The Bear, The Water, The Bad Haircut

Three weeks into summer, Maya's hair was still adjusting to the choppy layers she'd asked for, which the stylist had somehow interpreted as "experimental mullet adjacent." Every morning she stared in the mirror, debating whether to just shave it all and start over. But her aunt's lake party was today, and she'd already spent two hours curling the pieces that wouldn't curl, so she was going with it.

The party was already popping when she arrived. The lake water glittered under string lights, and someone had set up a wireless speaker blasting that song everyone pretended to hate but secretly loved. Maya spotted her crush, Jayden, immediately—standing by the snack table like he owned the place, his hair falling perfectly across his forehead, because of course it did.

"You coming in or what?" her cousin Leo called from the dock. "Water's perfect!"

"Give me a minute," Maya called back, though she wasn't sure whether she was more nervous about the actual lake or the fact that Jayden was definitely watching her.

Then her aunt emerged from the house wearing something that made Maya's hair crisis feel insignificant. A full bear costume. Complete with head.

"What is HAPPENING," Maya hissed at Leo.

"Bear mascot for the family business," Leo said, like this explained everything. "She does events."

"And she thought LAKE PARTY was the venue?"

But the bear was already waddling toward the dock, waving its fuzzy paws, and suddenly Jayden was laughing, actually laughing, and Maya realized something important: nobody was thinking about her hair. Nobody had noticed her thirty-minute curling attempt. Nobody cared. They were all too busy watching her aunt attempt to walk in a bear costume on a slippery dock.

"Race you," Maya said to Leo, and kicked off her sandals.

She hit the water before she could overthink it—cool and shocking and perfect. When she surfaced, dripping and hair definitely ruined, Jayden was grinning at her from the dock.

"Finally," he said. "We've been waiting like twenty minutes."

Maya flipped her wet hair out of her face. The mullet situation was definitely worse now. But somehow, she didn't even care.