The Night I Stopped Spying

I'd been **spying** on Riley for months. Not like creepy spying—okay, maybe a little creepy. I had a fake Instagram account just to watch her stories, scroll through her perfect life. Riley Hart: queen of sophomore year, with her waterfall of straight blonde **hair** and friends who looked like they stepped out of a magazine. Meanwhile, I was Maya, the girl with the aggressively curly hair that had a mind of its own and exactly two real friends.

The night everything changed, a thunderstorm was rolling through Chicago. I was in my room, supposedly doing homework but actually watching Riley's livestream from some party I definitely wasn't invited to. Then—CRACK. A massive **lightning** strike hit our neighborhood, and everything went black.

No wifi. No phone data. Just the sound of rain hammering against my window.

"Maya!" my mom yelled from downstairs. "The **cable** box is fried! You'll have to actually talk to us!"

I groaned and flopped onto my bed, but then I noticed something weird. Through my window, I could see lights still on at Riley's house across the street. Their power hadn't gone out.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed my rain jacket and sprinted across the street, my curls already frizzing in the humidity. I just wanted to ask if her wifi was working.

Riley answered the door, looking completely different than her polished online persona. She was in oversized sweats, no makeup, and her hair—wait. Her hair was frizzy too. Actually, it was in a messy bun with strands going everywhere.

"Maya?" She looked surprised. "Everything okay?"

"My wifi's out," I blurted. "Yours?"

"Yeah, actually." She stepped back. "Want to come in? I was literally just about to die of boredom."

We ended up sitting on her bedroom floor eating stale popcorn and talking. Actually talking—no filters, no carefully curated posts. Riley confessed that she hated her perfectly straight hair (she got it chemically treated every month). She missed her natural curls but was too scared to embracethem after years of straightening.

"Wait, you have curly hair too?" I asked, shocked.

She pulled out her phone and showed me an old photo from middle school—her with wild, beautiful curls.

"People made fun of me," she admitted. "So I started straightening it, and suddenly everyone was nice. It's stupid, but I felt like I had to choose between being myself and being—well, liked."

I thought about all the time I'd spent watching her from behind a screen, assuming she had it all figured out.

"Your curls are literally amazing," I said. "Like, I'd kill for that texture."

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yes. You have no idea how much time I spend trying to tame my hair, and yours looks like it has this gorgeous natural wave thing happening."

We spent the next three hours doing hair masks, watching old movies on a portable DVD player, and dissecting every social expectation we'd been trying to live up to. When the power finally came back on at 2 AM, I almost didn't want my phone to work again.

"Hey," Riley said as I was leaving. "You should come over tomorrow. We could try doing your hair with the products I used to use."

"Yeah," I smiled. "I'd like that."

Walking home in the rain, with my hair frizzy and my mascara probably smudged, I deleted my fake account. Sometimes lightning does strike twice—and sometimes, it strikes exactly when you need to stop spying and start living.