The Summer I Couldn't Run Fast Enough

My hair was supposed to be the thing that fixed everything. That's what Chloe said when she convinced me to let her dye it platinum blonde three days before freshman year. "You'll be a whole new person," she promised, and stupid me, I believed her.

Now I'm standing at the edge of the lake at Shelby's end-of-summer party, watching my reflection in the water. The blonde is already turning orange at the roots, and somehow that's worse than keeping my natural mouse brown would have been. Behind me, the social pyramid is in full effect — seniors on the dock, juniors on the beach chairs, everyone else in the water or hiding in the shadows like me.

Then I see it — or rather, him. Tyler Mitchell, who spent eighth grade making fun of my name. He's not running away anymore. He's standing there, looking actually kind of good, and suddenly I'm that awkward seventh grader again, palms sweating, heart doing that stupid fluttery thing it does when I'm nervous.

"Your hair," he says, stepping closer. "It's... different."

"Yeah," I manage. "An experiment."

"It's cool." He shrugs. "Brave."

And just like that, the air changes. Because Tyler Mitchell is a bear now — literally, he's grown like two feet and filled out, but also metaphorically, because he's not the same person who made my life miserable two years ago. People change. People grow.

We end up talking for an hour about everything and nothing. About his mom's new job, my anxiety about starting high school, the way we both feel like we're constantly running toward something we can't name. He tells me he was going through stuff back then, taking it out on everyone else. I tell him about the hair, how it was supposed to be armor but feels more like a costume.

"You don't need armor," Tyler says, and I believe him because he's looking right at me, not through me.

Later, when everyone's doing cannonballs in the water and someone starts a flash-mobs karaoke session, I realize something important. The hair doesn't matter. The pyramid doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm here, I'm present, and I'm done running from who I actually am.

"You coming in?" Tyler calls from the water, grinning.

I take a breath, kick off my sandals, and dive in. The water's perfect. And for the first time all summer, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.