The Night Everything Changed

Maya stared at her reflection, fingers tangled in her frizzy hair. The Homecoming dance was in three hours, and her curls were staging a full-blown rebellion against her curling iron.

"You look fine," her little brother Leo yelled from downstairs. "Stop stress-vibing."

Easy for him to say. He wasn't the one who'd finally caught the attention of Marcus, the cute junior who'd actually commented her Instagram story yesterday. MAYA IS A WHOLE MOOD, he'd written. She'd screenshot it and sent it to Brianna immediately.

She grabbed her mom's expensive vitamin stash from the cabinet—something about collagen and hair growth—and chased the pills with lukewarm tap water. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

The doorbell rang.

"MAYA!" Leo screamed. "Someone's here!"

She crept downstairs, still in her robe and slides. Through the peephole: Marcus. Actual Marcus, standing on her porch with nervous energy radiating off him like heat waves.

She opened the door, suddenly very aware that her hair looked like she'd stuck a fork in an electrical socket.

"Hey," Marcus said, scratching the back of his neck. "I, uh, I know this is random, but my cat ate your homework."

Maya blinked. "What?"

"Not literally. I mean, my cat, Barnaby, ate this goldfish my sister won at the fair, and then he puked it up on my backpack, and your History project portfolio was in there, and..." His face burned bright red. "I ruined your homework. I came to apologize and offer to redo it myself."

Maya stared at him. This gorgeous, intimidating junior was standing on her porch, confessing to cat vomit drama because he felt that bad about destroying her work.

She started laughing. She couldn't stop.

"I'm sorry," she gasped. "That's terrible. But also—really funny."

Marcus's shoulders relaxed. A slow grin spread across his face. "Yeah. It's pretty messed up."

"My hair's a disaster anyway," Maya said, pushing a stray curl from her forehead. "I wasn't going to make it to the dance looking like a normal human being."

"I like your hair," Marcus said, so softly she almost didn't hear him. "It looks real."

Something in her chest shifted. All those hours scrolling through TikTok tutorials, all the stress about looking perfect—and the thing that finally got the cute boy's attention was her at her absolute messiest, cat-vomiting-goldfish story and all.

"So," she said, leaning against the doorframe. "Tell me more about Barnaby."