Running From Perfect
Maya Chen stood at the edge of the **pool**, chlorine stinging her nose. It was the last Friday before freshman year, and somehow she'd let Harper talk her into this. The pool part...
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Maya Chen stood at the edge of the **pool**, chlorine stinging her nose. It was the last Friday before freshman year, and somehow she'd let Harper talk her into this. The pool part...
Maya's hair was a disaster. Again. She'd spent forty-five minutes trying to tame the frizzy curls into something resembling "effortless beach waves" (thanks, Instagram tutorials), ...
Maya's palms were sweating so much she could barely grip her **iphone**, the screen slick against her skin as she refreshed Instagram for the twentieth time in five minutes. The no...
The spinach incident at lunch was supposed to be funny—Aurora caught it in my teeth with the precision of a surgeon—but my face burned like I'd swallowed embers. Third period humil...
Jordan clutched his towel like a security blanket, standing at the edge of the neighborhood pool party. At fourteen, he was the youngest one there, and it showed. Everyone else loo...
The country club smelled like money and chlorine, and I was definitely neither. My cousin Chloe had talked me into trying out for the junior padel tournament, mostly because she ne...
Leo's vintage fedora wasn't just a hat—it was his emotional support animal, wrapped in felt and defiance. Wearing it to Northwood High for the first time took exactly three weeks o...
My track coach always said I ran like I was escaping something I couldn't name. Today, that something was Jordan Hayes moving her orange Stan Smiths into my ex-best-friend's locker...
Maya stared at the mirror, scissors trembling in her hand. The waist-length dark hair she'd grown since kindergarten was gone, chopped to a chin-length bob with jagged bangs that s...
The social pyramid at Northwood High was legendary—seniors at the top, freshmen scrambling at the bottom, and everyone else fighting for the middle tiers. I'd barely survived my fi...
I felt like a **zombie** all week. Finals had turned my brain to mush, and when Maya texted me about Tyler's pool party, I almost said no. But then again, when the most popular gir...
Maya's **hair** frizzed in the July humidity as she stood at the edge of the **pool**, clutching her **iPhone** like a lifeline. This was it—Jake Morrison's end-of-summer party, an...