Summer of sideways glances

The pyramid of red Solo cups towered three levels high on Jordan's patio table — like some fragile monument to teenage boredom. I stood there swirling my lukįbas, palms sweating against the plastic cup, trying to look like I belonged. Which I didn't. Not really.

"You gonna help us finish this or what?" Jordan called, already three cups deep.

I shook my head. Social battery dead since Friday. But then she walked in.

Chloe. The girl who'd transferred second semester and sat behind me in bio, doodling foxes in the margins of her notebook while I hyper-focused on not staring at the back of her neck. She was wearing this oversized shirt that swallowed her frame and somehow made her more magnetic.

She caught me watching. PANIC. I looked away fast, almost knocking over the stupid cup pyramid.

"Smooth," someone muttered.

I escaped to the backyard, collapsed onto the grass under this massive palm tree that looked like it had witnessed a million awkward moments just like this one. A cat — some stray calico with attitude — materialized from the bushes and judged me with those unimpressed yellow eyes.

"Yeah, I know," I told it. "I'm a mess."

The cat headbutted my shin like, at least you're self-aware.

"Mind if I sit?"

Chloe. Standing there with two cups, offering me one. Her hands had this tiny paint smudged on her thumb — blue, like she'd been creating something before coming here.

"Sure," I managed, heartbeat doing gymnastics.

We sat in comfortable silence while the party raged inside. She showed me her sketchbook — filled with drawings of foxes, actually, and ravens, creatures that didn't quite fit in but owned it anyway.

"People think foxes are sneaky," she said, flipping past a particularly detailed one. "But they're just survivors. They adapt."

"That's... actually really deep," I said.

She laughed, and it was this genuine sound that made something in my chest unfurl. "Or I'm just overthinking animal symbolism because I spend too much time alone."

"Same," I said. "THAT same."

We talked until the party thinned out — about art, about feeling like observers instead of participants, about the weird pressure to perform coolness we both secretly sucked at. The calico cat curled between us like a tiny, furry witness to something unfolding.

When she finally stood to leave, she wrote her number on the last page of her sketchbook, tore it out, and pressed it into my palm.

"Text me," she said, already walking backward toward the gate. "Maybe we can be awkward together deliberately next time."

The paper burned in my hand. I sat there under the palm tree until my phone buzzed.

Unknown: This is Chloe. The fox drawer. FYI I hate red cups too.

I grinned at the screen. The pyramid inside was probably toppled by now. Good riddance.