Cat, Camera, Crush

The thing nobody tells you about being sixteen is that it's basically 40% existing, 20% overthinking, and 40% feeling like the absolute worst version of yourself while everyone else is thriving.

My cat, Mochi, was my only witness to the crime.

"You're being weird," she said with her eyes, which was rich coming from a creature who spent three hours a day licking her own paw.

I was, admittedly, being weird. But in my defense, I had accidentally morphed into a low-key social media spy. It started with following Maya—the cute junior who sat behind me in homeroom—on Instagram. Totally normal, right? Everyone has that one account they occasionally stalk at 2 AM when they can't sleep. But somehow, two weeks later, I was analyzing her post times like they were clues in a murder investigation.

*Tuesday, 7:15 PM. Coffee shop emoji. Same as last week.*

I was basically doing unpaid intelligence work on a girl who didn't know I existed.

This is where my best friend Leo comes in. Leo, who had been Maya's friend since elementary school and casually dropped this information like it wasn't nuclear-grade gold: "Hey, you know Maya's going to be at the baseball game Friday, right? Varsity vs. Central."

I nearly choked on my lunch.

"Since when does she care about baseball?"

"Since her brother made varsity this year. She goes to every home game now."

So here's the situation: I have a massive crush on Maya, I've been silently cyber-stalking her for weeks (respectfully, I swear), and now I have a legitimate, non-creepy reason to be within fifty feet of her. This was either destiny or a recipe for disaster.

Friday arrived with my palms already sweating. I showed up to the game wearing my rarely-used baseball cap, trying to look like the kind of person who totally understood sports terminology and didn't just Google "what's a RBI" ten minutes before leaving my house.

The bleachers were packed. And there she was, three rows up, wearing that oversized hoodie she always wore on Instagram and cheering like her brother was playing in the World Series.

I stood there frozen. My palms were so sweaty I could practically water-ski with my hands.

"Hey!" someone called. It was Maya, waving. "You're in my English class, right? Come sit!"

I nearly died. I climbed up, legs shaking, and sat between her and Leo. Maya's brother hit a double, and the crowd went wild, and suddenly I was part of something real, something that wasn't filtered through a screen or analyzed in my bedroom at midnight.

"So," Maya said, handing me a bag of popcorn. "You like baseball?"

I looked at my palms, still slightly damp. I looked at Mochi back home, probably judging me from my windowsill. I looked at this moment that I'd overthought for two weeks straight.

"Honestly?" I smiled. "I'm mostly here for the popcorn."

She laughed. It was better than any Instagram post.

Later that night, I unfollowed her private fan account I'd made (yes, I'm embarrassed). The real thing, it turned out, didn't need to be spied on. It just needed to show up.