Orange Beanie & Midnight Vitamins

Maya clutched her orange beanie like a lifeline, fingers tangling in the yarn. She'd spent forty-five minutes deciding whether to wear it—half an hour internally debating if she was trying too hard to be quirky, the other fifteen minutes frantically smoothing down her hair anyway. Now, standing in Lucas's crowded living room, she felt like a zombie going through the motions of being a person who belonged at parties. Laugh at the right moments. Nod when people talked. Don't look like you're calculating exit routes.

Her palms were sweating. Like, actually slick. She'd wiped them three times on her denim shorts already.

"Hey, you want one?"

Maya jumped. A guy with messy brown hair was holding out a gummy vitamin shaped like a bear. "My mom's obsessed with these immune booster things," he said, gesturing at a spilled container on the kitchen counter. "Found them in the pantry. She'd kill me if she knew I was sharing, but honestly? They taste like disappointment and artificial grape."

Maya laughed before she could stop herself. A real one. "That's specific."

"I'm Leo, by the way." He held out his hand for a high-five, then apparently noticed her hesitation and the damp patches on her shorts. "Or, you know, we can skip the contact thing. No judgment. My palms sweat when I have to order pizza, so..."

"Maya." She pressed her hands against her thighs. "And thank you for saying that."

"Orange beanie, though." Leo nodded at her head. "Bold choice for August."

"It's my security blanket," she admitted, which was WEIRDLY honest for someone she'd literally just met. "If I take it off, I feel like my skull is exposed."

"Respect." He popped two gummy vitamins. "You know what? Let's claim it's a thing. Zombie chic. Like, we're all walking around exhausted from school and sports and our parents' expectations, so we wear accessories that say we're barely functioning but making it work."

Maya stared at him, then tugged the beanie lower. "Zombie chic. I can work with that."

"Plus," Leo added, "orange looks good on you."

Later, Maya would realize this wasn't some transformative moment where she suddenly became a social butterfly. She'd still feel awkward at parties. Her palms would still sweat. But standing in that kitchen, accepting a gummy vitamin from a stranger who got it, she felt something loosen in her chest. Maybe she didn't have to perform belonging. Maybe she could just exist.

She kept the beanie on all night.