The Bear Incident

Maya's summer was supposed to be about perfect Instagram aesthetics, not being stuck at her grandma's cabin with zero service. Her iPhone had been glitching all morning, showing just one frustrating bar as she tried to stalk her ex's new girlfriend—not that she was still hung up on him or anything. Whatever.

"You'll thank me," Grandma had said, dropping her off at the lake. "Kids these days, always swimming through screens instead of actual water."

Maya rolled her eyes but waded in anyway, because apparently disconnecting meant literally doing things. The lake was weirdly peaceful, and she was kind of getting into it until she spotted the orange tabby cat on the dock, looking judgmental as hell.

"What? You think I'm trying too hard?" Maya asked the cat. It blinked slowly.

That's when she saw the bear.

Not like, a cute stuffed bear or someone's oversized mascot costume. An actual black bear, emerging from the trees like it owned the place. Maya's brain short-circuited. Run? Scream? Play dead? Why had she never paid attention in those safety assemblies?

She scrambled backward, water sloshing everywhere, and literally faceplanted onto the dock. The bear paused, sniffing the air like it was deciding whether she was worth the trouble. The cat hissed, which—respect?

Then some guy in a ridiculous neon yellow shirt emerged from behind the bear, holding a bag of what looked like dog treats. "Barnaby, HEEL."

The bear—Barnaby, apparently—sat. Like a dog. This was officially the weirdest thing that had ever happened to Maya, and she once walked in on her dad singing Nicki Minaj in the shower.

"He's a rescue," Neon Shirt Guy said casually, like bears were just oversized puppies. "I'm Tyler, by the way. And that judgmental cat is Gertrude. She thinks she's better than everyone."

"Gertrude?" Maya managed, still shaking. "You named a cat Gertrude?"

"She named herself."

They sat on the dock for two hours while Maya's iPhone miraculously found service. She didn't check Instagram once. Tyler was oddly easy to talk to, and Gertrude eventually deigned to let Maya scratch behind her ears. Barnaby remained dramatically asleep in a sunbeam.

Later, when Tyler's cousin spotted them and asked if they'd been spy-adjacent all summer, Tyler laughed. "Something like that."

Maya's phone buzzed with a text from her friends: DID U SEE EMMA'S POST??

She didn't open it. Some things were better than pixels and post notifications. Sometimes the best moments happened when you weren't looking for them at all.