Orange Crush

Maya stared at her reflection, the bathroom fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. The **orange** dye had turned her **hair** into something closer to neon traffic cone than sunset copper. Her best friend Rina had promised it would look "so aesthetic, fr fr"—but Rina wasn't the one whose mom would definitely kill her when she got home.

Her **iPhone** lit up with the group chat blowing up. POOL PARTY AT JAVI'S 2NITE!!! Everyone was going. Everyone except her, because she couldn't exactly show up looking like a walking construction zone.

Maya's little brother Leo burst in, his stuffed **bear** tucked under one arm. "Mom says you have to try the fruit salad before it goes bad."

"Not now, Leo."

"But it's got **papaya**!" He waved a spoon at her. "It's literally your favorite now because you ate that whole one at that restaurant and acted like you were cultured."

Maya groaned. That papaya incident had been last month, during her failed attempt to reinvent herself as someone who ate "exotic fruits" and posted aesthetic sunset photos. Her reinvention game was weak.

"You look fine," Leo said, surprisingly gentle. "Like, kinda cool, actually. Like you don't care what people think."

Maya stared at him. "That's literally the opposite of what I'm going through right now."

"That's what it looks like though." He shrugged and left.

Maya looked in the mirror again. Maybe that was the point. Maybe the point wasn't to blend in. She grabbed her phone, snapped a mirror selfie with the caption "new era who dis" and hit send.

Her heart raced. But then Rina replied: OMG SLAYYY and Javi sent a fire emoji and suddenly Maya thought maybe—just maybe—she didn't have to perform the right version of herself. Maybe she could just be the girl with the orange hair who ate papaya and carried stuffed bears when no one was watching.

Her phone buzzed again. You coming or what?

Maya grabbed her towel. Yeah. She was coming.