Three Little Vibration Bubbles

Maya's iPhone lit up with three tiny vibration bubbles. Levi. The Levi who'd sat behind her in homeroom making snarky comments about everyone's outfits. The Levi whose Instagram posts were basically a masterclass in looking effortless while actually trying way too hard.

She stared at the screen like it was about to detonate. Her cat, Mochi, leaped onto her bed and head-butted her chin with the precision of a tiny, furry therapist.

"You're overthinking it," Chloe said from the floor, where she was dying her hair a concerning shade of blue. "It's just Levi. He's not even that cute."

"He's also a walking red flag," Maya muttered. "Remember when he 'joked' that Sarah's outfit looked like it came from the lost and found?"

"Okay, but Sarah WAS wearing that oversized cardigan from seventh grade. He wasn't wrong."

Maya's phone buzzed again. A second text. Then everything went haywire—her goldfish, Bubbles, chose that exact moment to execute a dramatic backflip and go full belly-up. Maya shrieked, "NO! NOT BUBBLES!" while simultaneously knocking her iced coffee onto her duvet cover.

Chloe scrambled up, blue dye dripping down her neck like radioactive tears. "OH MY GOD, MAYA!"

"I know! I know!" Maya grabbed Bubbles' bowl and bolted for the bathroom, Chloe hot on her heels. They stood around the toilet like it was some sacred ritual, saying goodbye to a fish who'd lived longer than anyone expected.

"He was a good fish," Chloe said solemnly. "A noble fish."

Maya flushed. "He was literally a goldfish I won at the county fair last year. We gave him funeral crackers once a month and called it love."

"That's BEYOND enough." Chloe's eyes widened. "Levi's been typing for, like, THREE MINUTES."

"Oh hell no."

But then—chaos. Her dog, Cooper, who'd been peacefully sleeping in the hallway, suddenly decided NOW was the time to reenact his traumatic experience with a bear during their family camping trip last summer. He started barking like a maniac, scratching at the front door, absolutely convinced the bear was back for revenge.

"COOPER, SHUT UP!" Maya yelled, shoving her phone into her back pocket and racing to calm him down. "There's NO bear! You are DRAMATIC!"

She wrestled him away from the door, her heart pounding, hands shaking—when her phone buzzed AGAIN.

Levi had sent: "ur pretty cool 😏"

Maya stared at it, Cooper still barking his head off, Mochi now screaming from the bedroom, blue dye everywhere, her duvet probably ruined, Bubbles literally in the sewer.

She typed back: "thx :)"

Then she turned off her phone and flopped onto the floor next to Chloe.

"So?" Chloe demanded. "What happened?"

Maya started laughing. Like, really laughing. The kind where you can't breathe and your stomach hurts and you're definitely crying.

"Nothing," she said. "Literally nothing. And I'm okay with that."