The Catfish Catastrophe

Maya was lowkey panicking. Her Instagram story showed Kai at the mall with Sarah—the same Sarah who'd been "just a friend" for three months straight. Now Maya was crouched behind a bush in Kai's front yard, feeling like a total creep but needing answers.

"This isn't spying," she whispered to herself. "It's... fact-finding."

Her cat Midnight, who'd somehow escaped the house and followed her, chose that exact moment to let out the most unromantic meow imaginable. Maya's iPhone, which she'd been using to document the stakeage (because what's the point of having a crisis if you can't post about it later?), flashed with a text from her best friend: "U good?? You've been gone 45 mins and Kai's car is GONE."

Gone?

Maya stood up too fast, Midnight bolting toward the neighbor's elaborately landscaped garden. She was running after her cat when she rounded the corner and literally crashed into Kai and Sarah.

"Maya?" Kai's eyes went wide. "What are you..."

She looked down at her phone, still open to his story. He looked at Midnight, currently shredding the neighbor's prize petunias. Sarah looked between them, totally lost.

"I was just..." Maya's face burned. "My cat escaped and I thought..."

"You thought we were hanging out without you?" Kai started laughing. "Sarah's my cousin, dude. We were buying my grandma a birthday present."

The silence that followed was absolutely brutal.

"Oh." Maya's voice came out as a squeak. "So... not a date?"

"Gross, she's my cousin." Kai made a face. "But hey, since you're here..."

He pulled two tickets from his pocket. "Dashboard Confessional, next Friday. My friend bailed. You down?"

Maya could still hear Midnight destroying flowers in the background. She could feel how ridiculous she looked, crouching in bushes and stalking her crush over nothing. But sometimes the most embarrassing moments were the ones that somehow, improbably, worked out.

"Yeah," she said, finally letting herself smile. "I'm down."