Orange Hair and Pool Parties

The chlorine smell hit Maya before she even stepped into the backyard. Taylor's end-of-year pool party. The kind of thing that appeared in every teen movie as the pinnacle of high school social life, and in Maya's anxiety dreams as a personal hell.

She adjusted the baseball cap she'd refused to take off all week. Underneath: a DIY hair dye job gone wrong. What was supposed to be subtle strawberry blonde had turned aggressively orange. Like, construction cone orange. Like, "did you lose a bet with a Cheeto" orange.

"You gonna swim or what?" Jenna called from the pool's edge, already waist-deep in the water. Everyone else was splashing around like they hadn't a care in the world.

"Maybe later," Maya said, leaning against the patio table and definitely not making eye contact with the giant inflatable bear float that was currently drifting toward the deep end.

She caught Taylor laughing with some friends across the yard. They looked effortless. Meanwhile, Maya was bearing the weight of approximately 400 terrible scenarios where someone knocked off her hat and revealed her hair disaster to the entire sophomore class.

"Hey," someone said beside her.

Maya turned. It was Leo, the quiet guy from her English class. He held out an orange soda. "You look like you need this more than I do."

She almost declined, then remembered she was supposed to be living her "best teen life" or whatever her mom kept saying. "Thanks."

"I'm not getting in either," Leo said, cracking open his own drink. "I forgot my trunks anyway. Figured I'd just… bear witness."

Maya snorted before she could stop herself.

"What?" he grinned. "It's a solid pun."

"It's terrible," she said, and for the first time all afternoon, her shoulders actually relaxed. "I'm just not feeling the swimming thing today."

"You know," Leo said, "last year at this party, Taylor jumped in fully clothed because someone dared him. Said it was the most freeing thing ever. Nobody cared. Everyone was too busy worrying about themselves to notice anything about anyone else."

Maya looked at her hat, then at the pool, then back at Leo. "You think?"

"I know." He tapped his can against hers. "But if you're gonna keep wearing the hat, just know you're missing out. There's a bear float with your name on it."

Maya pulled off the cap. The orange hair caught the sunlight, bright and unignorable.

Leo didn't even blink. "Nice color, actually. Bold move."

She took a breath. Then another. Then she grabbed Leo's hand and dragged him toward the pool. The bear float was waiting, and for once, Maya didn't care who was watching.