Connection Issues

Maya stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, finger-combing her hair for the fiftieth time. The box dye had promised "Midnight Blue" but her curls were looking more like "Drowned Rat." She grabbed her beanie and yanked it down, ignoring the frizzy pieces still peeking out.

"You good in there?" Her brother yelled through the door. "I need the cable box."

"Go away, Carlos!" She checked her phone—seven minutes until the Discord call. Her first time talking to Kai, the guy from gaming who'd actually laughed at her terrible puns. The guy whose voice made her stomach do that weird fluttery thing.

Her dad had cut the cable last month to "save money" which really meant "because I can." Now the house WiFi was pure chaos. The Ethernet cable in her room had a bite mark from the dog (RIP, Fluffy) and only worked if you positioned it at exactly the right angle.

Maya sat at her desk, laptop open, heart hammering. She adjusted the cable. No internet. She adjusted it again. Nothing.

"Maya! I'm trying to watch the game!" Carlos banged on the door.

"THE CABLE IS BROKEN, CARLOS."

Her hair. The hat. The cable. Everything was wrong. Why did she think she could do this? Why did she think someone like Kai would want to talk to someone who couldn't even afford real hair dye, whose parents were too cheap for decent WiFi, who was literally hiding under a hat right now?

The Discord notification pinged.

Kai was calling.

Maya's hand hovered over accept. Her hair was a disaster. Her internet was garbage. She was a garbage.

She pulled off the hat. Her hair was blue-ish. Kind of. In the right light. Whatever.

She adjusted the cable one more time. The WiFi icon flickered to life.

She clicked accept.

"Hey!" Kai's voice came through, crystal clear. "You finally made it!"

"Yeah," Maya said, surprised by how steady her voice sounded. "Sorry, technical difficulties. You know how it is."

"Oh totally," Kai said. "I spent like twenty minutes fixing my setup before this. My mic cable was being dumb."

Maya laughed. She adjusted her hair, leaving the hat on her desk. "Tell me about it."