Under the Brim

Maya's been wearing the same beat-up baseball cap for three weeks straight. Indoors. During math tests. It's weird, right?

So I did what any best friend would do—I started paying attention. Okay, maybe I went full detective mode, checking her Instagram stories, analyzing every vague text, even peeking at her notes in chem when she wasn't looking. Not my proudest moment, but I was worried.

"You're practically a spy now," my brother Jordan joked when he caught me scrolling through Maya's finsta for the third time that day. "Chill, she's probably just going through something."

Something, yeah. Like what?

Then came the day she forgot her hat at lunch. I saw it—her hair, patchy and thinner than usual, the way she kept her head down, tugging at her sleeves. My stomach dropped. Maya, the girl who'd dyed her hair every color of the rainbow in eighth grade, was hiding something real.

"Dude," I said, sliding into the seat across from her. "You okay?"

She laughed, but her eyes did that shiny thing they do before tears. "My hair's falling out. Doctor says stress, vitamin D deficiency, who knows. I look like a mess."

"You don't look like a mess," I said. "You look like someone who's been carrying too much. AP classes, student council, your mom's surgery..."

Maya's shoulders dropped. "I thought you'd think it was gross."

"Gross? Please. I've seen you eat an entire pizza with your hands. This is nothing."

She cracked a real smile that time. And just like that, we were laughing about nothing and everything, making plans to go to Target for those ridiculous gummy vitamins she'd been too embarrassed to buy, plotting ways to sabotage her next student council meeting so she'd actually get some sleep.

Friendship isn't about having all the answers. Sometimes it's just sitting in the cafeteria with someone who's scared their hair won't grow back, promising them they're not alone, even when neither of you knows what's coming next.

The hat? She still wears it sometimes. But now she takes it off when she wants to. And that feels like everything.