Goldfish & Other Lies

Maya stared at her reflection, fingers digging through the disaster that was formerly decent hair. Third day of freshman year, and already she'd managed to look like she'd wrestled a tornado and lost. Her mom's new vitamin regimen was supposed to make her "glow," but so far it had just made her breakout and question every life choice that led to this moment in the girls' bathroom.

"You good?" appeared on her phone — Jax, the junior she'd been lowkey obsessed with since orientation. Two weeks of texting back and forth, sending playlists, sharing memes about how much high school sucked, and she was still terrified to actually speak to him in person.

She typed "All good lol" because what was she supposed to say? That her hair was staging a rebellion? That she kept a literal goldfish named Nacho in her locker because her parents said no pets allowed? That the entire social hierarchy of North Valley High felt like some elaborate psychological experiment designed to crush her soul?

"That's bull," Maya muttered at her reflection. She was done overthinking. Jax was just a guy. A guy with really nice eyes and a motorcycle and somehow made physics seem interesting, but still. Just a guy.

She found him by his locker, that stupid easy grin already on his face like he'd been waiting. "Hey, Maya."

"Hey."

"You gonna tell me what's actually wrong, or are we gonna pretend you didn't just spend twenty minutes in the bathroom?"

Maya blinked. He noticed?

"My hair's being — " She gestured vaguely at it.

"Looks fine to me," Jax said, and something about how he said it made her believe him. "Wanna skip fourth? I'll show you this spot behind the football field where nobody goes. There's even a creek."

"I can't. I have a test."

"Lame. Raincheck?"

"Raincheck."

She walked to chemistry floating, light, like someone had finally removed the ten-pound weight from her chest. Maybe she couldn't bear to skip class on the third day, maybe Nacho would survive alone in her locker for another two periods, maybe the vitamins really were just expensive pee — but something had shifted. High school wasn't suddenly not scary, but she'd just gotten asked to skip class by a junior who noticed when she disappeared for twenty minutes.

Her phone buzzed again: This time a photo of Jax making a ridiculous face with the caption "missing u already."

Maya grinned, actually grinned, and suddenly the hair situation didn't seem so catastrophic anymore.