Poolside Surveillance

My hair was supposed to be legendary. Three hours of curling iron warfare, enough product to drown a small mammal, and now here I was, crouched behind a potted plant like some kind of desperate wannabe spy, watching Tyler's pool party through a crack in the fence.

"You coming in or what?" My best friend Maya appeared beside me, looking perfect in her swimsuit, hair casually messy like she'd just rolled out of bed looking amazing. Meanwhile, I'd been preparing for this moment since seventh grade.

"I can't. The humidity. My hair will expand to approximately three times its current volume. I'll look like a golden retriever that got rubbed with a balloon."

Maya rolled her eyes so hard I worried they'd get stuck. "You're literally spying on a party from behind a bush. This is a new low, even for you."

"I'm gathering intel," I protested. "Strategic planning."

Water splashed somewhere inside, followed by laughter. Tyler's laugh. The laugh that had been haunting my dreams since he sat behind me in algebra and made a comment about my pencil case. I'd practiced casual responses in the mirror approximately eight hundred times.

"You know what?" Maya grabbed my hand. "We're going in. Your hair will be fine. You'll be fine. And if you're not fine, we'll leave. But you cannot spend your entire life watching from behind fences."

She pulled me through the gate before I could formulate a properly dramatic protest. The water in the pool glittered like liquid diamond. People waved. Tyler waved. I stood there, frozen, sixteen years of overthinking catching up to me all at once.

Then someone jumped into the pool, sending a perfect arc of water directly at my face.

My hair exploded. Product dissolved. Curls went wild. I looked like I'd been electrocuted in a wind tunnel.

And Tyler walked over, dripping wet, grinned, and said, "Finally. You were starting to look too perfect out there."

Sometimes the surveillance ends better than you planned. Sometimes you just have to jump in the pool and let your hair do whatever it wants.