Seven Second Memory

Maya's palms were sweating so bad she could practically wring out a waterfall. The bathroom mirror reflected exactly what she felt: a goldfish in a bowl, mouth opening and closing, zero sound coming out.

"You got this, May," she whispered, but her voice cracked. Great. Now she was talking to herself.

The Spring Fling was three hours away and she'd promised Leo she'd finally talk to him. Leo, who sat behind her in AP Bio with his messy dark hair and that sly little grin that made him look like a fox—always knowing something nobody else did. He'd caught her staring at him exactly twice this week, and both times she'd looked away so fast she probably gave herself whiplash.

Her phone buzzed. Jenna: "Palm readings say you're making a move tonight 😉"

Maya rolled her eyes so hard it hurt. Jenna had dragged her to some questionable psychic last weekend who'd claimed Maya's "palm revealed an upcoming romantic encounter." Coincidentally, Jenna had also paid the woman twenty bucks.

But here's the thing about being fifteen: part of you knows it's all bullshit, but the other part—the part that's tired of being the background character in everyone else's story—wants to believe something magical could actually happen.

By the time she got to the gym, someone had already punched holes in the decorations. The DJ was playing that song everyone pretended to hate but secretly loved. Maya stood by the punch bowl like it was a lifeline.

And then Leo was there. Actual Leo, within talking distance.

"Hey," he said, and his voice was deeper than she expected. "You're Maya, right? From Bio?"

"Yeah," she managed. "That's me. Maya. The Bio girl. I do Bio. Sometimes."

What was WRONG with her?

But Leo laughed, actually laughed, and it wasn't mean. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to get out of here? This is kinda..."

"A lot?"

"Exactly. There's this spot behind the school where these wild foxes sometimes hang out. My friend saw one yesterday."

Her brain short-circuited. "Like... real foxes?"

"Unless he was lying. Which, knowing Marcus, is fifty-fifty." He nudged her shoulder. "So?"

Maya looked at her sweaty palm, then up at Leo with his fox-grin and his messy everything. She thought about goldfish and their supposedly seven-second memories and realized: if this went wrong, she could always pretend it never happened. But if she said no, she'd definitely remember this as the moment she chickened out.

"Let's go," she said, and when she smiled back, it actually reached her eyes.