Hair Dye & Dead Eyes
Maya stared at her reflection, bleaching the same piece of hair for the third time this month. The bathroom mirror showed exactly what she felt: exhausted. Practically a walking zombie at this point, surviving on iced coffee and anxiety.
Her phone buzzed. Another notification from the group chat.
"u coming to jake's party??" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Maya hesitated. Ever since she'd started subtly spying on Jake's Spotifyokay, maybe checking his public playlists every few hours wasn't THAT creepy—she'd felt weird about actually talking to him. But everyone was going.
"yeah," she typed back. "totally."
She rummaged through her sister's stuff until she found the gummy vitamins. Chloe swore these particular ones made her skin glow. Maya downed three, because why not.
At the party, she cornered her best friend Sam by the snack table.
"Dude, I feel like I'm dying," Maya said, gesturing vaguely at herself. "I literally zombie-walked here. My hair looks tragic, and I'm pretty sure those vitamins are already judging me from the inside."
Sam laughed, spraying chip crumbs. "You're fine. Jake's been looking at you like, all night."
Maya's stomach did that thing. "Wait, really? Or is that just your wishful shipping?"
"No, seriously. You know how I've been kinda low-key spying—" Sam caught herself "—observing? Jake's Instagram stories? He keeps checking if you're in them."
Maya blinked. "What?"
"And remember last week when you posted that selfie with your new hair dye? He viewed it three separate times."
Maya felt something warm spread through her chest. Not zombie-dead. Not exhausted. Something else entirely.
"No way," she said.
"Way. Now go talk to him before I accidentally reveal that we both have no chill."
Jake appeared in the doorway, looking unfairly good. He caught her eye across the room and smiled. Maya's hair-frustration, vitamin-experiment, and investigative spy tactics all collided in one perfect moment of possibility.
She wasn't dead after all. She was just getting started.