Electric Orange

Maya stared at the box of **hair** dye on her bathroom counter. **Orange** Sunset. Extreme, the label promised. Her mom would definitely freak when she saw it tomorrow morning.

Whatever. Maya needed a change. Summer before freshman year, and she was still the same invisible girl who sat in the back of every class, still drowning in her own shyness.

The next morning at swim practice, Coach barely looked up from his clipboard. "New look, Reynolds? Nice."

That was it. Nobody else mentioned the **orange** hair blazing against her dark skin. Maybe no one cared at all.

Then came the **lightning**.

Mid-practice, the sky ripped open. Thunder shook the pool building so hard the water rippled. Coach's voice crackled over the intercom: "Everyone out. Storm's passing right over us. Stay in the locker rooms until I say otherwise."

Maya grabbed her bag and scrambled toward the girls' locker room, but Alex—the team captain, the senior with the effortless smile and Instagram-perfect life—caught her arm. "Wait. The main locker room's flooded. Come to the equipment room."

The equipment room was tiny, smelling of chlorine and old rubber. Alex pulled out her phone, rummaging through her bag. "Crap. My **cable**'s dead."

"You mean your charger?"

"No, my aux **cable**. For speakers. Want music?"

Maya hesitated, then dug through her own bag. Her brother's old aux **cable**, buried since winter break. She pulled it out, tangled and dusty.

Alex's eyebrows shot up. "You carry an aux **cable**? That's... low-key legendary."

They sat on the floor as rain pounded the metal roof, sharing Maya's earbucks, passing the cable back and forth between their phones. Alex played something upbeat; Maya countered with her brother's indie folk.

"Your **hair**," Alex said suddenly. "It's sick. I wanted to do mine blue last year, but my parents said no way."

Maya laughed. "My mom's gonna lose it when she sees it. I keep telling myself I don't care, but..."

"You're **swimming** in circles thinking about it." Alex grinned. "Pun absolutely intended."

Maya cracked up. And then she was talking, really talking, about the **orange** hair and the fear that she'd always be nobody, and how maybe changing her outside would somehow fix her inside.

Alex listened. Actually listened. Then she said, "You know what's wild? You're already interesting. The **hair**'s just bonus points."

The **lightning** flashed again, illuminating everything for one brilliant second.

"We should do it," Alex said. "Be legends. Come to school Monday and own it."

Maya looked at her **orange** reflection in the dark window and finally saw herself staring back. Not invisible. Just... starting to glow.

"Yeah," Maya said. "We totally should."