Screen Watcher

Maya clutched her **iphone** like it was a lifeline, which, honestly, it basically was. Junior year at Northwood High operated like a carefully constructed social **pyramid**—cheerleaders and varsity athletes at the top, band kids and theater nerds in the middle, and everyone else just trying not to slide off the bottom into complete irrelevance.

Maya floated somewhere near the middle-lower section. Not invisible, but not exactly illuminated either.

"You're doing it again," said Jay, sliding into the cafeteria seat across from her. "That thing where you stare at your phone like it holds the secrets to the universe."

"It might," Maya muttered, though the truth was she was just doomscrolling through Instagram, watching the popular kids' stories unfold in real time. Beach parties. Fancy dinners. Inside jokes she wasn't part of.

"You know people think you're being a total **spy**," Jay said, tearing into his chips. "Like, you're always watching everyone through your screen. It's kinda lowkey creepy, not gonna lie."

Maya's face burned. "I'm not spying. I'm just... existing."

"Then exist with your actual face instead of your profile pic." Jay grinned, but there was something real underneath it. "We miss you, Maya. The you-that's-actually-here."

She looked around the cafeteria. Real faces. Real laughter. Her thumb hovered over the screen, then she did something she hadn't done all year: she turned it off and slid it across the table.

"Okay," she said. "I'm listening."

That afternoon, Maya learned something the pyramid could never teach her: the best view wasn't from the top looking down, or the bottom looking up. It was from wherever you were, actually seeing the people right in front of you.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket three times that period. She let it.

Some secrets were better left unread.