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The idea that she and Iaround with the same hair color, natural or not, even this many years laterwell, thanks but no thanks

I turned to Natty, as conte the other two options way too seriously, but at least she was putting soht into it I put my fate in her hands "Go ahead, you pick first," I told her

She bit her lip and shot ed because as far as I was concerned, it was hair My natural color would grow back eventually

But when her fingers clamped around one of the boxes, I was impressed by her bold choice She’d chosen the one with the cover model who had sleek, cropped, intensely black hair

I never would’ve called that one

That left one into the gas station’s restroo the new hairbrush Jett had bought us, along with the unopened pack of oil rags we’d be using as towels Let the transforin!

Willow’s blue eyes sparkledin front of the mirror, already hard at work on her own hair Apparently she didn’t need anyone’s help

I caught a glimpse of my reflection froed since the last tiht were too big for

I didn’t want to be soular old aze, I fu,it hard to concentrate, but Natty just took the sheet of paper from ent-ser one, she shook theether like she’d done this a thousand times before "I used to helpher She pointed to the single toilet in the restroom, and I sat down on the closed lid

"You never told me about your an running the applicator tip throughthe cold solution into ertips of the cheap plastic gloves that had come with the kit "You never really talked about your farungy bathrooed "You never asked"

She wasn’t wrong In all the tiether, I’d mostly just felt sorry forabout Tyler Me talking about , Nancy I’d probably even mentioned my mom But I’d never bothered to ask Natty about her life before she’d come back as one of the Returned "What was she like, your ed"Pretty," she said wistfully "Funny too The kind of person everyone noticed When I was little, I would watch while she got ready to go out on dates I’d sit on the edge of the bathtub while she put hot rollers in her hair and put her makeup on And every time, she’d spray me with her perfu her out to whatever new place they were going"

"So your parents weren’t h hed "He couldn’t keep out of troublegot thrown in jail a lot Sometimes, when he was out, he’d pro But it never happened My family wasn’t like one of those TV fa--instead she smiled a faraway salls"

I wrinkled my nose "Who was that?"

Willow did a double take and let out a whoop that passed for a laugh It was h and I definitely didn’t hate it "Are you for real?" She shook her head like she was shocked, or e "He was the dad on a little show called Little House on the Prairie Ever heard of it?"

Okay, yes, I’d heard of it, but I’d never actually seen it "You know that was before"I guess that makes sense But it was uessa family," she lamented "Mostly, he just called when he was broke or in a fix Hiht over ain until he needed soine what that would be like, not having a real dad, the kind as there every day, helping with ho pissed at you when you snuck off cas a dad should do

Natty had gotten screwed in that department

"Sorry," I told her lamely, because whatthe last of the solution into ot a story, don’t we?" She said it like it was a fact, and I guess it was The Returned were interesting, to say the least

It made me wonder about Willow--her family, her past before all this "What about you?" I asked

"Yeah," Willow said, showing me her teeth in a flash of white as she sh her already brownish hair Not uise, if you asked me "I watched Little House on the Prairie all the time"