and I’m basically dying of boredom right now since I am quite restricted in my movements. So… experimenting with my hair, my clothes and my make-up is basically the only thing that’s keeping me amused these days. Who could have known that dying my hair purple would make me look like the Cheshire cat?”

Even though I burst out into laughter again at that comment, I tried to collect myself quickly and continue, or rather start, with my apology, “Still, it’s none of my business…” when she blurted out, “What did you do last weekend?” cutting me off again. “What? Last weekend?” I cocked my head and tried to think of anything really, I did then.

“Sorry. I guess that’s not really any of my business,” she trailed off and avoided eye contact. If I didn’t know better, I thought she was actually blushing.

But I only shrugged. “No. It’s fine. It’s just that I haven’t really done anything exciting. I usually just lie on my bed for 48 hours and ponder my existence until it’s time to regret all the choices I’ve made so far in my life again.”