Crossed Wires

The coaxial **cable** dangled from my ceiling like a dead snake, another casualty of Mom's latest "minimalist phase" — which really just meant throwing away anything that wasn't aesthetic.

"You'll thank me later," she'd said, tossing my gaming setup into a donation box.

Now I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, phone battery at 4%, watching my TikTok feed stutter to a halt. The universe had clearly decided today was the day to test my patience.

My phone buzzed — not a notification, just Maya from down the street throwing pebbles at my window. I cracked it open and there she was, holding up her tablet like a peace offering.

"Wifi's out at my place too," she whispered. "Whole block's down."

"Perfect," I groaned. "Now I have to actually talk to people."

Maya snorted, climbing through the window with practiced ease. She wore that oversized hoodie she refused to wash because "the grime gives it character." Whatever that meant.

"Be grateful," she said, dropping onto my bed. "At least you're not like Jordan, having a meltdown because he can't stream his gameplay to his twelve followers."

"**Bull**," I said. "He has like fifty followers."

"Twelve," she insisted. "I checked. Half are probably his alt accounts."

We dissolved into giggles, the kind that hurt your ribs and made your eyes water. That's when Mrs. Gable's **dog** — a neurotic pug named Pickles — started yanking at something in the alley below.

"That's it," I said. "The universe is officially trolling us."

"Or," Maya said, her eyes lighting up, "we could do something wild."

"Like what?"

"Like... actually go outside? Like normal teenagers?"

I stared at her. "We're not normal teenagers. We're teenagers whose parents took away their internet."

"Same thing," she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the door. "Come on. My neighbor's got this stray **cat** that's been living in her garage. We should go feed it."

"Since when do you care about cats?"

"Since I realized we have nothing better to do," she called back.

So we went — two WiFi-deprived zombies stumbling into the sunlight, feeding a stray cat while neurotic Pickles watched us judgmentally from behind a fence. And somewhere between the cat purring and Mrs. Gable offering us lukewarm lemonade, I realized maybe the universe wasn't trolling me after all.

Maybe it was just forcing me to reconnect with what actually mattered.