Goldfish in the Cafeteria

Maya pressed her back against the lockers, phone clutched like a weapon. Official school mission: Operation Crush Reconnaissance. Okay, fine — she was basically just a spy with anxiety and a cafeteria pass.

Three tables away, Jayla was laughing with the popular crowd. That perfect laugh that sounded like wind chimes. Maya had been orbiting her since September, stuck in the gravitational pull of someone who actually had their life together.

Then she saw it.

On Jayla's tray: an orange. Not those sad pre-peeled slices in plastic cups. A whole, perfect orange, like something out of a magazine. Beside it, a small container of something green and leafy. Spinach. Since when did the queen of tenth grade eat spinach?

"You're being weird again," said Riley, sliding up beside her. Riley, her best friend since fourth grade, who knew exactly how long she'd been staring at Jayla across four hundred lunch periods.

"I'm not staring. I'm observing. There's a difference."

"You're literally holding a bag of goldfish crackers like they're binoculars."

Maya looked down. She was, in fact, holding up the orange bag, framing Jayla through the fish. This was fine. Everything was fine. Her dignity was intact.

"She's eating spinach, Riley. Spinach. Since when does she—"

"Since she went vegetarian last month? Everyone knows this. You would too, if you actually talked to her instead of conducting creepy surveillance operations."

Maya's face heated. "I'm not creepy! I'm... methodical. Strategic."

"You're a goldfish," Riley said, grabbing a handful of crackers. "Three-second memory, always swimming in circles. Just go say hi."

"I can't just— what would I even—"

"Start with 'hey.' Then follow up with literally anything else. Compliment her orange. Ask about the spinach. I don't know, be normal."

"Normal is overrated."

"Yeah, well, so is being alone at lunch. Again."

Maya looked at Jayla, really looked. And Jayla was already looking back, smiling that small confused smile that somehow made Maya's stomach do full rotations.

She stood up, goldfish bag crinkling. Time to abort the spy mission. Time to be something real.

"Wish me luck," she whispered.

"You don't need it," Riley called after her. "Just don't offer her the goldfish. That's weird."