The Pink Hair Incident

Maya's hair was supposed to be the problem. Not the hair itself, but what she'd done to it — chopped ten inches and dyed the remains an electric pink that glowed under cafeteria lights. Her parents were losing it. Her friends kept asking if she was having a mental breakdown. But the real issue was the way Jake, the guy she'd been lowkey crushing on since September, kept looking at her like she'd grown a second head.

The weird thing? She kind of liked it.

"You're staring again," said Priya, sliding onto the bench next to her with a tray full of food court sushi. "And not in a creepy way. In a... thoughtful way."

"I'm not staring," Maya lied. She was absolutely staring.

"You're totally spying on him," Priya said, pointing her chopsticks. "I saw you do the same thing yesterday. At this point, you're basically a detective."

"I'm observing," Maya said. "There's a difference."

"The difference is that spying makes you sound like you're plotting something. Which you are."

Priya wasn't wrong. Since the hair incident, Maya had become hyper-aware of Jake's existence in a way that bordered on obsession. She'd memorized his schedule. She'd accidentally-on-purpose ended up behind him in the lunch line three times. She'd even stalked his Spotify — and yes, she judged his taste, but that was irrelevant. The point was, she'd become exactly the kind of person she'd always rolled her eyes at in movies.

And then, on a Tuesday, Jake caught her.

Literally caught her. She'd been ducking behind a bookshelf in the library because she'd seen him heading toward the YA section — because of course Jake, Jake of the perfect grades and varsity jacket and general air of I-have-my-life-together, would be going for the exact same dystopian romance she'd been meaning to read.

He stopped. Looked around the shelf. Found her crouching there like an absolute goblin.

"Are you... okay?" he asked.

Maya stood up. Her face burned. "Fine. Totally normal. Just... browsing."

Jake looked at the book she was clutching to her chest. "That's upside down."

She looked down. It was. She turned it around. "Artistic choice."

He laughed, and something in her chest did a weird little flip thing that was absolutely going to be a problem later. "So," he said, leaning against the shelf, "I've been meaning to ask."

"Ask what?"

"About the hair."

Maya's hand went to it automatically. "Oh. Yeah. It's... a lot, I know."

"No, it's sick," he said. And the way he said it — like he actually meant it, not like he was being polite — made her stomach feel like it was full of moths. "I was just wondering why now. Like, what made you do it?"

And that was the question, wasn't it? The question her parents had asked, and her friends, and everyone who'd given her that look that was halfway between concern and judgment.

Maya looked at Jake — really looked at him. He was waiting. He actually wanted to know.

"I don't know," she said. "I just wanted to be someone who would."

Jake nodded like this was a normal thing to say. "Same."

"What?"

"That's why I'm here," he said, gesturing vaguely at the library, at the school, at the world. "Trying to figure out how to be someone who would." He paused. "Someone who would dye their hair pink. Someone who would talk to the girl with the pink hair instead of just staring at her from across the cafeteria for three months."

Maya stared at him. "You've been staring at me?"

"I've been staring at you," Jake said, and his face turned approximately the same color as her hair. "Like, a lot. I just... didn't know how to say it without sounding like a creep."

"Well," Maya said, "you kind of nailed the creepy part with the library ambush."

"Fair." He held out his hand. "I'm Jake. I promise I'm not actually a spy. Or at least not a good one."

"Maya," she said, shaking it. "And I promise I'm not usually this weird about books."

Priya was going to lose her entire mind when she heard about this. But that was a problem for later. Right now, Maya had a dystopian romance to read and a very attractive boy to pretend-study with, and honestly? Life was pretty okay.