Coconut Cables & Papaya Secrets

The ethernet cable snaked through the sand like a skinny black snake, connecting the beach house wifi to my laptop kingdom. I was supposed to be finishing summer school AP Bio, but instead I was six tabs deep in instagram stalking—basically spying, but for emotional reasons, not creepy ones. Okay, maybe a little creepy.

Maya was my best friend since we were both papaya-sized nuggets in kindergarten, but this summer she'd been ghosting me hard for Skylar—the new girl from Los Angeles with perfect beach waves and a dad who worked in "entertainment." Which apparently meant something.

My DMs to Maya had been left on read for three days. Three. Days.

"You're doing that thing again," my little brother Kai said, appearing in the doorway with a plate of fruit. "The thing where you overthink everything and make it weird."

"Shut up, Kai." I glared at him. "What's that?"

"Papaya," he said, weirdly proud of himself. "Mom said we have to eat healthy or whatever. Try it, it's like... mushy sweet but different." He set it on my desk and disappeared before I could throw something at him.

I poked at the papaya with my fork. It looked weirdly alien, bright orange with shiny black seeds like tiny eyes staring back at me.

My laptop dinged. A notification popped up: Maya was LIVE.

I clicked so fast I almost knocked over the papaya.

The feed loaded—Maya and Skylar at the beach, laughing, hair wet, perfect sunset behind them like something from Pinterest. They were building sandcastles and doing that fake candid laughing thing and suddenly I felt so uncool and jealous and fourteen that I couldn't breathe.

Then Maya leaned into the camera.

"Yo, if you're watching this—you know who you are—I've been trying to call you all day but someone's wifi has been down because SOMEONE'S dad was messing with the cable box again."

Skylar waved. "Hi! We're at the bonfire tonight and you should come."

My face burned. The cable. The entire reason I'd been spiraling was probably because our house cable was messed up AGAIN.

I took a bite of papaya. It was weirdly good—sweet and soft and nothing like I expected.

"Mom!" I yelled, already grabbing my hoodie. "I need you to fix the cable box. Like, NOW."