Three Inches of Doomscroll

The problem with a bad haircut isn't just the mirror. It's the iPhone. Specifically, the front-facing camera that captures every角度 of the disaster I now call my hair.

Three inches. That's what I asked for. Three inches to clean up the split ends, start junior year fresh. My stylist, clearly interpreting "three inches" as "a radical identity crisis," chopped off eight. I walked out looking like a confused mushroom.

My phone has been blowing up since I posted that gym class photo. The one where I'm attempting to look casual, vaguely athletic, definitely not devastated. But zoom in, and there it is—the horrorshow above my forehead. My friends are being *way* too nice about it. "It's giving edgy," Mia texted. "Very French girl energy," said Jordan, who's never met a lie he wouldn't tell.

I'm currently sprawled on my floor, doomscrolling through everyone else's perfect hair, perfect lives, perfect everything, when Bubbles floats past. My goldfish. The only living thing in my house who hasn't commented on the haircut, mostly because he's been staring blankly at the same plastic castle since January.

"At least you're consistent, bro," I tell him. He does a little flip, unimpressed.

The thing is, I didn't hate the cut immediately. I hated it around hour three, when the Instagram comments started rolling in. Now it's been four days, and I'm caught in this spiral where every reflection is a mini crisis, every notification is a potential roast session waiting to happen.

My mom pokes her head in. "Honey, your brother's friend is here."

I scramble up, suddenly aware I've been lying on the floor in sweatpants talking to a fish for twenty minutes. But then I catch my reflection in the window and—okay, you know what? It's fine. It's hair. It grows back. Or it doesn't, and I become the girl with the confusing mushroom cut who owns a judgmental goldfish and refuses to care anymore.

Bubbles does another lap around his castle.

"You know what?" I say, grabbing my iPhone off the floor. "You're right. It is giving edgy."

I take a selfie. Bubbles photo-bombs from the background, looking dramatic. I post it with the caption "the fish is the main character, i'm just the supporting act with bad hair."

Three hundred likes in ten minutes.

Sometimes the disaster isn't the haircut. It's thinking anyone but you actually cares.