Electric at Emma's Party

Maya pressed her back against the bathroom door, heart hammering like she'd just sprinted a mile. Outside, muffled bass thumped through the wood—some remix she pretended to know but had never actually heard.

"You good in there?" Katie's voice called through the door. "Everyone's doing shots."

"Coming!" Maya lied. She wasn't coming. She was dying.

Her palms were sweating—actually sweating, like cartoon-character levels—and she wiped them on her dress for the third time. This was stupid. She was sixteen, not twelve. She could handle a party. She could handle seeing _him_.

The fox. That's what everyone called Leo, ever since he'd shown up to sophomore year with that chaotic orange hair and a smile that made girls forget their own names. Maya had been lowkey obsessed with him since October, which meant eight months of silent suffering, eight months of Instagram stalking at 2 AM, eight months of watching him date people who weren't her.

Because Maya was a spy. Not a cool one. A pathetic one.

She'd mastered the art of appearing totally uninterested while cataloging everything: Leo's coffee order (oat milk latta, two sugars), his favorite hoodie (washed-out gray, paint-stained), the way he laughed with his whole body, head thrown back like he'd just heard the best joke in existence. She knew he took AP Art even though his parents wanted him in STEM. She knew he had a tiny scar through his left eyebrow from falling off a skateboard when he was twelve.

She knew so much and nothing at all.

The bathroom door handle jiggled. Maya took a deep breath, smoothed her dress, and prepared to face the music.

The door swung open—and she nearly collided with him.

Leo stood there, orange hair messy, gray hoodie on, that same easy smile she'd memorized from across rooms and cafeteria tables. He blinked.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't know anyone was—"

Then he actually looked at her.

Something changed. The air between them shifted, charged and electric, like lightning trapped in a too-small space. Maya stopped breathing.

"Maya, right?" Leo said. "You're in Mr. Harrison's English class. You wrote that paper about Frankenstein that everyone talked about."

Every coherent thought evaporated. "You... you read my paper?"

"Yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly nervous. His own palms were sweaty, she noticed with jolt. "I wanted to talk to you about it, but you always sat by the window and I never figured out how to—"

"You wanted to talk to me?"

"All semester." Leo laughed, self-deprecating. "I just... I didn't know how. You seem kind of intense. In a good way."

Maya stared. Eight months of silent pining, of thinking she was invisible, of convinced he'd never noticed she existed. And the whole time, he'd been trying to figure out how to talk to _her_.

The universe was ridiculous. The universe was amazing.

"Well," she said, something blooming in her chest, something bright and terrifying and perfect, "you're talking to me now."

"Yeah." Leo's smile widened, genuine and wondering. "Yeah, I guess I am."

The bass from the living room pulsed against the walls, but Maya barely heard it. Lightning had struck, finally, and she had a feeling this was just the beginning.