The Bottom of the Pool

Maya's **hat** was her armor. A faded black trucker hat with PANCREATIC AWARENESS across the front — her dad's, taken from the charity box after his funeral. Wearing it made her feel like she could hide. Like the world couldn't see her mismatched eyebrows or the way she still cried sometimes when she thought no one was watching.

So when she forgot it on the pool deck during 3rd period **swimming**, Maya's stomach dropped.

"Whatever," said Chelsea, effortlessly treading water. "It's just a hat."

Easy for Chelsea to say. Chelsea was perfect. Chelsea probably didn't have panic attacks in locker rooms.

By the time Maya returned, the hat was gone.

She spent the next three days feeling exposed, like everyone was secretly laughing at her forehead. And then: a breakthrough. Her **iPhone**, which she'd wedged between two lockers during gym, caught something in its wide-angle selfie mode.

A photo. Auto-taken. Of Jace — Chelsea's ex — picking up Maya's hat. Pressing it to his face. Smiling, actually smiling, the kind of smile that made his nose crinkle.

And he wasn't alone. Kaitlyn from AP Chem was there too, and they were BOTH going through Maya's hat like it held national secrets.

"That's literally so weird," said her best friend Priya when Maya showed her. "Wait. Are they... like, **spy**ing on you?"

"Who spies on someone with a trucker hat?" Maya said, but her heart was doing this fluttery thing that had nothing to do with anxiety.

Friday, Jace caught her after last bell.

"Hey, so —" He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Your hat. I kinda borrowed it."

"You KINDA borrowed it?"

"There was a note inside," he said quietly. "I saw it when I picked it up. 'Remember to breathe.' I read it and it's just — my sister has anxiety too and I wanted to show her she wasn't alone and then I didn't know how to give it back without being weird about the fact that I looked inside your hat—"

A storm had been brewing all day. Outside the windows, **lightning** flashed.

"That's not weird," Maya said. "I mean, it's definitely weird. But — it's okay."

"You can have it back. Clean. I promise."

"Keep it," she heard herself say. "She needs it more."

And something shifted in her chest, like tectonic plates settling into place. She wasn't hiding anymore.