Fox Fire Bad Decisions

Maya's hands were literally shaking as she held the electric blue hair dye over the bathroom sink. The box promised "Vibrant. Bold. Unforgettable." which was exactly opposite of how she'd felt for the last three years of high school.

"You're actually gonna do it?" Chen leaned against the doorframe, looking like a zombie from finals week. His hoodie was inside out, and there were pencil smudges on his cheek. "Your mom's gonna kill you."

"That's the point, Chen." Maya squirted the dye into her hands. "I'm tired of being the quiet Asian girl who gets straight A's and never causes trouble. I wanna cause trouble. I wanna be unforgettable."

"Then you should've bought red," Skylar called from the hallway, where she was eating chips with Maya's little sister. "Red's the color of trouble. Blue's just... sad."

"Blue is the color of fox fire," Maya said, though she'd just made that up.

"Fox what now?"

"Fox fire. It's this magical glow that foxes sometimes have in Japanese folklore. My grandma told me about it. It's like... unexpected beauty in the darkness." Maya started working the dye through her dark hair. "Also there was a fox in our backyard this morning and it stared at me like it knew something I didn't."

Chen snorted. "Dude, you're so dramatic."

"I'm being profound!"

"You're being a teenager," Skylar said, and her tone was weirdly gentle. "Which is valid. We're all zombies walking through this nightmare trying to figure out who we are before we have to be actual adults."

Maya caught her own reflection in the mirror—blue streaks already taking over her hair, making her look like someone she'd never met before. Someone brave. Someone who could be a little bit wild, like that fox. Someone who didn't care what people thought.

"Foxes are clever," Maya said suddenly. "They survive everywhere. They adapt. They don't apologize for existing."

"So you're a fox now?" Chen raised an eyebrow.

Maya grinned. "I'm a fox with blue hair. And tomorrow, I'm walking into school like I own the place."

"Tomorrow's Saturday," her little sister said.

"Whatever. Monday, then. The point is—I'm done being a zombie. I'm done waiting for permission to exist."

"Preach," Skylar said. "Now pass me the dye. I want pink streaks."

Maya laughed, and it felt like waking up after a very long nap. The fox outside had been right all along—sometimes you have to glow a little unexpectedly in the darkness to realize you were never really in the dark to begin with.