Palm Sweats & Goldfish Secrets

Maya's palms were sweating. Again.

She stared at her phone, thumb hovering over Jake's Instagram profile. Again. This was officially stalking, right? She'd become a total social media spy, checking his stories the second they dropped, analyzing every caption for hidden meanings. It was pathetic.

"You're being dramatic," she told her goldfish, neon. He swam to the front of his bowl, bubbles rising like tiny thoughts. Neon was the only one who knew her secrets - like how she'd practiced saying hey to Jake approximately four hundred times in her mirror, and how she still couldn't do it without sounding like she'd inhaled helium.

Tomorrow was Levi's party. Everyone was going. Even the shy kids. Even her, apparently, because her best friend Chloe had already RSVP'd for both of them without asking. Maya had spent the past three days oscillating between excitement and absolute terror.

Her palm felt clammy against her phone case. What if she said something weird? What if she stood in a corner by herself for three hours? What if Neon's advice - "just be yourself, but, like, cooler" - was actually terrible?

The next night, Maya stood outside Levi's house, heart doing gymnastics. She could hear music bass-thumping through the door. Chloe grabbed her hand. "You've got this. Just don't overthink it."

Easier said than done.

Inside, she spotted Jake immediately. He was wearing that hoodie she'd seen in his posts. She froze. Her palms were sweating so bad she might actually slip out of her sandals.

Then she saw it: the bear costume.

Some guy was wearing a full bear mascot outfit, standing by the snack table like it was completely normal. Everyone was pretending it wasn't weird, which somehow made it weirder. Maya felt hysterical laughter bubbling up.

Jake walked over. "Hey, Maya, right? We have English together."

Her brain short-circuited. "Yeah! English! With the books!"

She wanted to die. But Jake laughed. "Exactly. You want to see something funny?"

He pointed at the bear. "That's my cousin. He lost a bet."

Maya cracked up. All her anxiety melted away. They talked for twenty minutes about teachers, about how weird high school was, about how neither of them understood why people made such a big deal about parties.

Later, walking home with Chloe, Maya couldn't stop smiling. Her palms were dry for the first time all week. Maybe she'd send Neon a thank-you text in the morning. He'd probably just bubble back at her, but that was okay.

Sometimes the scariest things turned out to be bear costumes in disguise.