The Edgy Lawnmower Accident

I'd been staring at my hair for three hours. Okay, maybe not three, but definitely long enough that my mom knocked twice to ask if I was alive.

"You look fine, Maya," she said through the door. "It's just bangs."

But it wasn't just bangs. It was my entire identity getting chopped off by a stylist who clearly didn't understand "trim, don't destroy."

I grabbed my orange hoodie – the one my best friend Sarah said made me look like a traffic cone, whatever that meant – and headed to Tyler's house. Tyler had been my friend since seventh grade, back when I accidentally killed his science fair project by overfeeding his volcano's "lava" mixture.

"You look... different," Tyler said when he opened the door. Different meaning terrible. Different meaning why did you do that.

"DON'T come in my room," his little sister yelled from somewhere inside.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because my goldfish is having an existential crisis and needs privacy."

Tyler and I ended up in his garage, surrounded by tangled cables from his failed band days. We'd both tried to start a YouTube channel last summer – him on guitar, me attempting to sing until we realized nobody wants to watch two eighth graders butcher Taylor Swift.

"My mom says I need to take this vitamin D supplement," Tyler said, holding up a bottle like it was evidence in a crime. "Says I never go outside enough."

"You literally have a trampoline in your backyard."

"Exactly. It's ironic."

He tossed me a cable he'd been braiding – something to do with his hands when he was nervous. I realized then that Tyler had been acting weird all week. Distant. Checking his phone constantly.

"Is everything cool?" I asked, watching him avoid eye contact.

"Yeah, fine. Why wouldn't it be?"

"Because you're braiding cables again. You only do that when something's wrong."

Tyler sighed. "Sarah posted that pic of you guys from the mall. With the caption 'besties forever.' And then tagged everyone except me."

Oh.

"I didn't even see that," I said. "She just posted it?"

"Like five minutes before I came over." He finally looked at me. "Am I being replaced? Is that what's happening?"

The thing about friendship is that sometimes you don't realize someone feels excluded until they say it out loud. And then you feel terrible because you didn't mean to make them feel that way, but you also know that intent doesn't erase hurt.

"You're not being replaced," I said. "Sarah wanted to take pics for her Instagram. It's not... deep like that."

"It felt deep."

"Tyler." I pulled on the cable he was holding. "You're my person. Okay? Some random mall photos don't change eight years of friendship. You're stuck with me."

"Even with the traffic cone hoodie?"

"Especially with the traffic cone hoodie."

He smiled, finally. "Your hair does look kind of cool though. Like you're edgy now."

"My hair looks like a lawnmower accident."

"An edgy lawnmower accident."

We sat there for a while, surrounded by cables and old band posters, while he told me about starting a podcast instead – something about true crime but from a teenager's perspective. I told him about trying out for the school play, how I'd been practicing my monologue in the mirror when my hair wasn't distracting me.

Later that night, Sarah texted me: "Why didn't you like my post?"

I called her. "You need to add Tyler next time. He felt left out."

"Seriously? I thought he'd think it was girly or whatever."

"He doesn't care about girly. He cares about being included."

Sarah sighed. "Okay. I'll fix it. Also, your hair looks awesome, don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Maybe my mom was right. The hair wasn't the point. The point was figuring out who I was – with or without bangs, with or without the perfect Instagram aesthetic. The point was friends who braided cables when they were nervous and sisters who gave privacy to existential goldfish.

Some days you feel like a traffic cone. Some days you feel like a rockstar. Most days, you're just trying to figure out which version of yourself you're bringing to the world tomorrow.

And that's okay. That's the whole point.