The Orange Hat Incident

The orange hat was a mistake. That much I knew by second period.

"Nice hat, bro," Tyler said, smirking. "Going hunting?"

The whole lacrosse team laughed. I pulled the brim lower, my face burning. Dad had bought it for my birthday, thinking it was "vintage cool." Now it was just the reason I couldn't walk through the cafeteria without feeling like a walking traffic cone.

I pulled out my iPhone 11, praying for a text that would save me. Anything. But my screen stayed dead, mocking me with that cracked corner from when I'd dropped it at Jordan's party last month.

"Yo, Sam!" Marcus called from the varsity baseball table. "You coming to the game today? We crush Northside."

"Yeah," I lied. "Wouldn't miss it."

I wasn't planning to go. Not like I could just show up alone anyway. But then Maya sat across from me at lunch, her nose ring catching the light. She'd transferred here three weeks ago and already sat with the art kids, like she actually belonged somewhere.

"That hat's actually kind of fire," she said, surprising me. "Like, confidence, you know?"

I blinked. "You think?"

"Totally." She smiled. "I'm going to the baseball game if you wanna... you know, not be alone about it."

Fast forward to the seventh inning stretch, and somehow I'm sitting next to Maya while the baseball team destroys Northside 8-2. My phone is at 12%, dying a slow death because I'd forgotten to bring my cable. Classic Sam move.

"Your screen's cracked," she observed.

"Yeah, I'm fixing it this weekend. If my mom ever actually pays me for watching my little sister."

She laughed, and something shifted. The orange hat didn't feel so stupid anymore. Maybe because she was looking at me like I wasn't completely hopeless.

Then my phone buzzed one last time before dying completely. Unknown number.

"Who was that?" Maya asked.

"No idea." I shrugged, trying to sound chill even though my heart was doing weird things. "Probably nothing."

But later, when I finally found a cable at Marcus's house and charged my phone enough to check, I saw it. A text from an unknown number that said: "I think you're cute. From the orange hat girl. ;)"

Maya.

The orange hat wasn't a mistake after all.