The Bear in the Bleachers

My hair looked like a chemical experiment gone wrong. Three hours in the salon chair, $120 of my babysitting money, and what did I have? Straw. Actually, that was an insult to straw.

"It'll grow out," Mom had said, useless as ever.

Now I'm hiding in the girls' locker room at the community pool while Mia's birthday rager happens without me. Everyone's out there. Even Jason, who I've been lowkey crushing on since seventh period English. The guy who once complimented my hair before The Incident.

The locker room's empty except for dripping showers and the smell of chlorine that always gives me headaches. I'm splashing water on my face, trying not to cry and ruin my makeup entirely, when I hear it.

A growl.

Not like, "I'm a tough girl" growl. Like, actual wildlife growl.

I freeze. The automatic lights flicker off, leaving me in pitch darkness except for the emergency exit sign glowing that creepy green. Something heavy shuffles near the lockers. Something big.

My heart's doing that thing where it might actually exit my chest.

Then a flashlight beam cuts through the dark, and I see it. A bear. An actual bear, standing on its hind legs by the sinks, like it's about to wash its paws or something.

I scream. But like, a pathetic squeak-scream.

The bear's head snaps toward me. We lock eyes. And in this absurd moment, my first thought isn't "I'm about to die" or "where is security" but—my hair looks amazing. The humidity's making it curl in all the right ways, finally, after everything.

The bear drops to all fours and waddles out through the open back door, probably more confused than I am.

Security rushes in thirty seconds later. Apparently it's escaped from some exotic pet situation three blocks over. But in that moment where it's just me and the bear in the dark locker room, something shifts.

I walk outside to the pool deck, water dripping from my bangs, hair doing something wild and free. Jason's by the snack bar, and he actually looks up. Does a double-take.

"Your hair," he says. "It looks... different."

"Yeah," I say, actually smiling. "It really had to bear with me through some stuff."

He laughs, and I dive into the pool, clothes and all.