Running on Empty

My hair chose the worst possible moment to stage a rebellion. Right before the biggest track meet of my junior year, my curls decided they were basically done with my existence—exploding into something that looked like a electrocuted poodle.

"You look fine," Maya said, but her eyes said otherwise. She was my ride-or-die, but she was also the one who'd convinced me that getting a pixie cut three days before regionals was "empowering." Spoiler: it wasn't empowering. It was a disaster.

I was already operating on zombie mode from finals week. My brain felt like it had been replaced with fog, and my body was running on caffeine and spite. My mom, in her infinite wisdom, had decided that the solution to my exhaustion was papaya smoothies. Every morning. Like,强制 feeding situation.

"It's good for you, mija," she'd say in Spanish, watching me choke down the suspiciously orange sludge. "Your abuela swore by it."

Now I stood at the starting line, my hair doing its own thing, my stomach full of papaya betrayal, and my competitors looking like they'd actually slept more than three hours in the past week. The gun went off, and suddenly I was running—really running. Not the zombie shuffle I'd been doing through the school hallways, but actual, powerful running.

Something clicked. Maybe it was the papaya finally kicking in (I refused to admit my mom might be right). Maybe it was sheer desperation. Or maybe it was just that I was so over everything that my body decided to take matters into its own hands.

I finished third. Not first, but solid. Maya was waiting at the finish line with Gatorade and zero chill about my hair situation.

"You looked like a wild animal out there," she laughed, throwing her arm around my shoulders. "A very fast wild animal with questionable hair choices."

"Whatever," I said, gulping Gatorade. "I think the papaya finally hit."

"Never speak to me again."

But I was smiling. Maybe the hair disaster was exactly what I needed—like, literally nobody was looking at my hair because I was moving too fast. And maybe being a little zombie wasn't the worst thing when it meant I'd proved to myself that I could still show up, even when I felt like giving up.

Still though. Never again with the papaya.