Connection Reset

Leo's palms were sweating. Again.

Staring at his phone, the chat with Maya sat open—the message "Wanna hang after the game?" mocking him with its three-hour-old silence. His cable internet chose that exact moment to buffer, the spinning wheel of doom freezing the baseball playoff mid-pitch.

"Dude, you good?" His best friend Marcus lounged on the beanbag, somehow looking effortless in that way Leo could never pull off.

"Cable's trash," Leo muttered, clicking restart again. "If I miss this game, and then Maya actually shows—"

"She's not gonna show if you don't answer, genius."

Leo's phone buzzed. Maya: "I'm coming over btw. Your address from the group chat?"

Panic mode activated.

The kitchen counter was a disaster zone—half-eaten papaya (exotic fruit phase, don't ask), scattered homework, his little sister's glitter explosion. And Buster—the family dog, currently passed out on the rug—started snoring like a chainsaw.

"She's coming over. NOW."

Marcus shot up. "Bro, your room's—"

"Don't say it."

Leo's palms were literally dripping now. He grabbed the papaya to hide it, but his hands were too sweaty, and it slipped. The fruit rolled across the floor, directly in Buster's path.

The dog jolted awake, spotted the intruder, and went full berserk. Barking, sliding, paws scrabbling on hardwood as the papaya became a chaotic orange pinball.

Doorbell rang.

"I GOT IT," Leo's mom yelled from somewhere.

No. NO.

Leo dove for the papaya, missed, and ate floor. Buster took the opportunity to snatch the fruit and bolt toward the front door, trailing orange pulp like crime scene evidence.

The front door opened.

"Leo?" Maya's voice.

Leo lay face-down on hardwood, while his dog presented a slobber-covered papaya to the girl he'd been trying to impress for three months.

"Is that... papaya?" she asked.

Leo pushed himself up. "It's an exotic fruit phase."

Maya started laughing. Not mean laughter—real laughter, bent over, can't breathe laughing.

"Your dog ate your phase."

"He's helping me move on from it."

She laughed harder. "That's actually kind of awesome."

The cable internet miraculously recovered. The baseball crowd roared from the TV. And somehow, through papaya disaster and public humiliation, Leo realized maybe being perfect was overrated.

"Wanna watch the rest of the game?" he asked.

"Only if you promise not to feed me any exotic fruit."

"Deal."

His palms finally stopped sweating.