The Bear in the Bathroom Mirror

Maya stared at the bathroom mirror, willing her hair to somehow un-frizz itself. Third day post-breakup, and her hair had decided to stage its own personal rebellion—like, how was this fair? Jordan dumps her via text, and now she's stuck looking like a electrocuted poodle?

Her iPhone buzzed. AGAIN. Group chat going absolutely feral.

"omg did u hear"

"jordan said WHAT"

"maya u okay??"

She gripped the sink. The weight in her chest felt like she was swallowing stones. Bearing it. That's what her mom would say—"just bear through it, Maya. This too shall pass." But honestly? Felt more like drowning than bearing.

"Maya? You alive in there?" Chloe's voice through the door.

Chloe. The one friend who hadn't blown up her phone with drama. The one who'd shown up with ice cream and zero questions, just sat with her while she ugly-cried through three episodes of their shared obsession.

Maya swung the door open. "Does it look like I'm alive?"

Chloe took in the disaster hair, the smudged mascara, the general aura of someone who'd been put through a emotional woodchipper. Then she grinned, holding up her phone.

"So. I may have done something."

"What?" Maya's stomach did that thing where it forgets how to stomach.

"Jordan's new profile pic? Yeah. That's a screenshot from when he got braces in seventh grade. Before he fixed them. I have the original and I'm not afraid to use it."

Maya stared. Then she started laughing. Like, actual laughter, not the fake stuff she'd been doing all week at school. The bear-in-her-chest weight lifted, just a little.

"You didn't."

"Oh, I absolutely did. And I sent it to the group chat. Your move, bestie."

Her iPhone dinged. Twenty notifications at once. The group chat was losing its collective mind.

For the first time in days, Maya didn't feel like she was bearing anything alone.

"Your hair looks terrible," Chloe said, grabbing her hand. "Let's go fix it. And then we're staging a comeback that'll make Jordan's brace-face photo look like child's play."

The bear in the mirror didn't look so scary anymore. Especially with a friend like hers standing beside it.