Chlorine Dreams

Maya's bathroom counter looked like a pharmacy explosion. Three different brands of hair vitamins stood in military formation beside her sink, each promising miraculous growth. Her mom had bought them all, convinced Maya's natural coils needed "help" to be beautiful for the neighborhood pool party.

"You want to make a good impression," her mom had said, pressing the bottle into Maya's palm. "The Johnsons' son will be there. He's in AP Calculus."

Maya swallowed the chalky pill, staring at her reflection. Her hair had always been... a lot. Beautiful, but a lot. The kind that required four different conditioners and a prayer for good weather.

The backyard pool party was exactly as terrible as expected. Chlorine smell assaulted her nose, and already she could feel the humidity turning her carefully styled hair into something resembling a question mark. The Johnsons' son, whose name was apparently Kevin, was currently doing cannonballs with his friends, each splash sending waves of superiority toward the edge.

"You going in?" Kevin asked, surfacing like a smug dolphin.

Maya's toes curled in her flip-flops. The vitamins were supposed to make her hair waterproof or something. That was a lie. One cannonball would undo three hours of styling.

"Actually," someone said behind them, "I hear pool chemicals are terrible for hair. Makes it brittle."

They all turned. A girl with the most magnificent violet-streaked afro stood there, holding a neon-yellow drink. "I'm Zara. Kevin's cousin. And those hair vitamins? Total scam. My mom's a dermatologist."

Maya blinked. "But the commercials—"

"Marketing," Zara shrugged. "Hey, wanna see something cool?"

Before Maya could answer, Zara jumped in—fully clothed. "The water's perfect! Not too cold!"

Kevin's jaw dropped. "Zara, you're wearing your favorite—"

"—my favorite BODIES?" She surfaced, grinning. "Kevin, bodies dry. Hair grows back. Being afraid of everything? That's permanent."

Maya looked at the pool, then at her neat hair, then at the ridiculous bottle of vitamins in her beach bag. She kicked off her flip-flops.

The cannonball she made wasn't her most graceful. The chlorine stung her eyes. Zara high-fived her underwater anyway.

Later, as they sat on the pool edge eating pizza, Maya's hair curled every which way, shrinking into the shape it actually wanted to be. Not the Instagram version. The real version.

"Your hair's gorgeous like this," Zara said.

Kevin nodded, surprisingly sincere. "Yeah. It's got... personality."

Maya caught her reflection in the sliding glass door. She looked wild. Unpolished. Happy. Maybe she wouldn't need the vitamins after all. Some things were better uncontrolled.