Fox in the Bathroom Mirror

Maya's hair had graduated from "beach waves" to "electrocuted poodle" somewhere between third period and lunch. The humidity outside was absolute trash today, and now she was staring at her reflection in the girls' bathroom, wondering if she could just pull a hoodie over her head and survive the rest of Friday like that.

"You good, bestie?" Sasha asked from beside her, fixing her own perfect sleek ponytail. Sasha, who somehow looked like she'd stepped out of a Pinterest board even after lacrosse practice.

"Just debating if I should shave my head and start over," Maya muttered, running her hands through the frizz disaster.

Maya's brain had been running at maximum capacity since Wednesday — the day Ethan's number had finally appeared in her messages with a simple "hey." They'd been flirting in AP Bio for weeks, but Ethan was different. He wasn't like the boys she'd wasted time on freshman year. He actually read books for fun. He had dimples that could end friendships. He was a total fox, and somehow, for reasons she couldn't explain, he seemed interested in HER.

But now she had to survive Jordan's pool party tonight.

The party she'd been dreading all week.

The party where ETHAN would be.

Maya squeezed more water onto her hair, trying to tame the rebellion. Her mother had gone through a papaya phase last summer — buying crate after crate of the weird orange fruit from the international market, convinced it would fix everything from skin to stress to SAT scores. Maya had hated it at first, all slimy and suspiciously sweet. But eventually, she'd started leaving slices on her face during study sessions because her mom swore it made her glow.

Maybe that's why Ethan noticed her. The papaya glow. That would be a hell of a story.

"You're spiraling," Sasha said gently. "Ethan likes you. Your hair is fine. You're gonna be fine."

Maya met her own eyes in the mirror. They looked wider than usual, like they belonged to someone else — someone brave enough to jump into the deep end.

Literally.

"Okay," Maya said. "Okay. Let's do this."

Outside, the heat hit them like a wall. Maya's hair puffed up instantly, and instead of fighting it this time, she just laughed. Because whatever. She could fix it later. Right now, she had a party to survive and maybe a boy to talk to, and she'd rather do it as herself than some perfected version who wasn't real anyway.

Plus, she'd left papaya on her face enough times to know some things were worth the mess.