Orange Fins & Secret Follows

Maya won Orange at the county carnival—literally. The goldfish, not the color. Though the fish was decidedly orange, glowing like a tiny nuclear reactor in its plastic bag. "Great," she muttered, carrying her new responsibility home. "Exactly what a sophomore with zero chill needs."

Her room had become Spy Central lately. Not the cool kind with gadgets and leather jackets—the pathetic kind where she'd spent three weeks lowkey stalking Jason's Instagram story views, screenshotting his responses to her posts, overanalyzing every single emoji like they were ancient hieroglyphs holding the secrets to the universe.

"I'm a creep," she announced to Orange, who bobbed expectantly at the glass. "A genuine creepazoid."

Orange did not disagree. Orange merely opened and closed its mouth, doing that weird goldfish thing that looked like perpetual shock.

Friday night, Maya's phone buzzed. Jason: saw u got a fish??

Heart literally stopped.然后在 restarted at double speed. HOW did he know? She'd only posted that one super aesthetic shot of Orange's bowl, totally casual, not desperate at all.

um yeah lol she typed back, hands sweating. his name is orange

cool name Jason replied. ironic ig

Maya stared at the ceiling. Was he being sarcastic? Was he—

Her phone lit up again. i've been meaning to ask u something

Maya's stomach twisted into approximately 47 knots. This was it. He knew. He knew she'd been watching his stories, checking his likes, basically cyber-stalking him for weeks. He was going to call her out. She'd have to move to Canada. She'd have to change her name to something exotic like Elijah and live in the woods.

so i noticed u always like my posts right after i post them

Maya's face burned. She was going to die. Actually perish.

which is kinda lol bc u kinda beat me to it

Wait.

what

beat u to what

Jason sent a screenshot. It was HIS following list, showing MAYA_PETROVICH at the top, with the notification: "You're one of her first followers."

"I've been following you since freshman year," his next message read. "was waiting for u to notice me lol"

Maya sat up so fast she almost knocked over Orange's bowl.

wait YOU'VE been watching ME??

we're both spies lol was his response. "truce?"

Maya looked at Orange, who was now doing enthusiastic laps around his tiny plastic castle.

"You little gossiper," she whispered. "You knew."

She typed back: truce. but only if u help me rename this fish

deal