The Vitamin C Incident

Maya's mom had left another multivitamin on the kitchen counter with a sticky note: "For your immune system!" Maya rolled her eyes and pocketed it—she'd need the energy for today's social reconnaissance operation.

Fourth period study hall. Operation: Find out if Tyler actually liked her or if she was just projecting onto his Instagram stories. She'd been meticulously "spy"-ing on his socials for weeks—analyzing his Spotify wrapped, his meme reposts, his cryptic sunset captions. It was practically research at this point.

She pulled out her iPhone, heart doing that stupid flutter thing whenever she saw his profile. Maya: professional FBI agent in training, or just a girl with a borderline unhealthy obsession? Both.

Her best friend Sam leaned over. "Still stalking, I see."

"It's not stalking," Maya whispered, zooming in on a photo of Tyler's gym bag. Wait. Was that...?

She squinted at the corner of the photo. There, peeking out of his bag: the same exact orange vitamin bottle her mom bought. The one with the specific immune system booster for "active teens."

"No way," Maya breathed. Tyler—who she thought was this effortlessly cool, mysterious lacrosse player—took the same dorky vitamins as her?

"What?" Sam asked.

"He's... he's just like me," Maya said, feeling suddenly weirdly emotional. This whole time she'd built him up as this perfect, untouchable creature, but he was just a guy who probably had to remind himself to take his vitamins too.

Then her phone buzzed. A notification: Tyler started following you.

Maya's stomach dropped. Then: Tyler sent you a message.

"I saw you at that coffee shop yesterday. You dropped this." A photo: her vitamin bottle, rolling under a table. "Also, your friend keeps looking at my stories. Tell her I said hi."

Sam snorted. Maya's face burned. Turns out, the spy hadn't been the only one watching.