The Hat That Sank

Maya's vintage bucket hat was her armor against the world, but tonight it was doing zero to protect her from Tyler's pool party.

"You good, May?" Sage asked, flicking water from her fingertips. "You've been nursing that same lukewarm soda for like twenty minutes."

Maya shrugged, trying to look casual instead of like she was calculating exactly how many seconds she'd been standing alone by the snack table. (Four hundred and thirty-two, not that she was counting.) "Just chilling. You know me. Living my best life."

Sage rolled her eyes. "You're so weird. Anyway, someone brought that spinach artichoke dip from the deli downtown. It's actually mid, but whatever."

Spinach. Maya's stomach dropped. She'd literally just eaten like three scoops of that exact dip from her own container before leaving the house. Because obviously she had to arrive fashionably early to avoid being the first person there, which resulted in her awkwardly hovering near the doorway until other people showed up, which led to stress-eating leftovers in her kitchen.

She subtly checked her phone camera. Her reflection showed a bright green shard wedged stubbornly between her front teeth.

Absolute social suicide. This was it. This was how she died.

Maya made a beeline for the bathroom, but fate had other plans. Someone's body check during a chaotic pool volleyball game sent the ball flying directly at her head. Instinct took over. She ducked. Her beloved hat—the very hat that had seen her through seventh grade acne, first heartbreak, and that time she cried watching UP—sailed off her head and straight into the deep end of the pool.

"Your hat!" Sage gasped.

The hat bobbed helplessly in the water, its wide brim spreading like a dying flower. Maya stood at the edge, weighing her options: retrieve her favorite hat and risk everyone seeing the spinach situation, or let it sink and preserve whatever dignity she had left.

"For real though, that spinach is kinda working for you," a voice said from behind her.

She turned to find Tyler himself, shirtless and dripping wet, grinning at her.

"Wait, you knew?" Maya's face burned.

"Everyone knows, Maya. We were just waiting for you to notice so we could tell you." He laughed, but it wasn't mean. "It's actually kind of iconic. Very you."

Maya looked at her floating hat. Then at Tyler, who was still smiling at her like she wasn't currently the most awkward human on earth. Then at Sage, who was doubled over laughing so hard she'd fallen onto a lounge chair.

Something in Maya shifted. She dove headfirst into the pool, fully clothed, phone in pocket be damned.

The water rushed over her, cool and shocking. She surfaced, sputtering, hat in hand, to find everyone cheering.

"That was legendary, new girl," someone called from the hot tub.

"That hat's definitely ruined though," Sage said from the edge, but she was grinning.

Maya wrung out her hat, spinach still proudly stuck in her teeth, water dripping from her hair, fully dressed in the middle of Tyler Johnson's pool. And for the first time all night, she wasn't calculating anything.

"Worth it," she said, and meant it.