Running from Myself

I'd been spying on Kai's Instagram for three months. Not like, full-on stalker status, but I'd definitely memorized which coffee shop he posted from on Tuesdays. My best friend Layla called it "research." I called it embarrassing.

Then came the DM that changed everything. Kai messaged me first. Me, Maya—who was basically invisible at Northwood High. He said he noticed my running posts. My running posts. The ones where I pretended to be effortlessly athletic, aesthetic coffee runs at sunset, looking cute and not sweaty at all.

The truth? I was catfishing my own life. Those runs? Mostly photos. My actual workouts involved me gasping for air, red-faced and dying, while my cat Luna watched judgmentally from the window. Luna, who was literally the only living thing who witnessed the real me.

"Want to go swimming at the reservoir this weekend?" Kai asked. "Bring Layla too."

Panic. Swimming? As in, swimsuit? As in, me, cellulite and anxiety, in front of the guy I'd been lowkey obsessing over since September?

"Swimming in my emotions," I told Layla that night. "This is a disaster waiting to happen."

But I said yes.

Saturday came. I showed up in a one-piece I'd spent forty minutes choosing, shaking like I'd mainlined five espressos. And there was Kai, shirtless, smiling, looking annoyingly perfect.

Then his phone pinged. He looked at it, then at me. "Maya, are you really into trail running?"

My face burned. "I mean, yeah? I try?"

"Dude." Kai laughed. "I saw your Strava. You ran the Ridgeline loop yesterday? That's insane. I've been trying to break 45 minutes on that forever."

Wait—what?

"I thought you just... posted aesthetic stuff," I mumbled.

"And I thought you were actually fast." He grinned. "Wanna go running together? Like, for real? Not for Instagram?"

Something shifted. The fake version of myself I'd been performing started feeling heavy. Luna's judgmental face flashed in my mind.

"Yeah," I said, and it felt like the first honest thing I'd said in months. "Like, actually fast. And actually sweaty. And zero photos."

"Bet."

We ran. I beat him. Luna would've been proud.