Operation Invisible

Maya felt like a total spy, lurking behind her phone screen, watching Liam's stories from the bathroom stall. It was pathetic, really—this was her third time checking his Instagram in twenty minutes. The guy didn't even know she existed.

At lunch, she'd positioned herself three tables away from where the baseball team always sat, strategically angled to catch glimpses of him laughing with his friends. She'd packed a spinach salad because her mom said it would help her skin, but now she was paranoid. Did she have green stuff in her teeth? She kept checking her reflection in her spoon, feeling like everyone was watching her fail at being a normal human being.

"You're staring again," her best friend Priya whispered, sliding into the seat across from her. "It's giving stalker vibes."

"I'm not stalking!" Maya protested, though they both knew she absolutely was. "I'm just... observing. From a distance. Professionally."

"Right. Because that's not weird at all." Priya stole a grape from her lunch. "So, did you work up the nerve to talk to him at practice yesterday?"

Maya groaned and buried her face in her hands. The day before, she'd shown up to baseball practice wearing her bright orange hoodie—the one that made her look like a traffic cone, according to her brother—thinking maybe she'd catch Liam's eye. Instead, she'd spent forty minutes pretending to be deeply interested in her phone while sitting on the bleachers, never once actually saying anything to anyone.

Her phone buzzed. Her daily vitamin reminder. The irony wasn't lost on her—like some supplement was going to fix whatever was fundamentally broken about her social skills. Her mom had started her on them after noticing how much time Maya spent in her room, claiming they'd help with "teenager moods," whatever that meant.

"You know what your problem is?" Priya said, stealing another grape. "You're treating this whole crush thing like some mission impossible instead of just, like, talking to another human."

"Because it IS impossible! Have you seen him? He's all confident and athletic and I'm over here having anxiety about whether I ate too much spinach."

"Okay, first of all, you did not eat too much spinach. And second, you're literally going to talk to him after school today. We've been planning this for a week."

The plan was simple: Maya would "accidentally" bump into him after baseball practice, maybe mention she'd seen him play, and possibly—even theoretically—get his number. It had seemed like a solid strategy when she and Priya came up with it during a sleepover, but now that it was actually happening, Maya wanted to disappear into a wormhole.

But Priya was already dragging her toward the field, and there he was—Liam, with his messy dark hair and that crooked smile that made her stomach do actual gymnastics. He was walking toward them.

"Hey," he said, and Maya's brain short-circuited. "You were at the bleachers yesterday, right? In the orange hoodie?"

She froze. He'd noticed? He'd NOTICED?

"I... yeah," she managed, sounding exactly as smooth as sandpaper. "I was just, um, watching. The practice. It was cool."

"You play?" He asked it like he actually wanted to know, not just being polite.

"No, I'm more of a... observer," she said, then immediately regretted it. What was she, a baseball spy now? "I mean, I like watching. It's interesting. The strategy part."

Liam laughed, and it was somehow better than she'd imagined. "That's actually kind of cool. Most people just show up for the parties." He shifted his bag to his other shoulder. "I'm Liam, by the way."

"Maya," she said, and when he smiled and said "Nice to officially meet you, Maya," she thought maybe—just maybe—this coming-of-age disaster movie might actually have a happy ending.

As they walked home, Priya elbowed her. "See? That wasn't so hard. No spying required."

Maya grinned, feeling lighter than she had in weeks. "Remind me to thank my mom about the vitamins. I think they're finally working."