Orange Hair & Goldfish Secrets

The orange hair had seemed like such a good idea at midnight.

Now, standing in the cafeteria with cafeteria nachos that matched my hair, I felt like a traffic cone someone had accidentally given feelings. My phone buzzed against my thigh—my lifeline, my everything—battery at 8% and I'd forgotten my charging cable at home. Again.

"It's actually kinda sick," Maya said, sliding into the seat across from me. She had that effortless thing going on, the one where she could wear literally anything and look like she'd planned it for weeks. "Like, alternative vibes."

Alternative vibes. I'd been going for mysterious art girl, gotten traffic cone with anxiety disorder.

I glanced over at where Caleb sat with the basketball crowd. He was laughing at something, that laugh that made my stomach do actual gymnastics routines. I'd been technically-stalking-not-stalking his Instagram for three weeks now. Social media reconnaissance, not creepy spying. There's a difference.

"You're doing it again," Maya said, following my gaze. "The spy thing."

"I'm an observer," I said. "There's a difference."

"You're overthinking it. He looked at you in bio yesterday."

"He looked at everyone. He has radar eyes. They just sweep across the room and accidentally make eye contact with people." I poked at my nachos. "I'm gonna die alone with thirty cats and a goldfish named Steve."

"You won a goldfish at the spring fair freshman year," Maya reminded me. "His name was actually Steve. He lived for three days."

"He had a good run. Short but meaningful. A life well-lived."

My phone screen went black. Dead. No cable, no Instagram, no ability to obsessively check whether Caleb had posted anything new in the last seven minutes.

I felt untethered. Lighter. Weirdly present.

Maya grinned like she knew exactly what I was thinking. "So. Without your digital security blanket... you gonna actually talk to him?"

"Absolutely not," I said. "But I might sit somewhere slightly more visible."

"Baby steps." She stood up. "Come on. I saw an empty outlet by the windows. Someone's always got a cable. And maybe, just maybe, you could accidentally find yourself within conversational distance of a certain basketball player."

The orange hair was still a disaster. But as I followed Maya through the crowded cafeteria, I realized something: traffic cones are pretty hard to miss. And sometimes, being impossible to ignore is exactly the point.