Sunday Morning Spy Game

The notification pinged at 8:47 AM. Someone had viewed my Instagram story.

I groaned into my pillow and grabbed my phone, feeling like a total weirdo because I'd been pretending to sleep for twenty minutes, refreshing every thirty seconds. Officially, I was just chilling. Unofficially, I was conducting a full-on background investigation.

That's the thing about being sixteen—half your life is an exhausting spy mission where you're both the agent and the target. I'd spent the previous night decoding Jordan's Spotify activity (he'd listened to my playlist three times—*what did it mean*?), analyzing his story views (always there, never liked anything), and basically doing reconnaissance like I worked for the FBI. My brother called it creeping. I called it gathering intel.

"Honey, your vitamin!"

My mom's voice cut through my analysis of Jordan's casual Sunday morning post (a latte art pic—basic, but he'd made it heart-shaped, which felt intentional?). I shoved my phone under my blanket like it was contraband.

"Coming!"

I shuffled to the kitchen in my oversized socks, trying to look normal and not like someone who had just spent forty minutes analyzing whether heart latte foam was a romantic gesture or just aesthetically pleasing. The vitamin D gummy sat on the counter—my mom's latest mission to fix my "indoor teenager syndrome." I downed it with water, still thinking about Jordan.

The real problem wasn't even Jordan anymore. It was that I'd become this person who monitored everything, who couldn't just experience things without performing them, documenting them, strategizing them. I was exhausting myself.

Then my charging cable died mid-scroll. Dead. Zero battery. Jordan was typing something—*those three bouncing dots appeared*—and then black screen.

I sat there for a minute, phone completely dead, and realized something: the spy game was boring. The constant surveillance, the decoding, the overthinking—it wasn't making me happy. It was just making me anxious.

So I didn't rush to find another cable. I opened the window. I actually drank coffee with my mom. I let myself exist without monitoring anything, including myself.

Two hours later, when I finally charged my phone, Jordan's message was still there: "That heart latte was supposed to be for u. Cute if u noticed."

I smiled. Sometimes you don't need to be a spy. Sometimes you just need to trust that things can be simple.