Fake It 'Til You Make It

Maya pressed herself against the gymnasium wall, basically a professional **spy** at this point. Not the cool kind with gadgets and martinis—more the awkward kind hiding behind a punch bowl at her first high school party while everyone else seemed to know some secret social code she'd missed in orientation.

"You look like you're calculating escape routes," said a voice behind her.

She jumped. A guy with perpetually messy hair and a hoodie that had seen better days stood there, holding a red Solo cup like it was evidence. "I'm Leo. And you're doing the thing where you observe everyone like you're gathering data for an experiment."

Maya's face burned. "Maya. And I'm not—I mean, I am, but—"

"Relax, I do it too." He gestured toward the corner where some girl was reading **palm**s to a captivated audience. "That's Jenna. She told me I'd have a long life line but terrible luck in romance. Which, honestly, accurate."

A golden retriever mix suddenly bounded through the crowd, knocking into Jenna's table and sending tarot cards everywhere. Everyone laughed. The **dog**—Leo's dog, apparently—seemed delighted with himself.

"That's Buster." Leo sighed, grabbing the dog's collar. "He's my emotional support animal for, like, existing."

Something about the chaos, the way Leo didn't even seem embarrassed, made Maya's shoulders drop two inches.

"Hey," she said, surprising herself. "Want to get out of here? There's a taco truck two blocks over."

Leo's face lit up. "Absolutely. Buster's buying."

She laughed for what felt like the first time all night. Turns out, the best way to survive being sixteen wasn't pretending to belong. It was finding the other people pretending too.