The Green Smoothie Operation

Maya's iPhone buzzed against her thigh—third time this period. She slid it under her desk, just enough to see the screen: Leo had posted another story. Captioned 'best day ever' with some beach pic she wasn't invited to.

Classic.

She felt like a total spy in her own life, watching everyone else live theirs through this stupid glass rectangle. Mr. Harrison was droning on about mitochondria again, and Maya was supposed to be taking notes, but instead she was five screens deep, dissecting Leo's caption like it held classified information.

"Maya? Something to share?" Mr. Harrison's voice cut through her mental investigation.

"Uh, no. Just... thinking about cellular energy." Smooth. The guy behind her snorted.

At lunch, the situation got worse. Zoe's mom had gone through another health phase, which meant Zoe was now drinking something that looked like liquid lawn clippings. "It's actually good," Zoe insisted, sliding the jar across the cafeteria table. "Just spinach, banana, and—"

"Pass." Maya recoiled. "I'm good."

"Seriously, try it. It'll change your life."

Maya took the smallest sip possible and immediately made a face that made half the table crack up. "That tastes like someone blended a front yard."

But then—her iPhone dinged. Leo again. This time: 'hey, you free later? wanna hang?'

She almost dropped the spinach monstrosity.

"No way," Zoe whispered, reading over her shoulder. "After ghosting you all spring?"

Maya stared at the screen, thumb hovering. This was it—the moment she'd been overanalyzing for weeks. She'd spent so long spying on his life, decoding his posts, questioning her entire existence based on his stories... and now he just wanted to hang? Like it was nothing?

Her thumb typed 'yeah sure' before her brain could process what a bad idea this was.

"You're not actually going, right?" Zoe asked, genuinely concerned.

Maya slid the spinach smoothie back across the table. "I don't know. Maybe I'm done spying from the sidelines." She shrugged, trying to sound casual. "Maybe it's time to actually be in the picture for once."

The smoothie actually didn't taste that bad the second sip. Not that she'd ever admit it.