Fox in the Feed

My phone buzzed for the third time in two minutes. I knew exactly who it was before even looking. Fox—that's what everyone called Maya, because she was sly as hell and always three steps ahead of everyone in our friend group. She'd been blowing up my iPhone all morning, and I'd been ghosting her because I didn't have the energy to deal with whatever drama she was cooking up now.

"She's totally spying on him," Fox had texted at midnight. "I saw his Spotify wrapped. He listened to your playlist seventeen times this week."

I'd stared at my ceiling, heart doing that stupid flutter thing it always did whenever someone mentioned Leo. Sweaty palms, racing thoughts, the whole crush package. Fox was right, though. Leo had been weirdly present in my life lately—liking my posts, sitting near me in chemistry, "accidentally" brushing against my shoulder in the hallway. But Leo was also the kind of guy who had girls throwing themselves at him constantly. Was I just another girl on his radar? Or was I actually special?

The worst part? Fox had been live-updating me on everything. "He asked about you at lunch," "He looked sad when you left early," "His best friend told my best friend that he's been talking about you NON-STOP." It was simultaneously thrilling and exhausting, like being the main character in a reality show I hadn't signed up for.

Now my palm was sweating against my phone case as I finally unlocked it. Fox had sent a screenshot.

"check. his. story."

I clicked over to Leo's profile, and there it was: a grainy photo of the sunset behind the school, captioned with our song lyrics. The same playlist Fox had caught him listening to seventeen times.

"Oh my GOD," I typed back, hands shaking. "That's literally from my emo phase playlist."

"And he posted it RIGHT AFTER you left school early," Fox replied. "Girl. He's not exactly being subtle."

I stared at the screenshot, feeling seen in a way that was terrifying and amazing all at once. Maybe Fox wasn't just stirring up drama for once. Maybe I wasn't invisible to him after all.