Orange Hair & Dead Fish

The bathroom mirror showed a stranger. My hair, supposed to be sunset pink, had turned a screaming orange. Like, traffic cone orange. Like, I ate too many carrots orange.

"You look like a zombie," my little brother Leo announced from the doorway. He was seven going on forty-two.

"Thanks, Leo. That's exactly what I need before Jordan's party tonight." I ran a hand through my orange disaster. "What are you doing up anyway?"

"Goldfish is floating sideways again." He held up his phone, showing a video of our fish doing suspiciously nothing. "I think he's dead."

"He's been dead since Tuesday, Leo. We talked about this."

"Mom says he's sleeping."

"Mom also says those gummy vitamins are candy, so."

My mom appeared behind Leo, vitamin bottle in hand. "Sophia! Time for your immunity boost!" She shook two gummy worms into my palm. "And don't think I didn't notice your hair emergency."

"Can we please talk about something else?"

"Like Jordan's party?" She wiggled her eyebrows. "The boy you've been crushing on since September?"

"MOM."

"What? I'm hip. I know things."

Leo whispered, "You're gonna show up looking like a pumpkin and he's gonna laugh."

Something about his deadpan delivery broke me. I started laughing and couldn't stop. The absurdity of it all—orange hair, dead fish, gummy vitamins, my mom saying she was hip, Jordan, everything.

"You know what?" I grabbed my backpack. "You're right. I'm gonna show up like this. If Jordan can't handle a girl who made a catastrophic hair dye choice, that's on him."

"That's the spirit!" Mom called after me.

The party was already lit when I walked in. A few people stared. Okay, everyone stared. But then Jordan materialized next to me, looking nervous in a way that made my stomach do that fluttery thing.

"Your hair," he said.

"Disaster, right?"

"No." He grinned. "It's bold. Like you're not messing around."

"Or like I messed up a dye job spectacularly."

"Either way." He held out a red cup. "Want some punch? It's probably mostly radioactive orange soda anyway."

"Perfect." I clinked my cup against his. "Matches my hair."

We spent the rest of the night on the porch while the party roared inside. I learned Jordan's fear of zombies came from watching a movie at his cousin's house when he was eight. He learned I keep a dead goldfish in a formaldehyde jar on my desk because Leo wouldn't let me flush him.

"You're weird," he said, but he was smiling.

"You like it."

"Yeah," he said, his hand finding mine. "I really do."

Later, walking home under streetlights that turned everything gold-orange, I thought about what a disaster today was supposed to be. Sometimes the worst hair days make the best stories. Sometimes dead fish and zombie brothers and embarrassing moms are exactly what you need to stop overthinking and just live.

Sometimes orange is the bravest color you can wear.