Rodeo Clown

Mia's fingers froze over her phone screen. Three empty bubbles from Tyler sat there, mocking her. She'd been **spy**ing on his Instagram for twenty minutes—zooming in on every pixel of that party photo from last weekend, trying to figure out if the girl next to him meant anything.

"That's actual **bull**, Mia," said Jordan, dropping onto the locker room bench beside her. "You're doing it again. The social media detective thing. It's weird."

Mia locked her phone, heat creeping up her neck. "I'm not being weird. I'm just... thorough."

"You're obsessing. He posted one story. One." Jordan adjusted her crop top. "Anyway, are you coming to Jake's party tonight or what? Everyone's gonna be there."

"I don't know." Mia stuffed her phone in her backpack. "Maybe."

The truth was, Mia was tired of this game—the constant **running** in circles, overanalyzing every glance and DM, trying to decode what Tyler meant when he said "cool pic" on her post from three weeks ago. It was exhausting, this endless cycle of hope and disappointment that defined her entire freshman year experience.

That afternoon, she found herself at the community center, where her little brother Leo had insisted she watch his skateboarding practice. She sat on a bench, scrolling through TikTok to avoid thinking about tonight, until a voice interrupted her doom-scrolling.

"You're Mia, right?"

She looked up. It was Tyler.

Her stomach did that thing it always did—somersaults mixed with panic. "Yeah. Hi."

He sat down beside her, leaving careful space between them. "I saw you watching Leo. He's getting pretty good."

"You know my brother?"

"We skate sometimes." Tyler picked at a loose thread on his jeans. "I've been meaning to... I don't know. Talk to you, I guess."

Mia's heart was pounding now, but not from anxiety. Something else. "About what?"

"About how I've been trying to figure out how to talk to you for like, two months, and every time I see you in the hallway I freeze up and say something stupid." His face was pink. "It's kind of embarrassing, actually."

Mia stared at him. "You? Freeze up?"

"Yeah. I'm not great at this stuff." He rubbed his neck. "My friends told me to just DM you, but I didn't want to be that guy sliding into your inbox with 'hey' or 'what's up.' So I just... didn't."

"And I thought you were ignoring me," Mia said quietly.

"What? No." Tyler laughed, and it was real, genuine. "I thought YOU were ignoring ME. You're always with your friends, looking busy, and I figured you weren't interested."

They sat there for a moment, the weight of two months of mutual misunderstanding hanging between them. Then Mia started laughing, and Tyler joined in, and suddenly it was the easiest thing in the world.

"So," Tyler said, when they'd caught their breath. "Jake's party tonight. You going?"

Mia smiled. "Yeah. I think I am."

"Cool." He stood up. "Maybe save me a dance? If that's not too forward."

"I'll see what I can do."

As she walked home later, Mia opened Instagram one more time. But instead of zooming and analyzing and spiraling, she just typed: "see you tonight" and hit send.

No more detective work. No more running in circles. Just whatever this was, starting right now.