Pink Hair and Total BS

The hair dye box said "Vibrant Fuchsia." It should've said "Social Suicide." I stared at my bathroom mirror, pink drips staining my forehead like I'd been shot with a glitter gun. Sophomore year started in seven hours.

"Maya, what did you DO?" My mom's voice cracked from the hallway.

"Expressing myself?" I called back, already regretting everything.

First period, I walked in with my hood up. Jenna Peterson gasped loud enough to echo. "Oh my god, is that... real?"

"Yup." I pulled my hood down. The fuchsia hit the fluorescent lights like a nuclear explosion.

Chen, my best friend since seventh grade, physically recoiled. "Dude, you look like a cotton candy factory exploded."

"Thanks, Chen. Really supportive."

He scooted his desk away. Literally. The squeak of chair legs against linoleum was the loudest sound I'd ever heard.

By lunch, I was eating on the bathroom toilet because the cafeteria felt like a fishbowl where I was the neon mutant exhibit. My phone buzzed—Chen.

"Hey, can we not sit together today? People are making stuff up about us and I just... it's a lot."

I stared at his text until the screen timed out. This was the same person who I'd helped through his breakup with Jenna last month. The person I'd edited three English essays for last week.

"Whatever," I typed back, then deleted it. Then typed it again and hit send.

Wednesday, I found a new table. The weird kids with dyed hair and piercings and chains on their jeans. The girl with blue hair introduced herself as Blue. No joke.

"Pink's badass," she said simply.

That was it. No judgment. No questions.

Friday, Chen tried to sit with me like nothing happened. "So, are you gonna dye it back? Everyone's talking about it."

I looked at him—really looked at him—and realized something. This whole friendship had been me accommodating him, me editing myself down to something palatable. That was bull. Total, absolute BS.

"Actually," I said, "I'm thinking green next week."

His face fell. I smiled. For the first time in years, I felt like myself. The pink hair wasn't a mistake. It was a filter, separating real from fake. And I was finally done faking it.