Sweaty Palms & Bad Hair Days

Maya's palms were sweating. Again. She wiped them on her jeans—not that it helped. The debate tournament was in twenty minutes, and her hair was doing that thing where it refused to cooperate with gravity or decency or basically the laws of physics.

"You got this," said Leo, adjusting his snapback hat backward like he did when he was actually nervous. "You've been prepping for weeks."

"Easy for you to say," Maya muttered, fishing a scrunchie from her pocket. "You're not the one whose brain turns to mush the second someone says 'opening statement.'"

Their school's old AV room was a disaster zone of cables snaking across the floor like a tech hydra. Maya had spent the entire morning hunting for the right HDMI cable to connect their presentation laptop to the tournament projector. Three different cables later, they'd finally found one that worked—and now she had to actually, you know, debate.

The thing was, Maya knew the arguments backward and forward. Climate policy wasn't exactly rocket science. But standing in front of a hundred judgmental high schoolers while her hair frizzed out like she'd stuck a fork in an electrical socket? That was a special kind of nightmare.

"Hey." Leo's voice softened. He reached out and gently tugged the hat off his head, settling it onto hers. It was too big, swallowing her hair completely. "There. Now you're basically incognito. Secret weapon mode activated."

Maya blinked. The hat smelled like Leo's shampoo—something coconut-y that his mom definitely bought. Her palms stopped sweating for the first time all morning.

"You're just saying that because you don't want to lose by default," she said, but she was smiling.

"Nah," Leo grinned. "I'm saying it because you're going to crush it. Also, that cable situation? Total nightmare fuel. You survived that. You can survive five minutes of public speaking."

He wasn't wrong. She'd crawled under tables, fought with tangled wires, and nearly disconnected the entire school network trying to set up their presentation. Compared to that, a little stage fright was nothing.

Maya adjusted the hat, feeling strangely steady. "Okay. Let's do this."

"That's the energy," Leo said, bumping her shoulder with his. "Just imagine everyone in their underwear. Or don't, because that's weird and I don't know who came up with that advice."

Maya laughed—for real this time. Her palms were dry. Her hair was hidden under a snapback that wasn't even hers. And somewhere in that messy, cable-filled room, she realized she didn't have to be perfect to be ready.

She just had to show up.