Orange Hoodoo Confessions

The lightning flashed outside my window, illuminating the absolute disaster that was my life. I'd been spying on Marcus's social media for three months straight - not like, creepy stalking, but just... intense observation. I knew his post schedule, his anime opinions, and that he owned exactly three orange hoodies.

Then came the spinach incident.

I was at lunch, chatting with my best friend Priya, trying to act normal about how Marcus had literally walked past my table three times that week. I took a bite of my salad and something felt wrong. "You have," Priya whispered, "spinach in your teeth. Like, a lot of it."

I ran to the bathroom, already knowing Marcus had probably seen it. He had. We made eye contact in the hallway, and I just knew.

That night, another lightning storm knocked out our cable. No streaming, no distraction - just me overthinking everything in the dark. My phone buzzed.

"Hey," Marcus had messaged. "Just wanted to say... your art account is actually really cool."

I almost died. He'd noticed me back.

"Thanks," I typed, hands shaking. "Sorry about the spinach earlier."

"lol no worries," he wrote back. "Actually, I was gonna come talk to you but I got nervous."

We ended up messaging until 3 AM, even though the cable was still out. About his orange hoodie obsession (it's a whole thing), my art, how we'd both been lowkey spying on each other's posts for months.

"Next time," he wrote, "let's skip the spinach and just say hi."

The storm outside had passed, but something else had started. Something way more electric than any lightning strike.