The Fox in the Filter

Maya stared at her reflection, fingers tangling through her newly dyed blue hair. The color was supposed to be rebellious, a statement. Instead, she just looked like she'd lost a bet with a highlighter.

"You look like a cat threw up a skittle," her little brother Toby observed, unhelpfully.

"Thanks, Tobias. Your feedback is noted and ignored."

She yanked her favorite beanie hat low over her ears. The hat was her security blanket—remove it, and social Armageddon followed. Today, though, she had bigger problems than hair disasters. She was on a mission. A spy mission.

Target: Riley's Instagram stories. The crush who'd been haunting her dreams since September.

Maya's thumb hovered over the screen. This was basically cyberstalking, right? But everyone did it. It wasn't creepy if it was—research. Purely academic. She was gathering intelligence.

Riley's latest story: a close-up of some red animal in the woods. The caption read "spotted this sly little fox behind the school today."

A fox. Behind the school.

Maya's heart did something genuinely embarrassing. Foxes were Riley's thing—buttons, stickers, dreams. They'd talked about it once, back when they'd been assigned as lab partners. The memory still made her smile.

But here's the thing: there were no woods behind their school. Just a sad strip of grass between the gym and the parking lot.

Unless...

Maya grabbed her backpack and bolted out the door, blue hair flying wild under her hat. Maybe she'd finally work up the nerve to actually talk to Riley instead of just spy-ing from afar. Maybe the fox was real, maybe it wasn't.

Some chances were worth taking, even if your hair looked like a mistake.

Besides, she'd always been clever. Sneaky, even. A fox in her own right.

Time to stop watching and start living.