Green in the Hair

The pool party was supposed to be Leo's comeback moment. After a whole semester of being Invisible Kid with the Frizzy Hair, he'd finally used his sister's gel to tame the beast. For once, his hair lay flat against his skull, sleek and cooperative. He felt like he could actually talk to Maya without wanting to dissolve into the concrete.

Then came the spinach dip incident.

His mom had forced him to eat "something green" before leaving the house, and apparently some had decided to camp between his front teeth. He only discovered this offense against humanity when he caught his reflection in the sliding glass door—two tiny green fragments waving hello like they owned the place.

"You've got to be kidding me," Leo groaned, scrubbing with his tongue. Nothing.

Worse: Brock was already there, doing cannonballs off the diving board like he owned the pool. Brock, who everyone called "the Bull" freshman year after he'd plowed through three defenders at homecoming and never lived it down. Brock, who currently had his arm around Maya's shoulders.

Leo considered bailing. His hair was already starting to rebel against the gel anyway, forming little curls at his temples. But then Maya waved at him, actually smiled, and he found himself walking toward the pool deck like his feet had a death wish.

"Leo! You made it!" Maya called. "We were just about to play sharks and minnows. You in?"

Brock smirked. "Yeah, Leo. You in?"

Something in Leo's chest shifted. Maybe it was the humidity, or maybe it was just exhaustion from caring so much about everything all the time. His hair was going to frizz up the second it hit water anyway. The spinach wasn't going anywhere without serious dental floss intervention. Brock would always be Brock.

"Yeah," Leo said, pulling off his shirt. "I'm in."

He dove in clean, slicing through the water while everyone else was still arguing about teams. For a second, there was just the cool rush and the muffled silence of being underwater, none of it mattering. Not the hair, not the spinach, not the Bull.

When he surfaced, Maya was laughing at something Brock said, but she caught Leo's eye and winked.

"Not bad," she said. "You're actually fast."

Leo wiped water from his face. His hair was definitely a disaster now, plastered to his forehead in weird angles. There was probably still spinach in his teeth. But he felt lighter somehow, like he'd forgotten to carry something heavy he'd been lugging around for months.

"Thanks," he said. "I'm working on it."

Brock splashed water in his face. "Less talking, more swimming, loser."

Leo grinned, spat a stream of water at Brock's chest, and dove under again. Some battles weren't worth winning. The rest of them? He'd figure those out tomorrow.