Brooooo
At 2:07 a.m., Maya Peters was supposed to be sleeping.
She wasn’t.
She was sitting at her desk in the dark, the glow of her computer lighting up her face while her phone rested beside her keyboard.
On the screen was one message.
Just one.
She had read it at least twelve times.
Him: I like you.
Maya covered her face with both hands.
“Brooooooooooooo.”
She dropped her hands.
“WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY?”
Nobody answered.
Obviously.
It was two in the morning.
Maya looked at the message again.
She smiled.
Then immediately stopped smiling.
Then smiled again.
“Okay. Calm down.”
She wasn’t calm.
Not even slightly.
Maya was the kind of girl who could create an entire romance story from nothing.
Give her a blank page and she’d invent two characters, make them meet in the most dramatic way possible, give them a mysterious past, add a plot twist, and somehow turn it into ten episodes.
But real life?
Real life was different.
In her stories, characters always knew what to say.
Maya didn’t.
Especially when it involved someone she actually liked.
She picked up her phone.
Typed:
“I like you too.”
She stared at it.
Deleted it.
Typed:
“Really?”
Deleted that too.
Typed:
“Awwww.”
Deleted.
She groaned and dropped her forehead onto the desk.
“This is why I write fictional characters.”
Her phone buzzed.
Maya lifted her head so quickly she nearly knocked over her water bottle.
Another message.
Him: You there?
Maya’s heart jumped.
“YES, I’M HERE.”
She typed it.
Deleted it.
She finally sent something much calmer.
Maya: Yeah 😂
She put the phone down.
Three seconds later, she picked it back up.
Nothing.
She waited.
Nothing.
She refreshed the chat.
Nothing.
“Okay.”
She nodded seriously.
“He’s probably busy.”
Five seconds passed.
“He could be sleeping.”
Another five.
“Maybe his internet—”
Her phone buzzed.
Maya nearly screamed.
She read the message.
Then smiled so hard her cheeks hurt.
This was Maya.
Sixteen years old.
Student.
Writer.
Comic creator.
Professional overthinker.
Part-time comedian.
Full-time dreamer.
And apparently...
someone’s crush.
She had no idea that this tiny conversation would become one of the memories she would look back on years later.
Because Maya’s story wasn’t really about one boy.
It wasn’t even about romance.
It was about growing up.
About friendships that appeared from unexpected places.
About people who lived thousands of kilometres away but somehow became important.
About discovering that not everyone who entered your life was meant to stay.
About learning that saying no wasn’t cruel.
About finding the courage to trust her own feelings.
And, most importantly, about discovering that the girl she kept trying to turn into a fictional character...
was already interesting enough as herself.
