The Summer of Unruly Everything

Maya's hair had betrayed her. That was the only explanation for what stared back in the mirror—a choppy, uneven disaster that looked like a lawnmower had fought a losing battle. Her mom's friend who did haircuts "on the side" had clearly been having an off day.

"It'll grow out," her mom had said cheerfully, completely missing the crisis level of the situation.

Easy for her to say. She didn't have the neighborhood pool party in two days—the same party where Jason would definitely be. Jason, who'd actually looked at her during English last week. Jason, who wouldn't notice someone with mushroom hair.

The backyard pool party was exactly as humid and chaotic as Maya feared. Teens everywhere, music thumping, the smell of coconut sunscreen and something someone was definitely not supposed to be grilling. She'd shown up wearing a baseball cap, which was honestly pathetic for a pool party, but desperate times.

"Nice hat," said Sasha, appearing behind her with that terrifyingly genuine smile. "Hot day for it."

"I'm cold-natured," Maya lied, and immediately wanted to disappear into the pool filter.

Sasha didn't call her out. Instead, she flopped onto the lounge chair beside her. "My brother cut his own hair last week. Looked like a electrocuted squirrel for like, three weeks. He cried in the bathroom for an hour."

Maya turned. Sasha's brother was college-cool, the kind of person who didn't seem to care about anything.

"Seriously?"

"He couldn't bear to leave the house for a month," Sasha laughed. "But here's the thing—nobody actually cared except him. Like, he's the only one who remembers it now."

Around them, people cannonballed into the pool, shrieking. Someone's playlist switched to something everybody screamed the lyrics to. It was loud and perfect and absolutely nobody was looking at Maya.

"Your brother sounds dramatic," Maya said.

"You have no idea." Sasha stood up, stretched. "Anyway, you're missing the best part. Marco brought his speaker and he's doing that thing where he tries to sync everyone's phones."

She held out a hand. "Pool? Your hair will look fine wet."

Maya looked at the water, sparkling and chaotic and full of people just being awkward teenagers together. She took off the hat.

"Yeah," she said. "Okay."

Sometimes the most terrifying part wasn't the thing you were afraid of. It was the moment you realized nobody else was thinking about you at all—and that was actually freedom.