Lightning in the Feed

2:47 AM. Again.

Maya rolled over in bed, her face illuminated by the iPhone screen glow that had become her personal midnight sun. She felt like a zombie—honestly, she'd been running on three hours of sleep and anxiety since homecoming, when Jordan had *almost* held her hand but then got a text from his mom and had to "bounce." Whatever that meant when you're fifteen and have nowhere to actually bounce to.

She was doing it again. Spying.

Okay, not *real* spying. That would be creepy. This was just... thorough research. Maya tapped through Jordan's Instagram stories for the third time tonight. Beach sunset. Skateboarding fail. A very aesthetically plated burrito. Each post felt like clues in a mystery she'd been assigned to solve without any instructions.

Her cat, Mochi, jumped onto the bed and head-butted her phone with violent affection.

"Dude, chill," Maya whispered, scratching behind Mochi's ears. "I'm basically a detective over here."

Mochi meowed judgmentally and knocked a stack of books off the nightstand. Because that's what cats do—they interrupt your spiral with chaotic energy and then look at you like *you're* the one being dramatic.

Then lightning cracked the sky outside her window, close enough that the whole house seemed to flinch.

The power died.

Maya's room went dark. Her iPhone flashlight clicked on automatically, cutting a cone of light through the blackness. For the first time in hours, she wasn't staring at someone else's life through a screen.

"...weird," she whispered.

Another flash of lightning illuminated her room in stark relief. For a second, everything looked different—like she was seeing her own bedroom for the first time. The fairy lights she'd strung up freshman year. The stack of unread books. The mirror where she'd practiced saying "hey Jordan" approximately four thousand times.

Maya realized something, sudden and sharp as the storm outside: she'd been so busy watching Jordan's life that she'd forgotten to actually live her own.

"Okay," she said to Mochi, who was now aggressively purring next to her. "New plan. No more stalking. I'm just gonna... talk to him. Like, with my actual face. In real life."

Mochi meowed.

"I know. Terrifying. But also? Lowkey kind of exciting."

The power flickered back on. Maya's iPhone buzzed with a notification—Jordan had posted something new.

She didn't look.

Instead, she opened her notes app and started drafting what she'd say to him tomorrow at lunch. Because some things were better experienced in real time, no filter required.