The Bad Hair Day Livestream

Maya stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, horror mounting. The flat iron had betrayed her. Her hair—that she'd spent forty-five minutes perfecting for her first livestream—now stuck out in three impossible directions like a deflated party hat.

"You've got to be kidding me," she groaned, grabbing a fistful of the frizzy disaster. In twenty minutes, she was supposed to go live on her brand new gaming channel. The one she'd been too scared to launch for six months. The one that would finally let her connect with people who actually got her.

Her phone buzzed on the counter. NOAH: Everything set? Can't wait to watch!

Maya's stomach did that familiar flip thing it did whenever she thought about people actually watching her. What if she froze? What if her voice sounded weird? What if—

Buster, her enormous golden retriever, shoved his way into the bathroom and promptly sat on her foot, sighing dramatically like she was being so dramatic.

"Easy for you to say," Maya muttered. "You're a dog. You don't care what anyone thinks about your hair."

Buster's tail thumped against the bathtub. He was right, though. Who was she doing this for, anyway?

She scanned the bathroom desperately. Her gaze landed on the tangle of charging cables behind her—the HDMI cable she'd dragged from the living room, the phone cable, everything. Then she remembered something her older sister Jordan had said months ago: "Nobody's looking at you as closely as you're looking at yourself. They're too busy worrying about themselves."

Maya looked at Buster. He was currently trying to eat her hair tie.

"You know what? Fine."

She threw her hair up in a messy bun. The really messy kind. The kind she'd never let anyone see in middle school.

Five minutes later, Maya hit GO LIVE. Her hands shook, but she forced a smile.

"Hey everyone! I'm Maya, and welcome to my channel. Fair warning: my hair looks like a squirrel nested in it, but we're gonna play some Minecraft anyway."

The first comment popped up immediately: SAME tho my hair never cooperates lol

Another: finally a real person not all curated and perfect

By the time she signed off an hour later, forty people had followed her channel. And somewhere along the way, between dying repeatedly in-game and explaining why Buster kept barking at delivery people, she'd forgotten to be nervous.

Later that night, she finally texted Noah back: NAILED IT. Hair disasters welcome.

He responded: That's the vibe.

And maybe that was okay. Maybe the messy parts were the parts worth watching anyway.