Digital Drowning

Maya's palms were sweating. Not like cute, nervous sweating. Like full-on clammy disaster mode. She gripped her iPhone like it was a lifeline, because it kind of was. No phone meant no Kai updates, no party invites, no reason to exist basically.

'Bro, you're sweating bullets,' Sophie said, sliding onto the bench next to her. 'Just DM him already.'

Sophie didn't get it. Sophie was the type to post one mirror selfie and get 300 likes. Maya posted daily and her engagement was tragic. The math wasn't mathing.

The school courtyard sweltered, palm trees standing tall along the perimeter like they didn't care about social hierarchies or the fact that Maya had posted three different thirst traps this week and Kai had liked none of them. Zero. The disrespect.

Maya's thumb hovered over her screen, refreshing for the twelfth time in three minutes. Anxiety was her full-time job at this point.

Then—because the universe had a twisted sense of humor—her phone buzzed. Instinct took over. Maya swiped, her sweaty palm betrayed her, and the phone slipped like it was greased. It arced through the air in slow motion, silent and doomed, before splashing into the school fountain.

The iPhone landed on the bottom, screen glowing upward like a tiny, expensive drowning victim.

'Yikes,' someone muttered. 'That's savage.'

Maya stood frozen. Her social life. Her connection to Kai. Her entire personality—gone. Drowned in fountain water that probably had three years of coin germs swimming around.

Then someone pushed past her. Some sophomore she'd seen around but never actually talked to.

He waded right into the fountain, shoes and all, and reached down. Palm flat against the bottom, he scooped up her phone. Water dripped off it like tears.

'Here,' he said, shaking droplets from the device. 'Put it in rice. Not the minute stuff—the real kind.'

Maya stared at him. He had wet pants, water-spotted glasses, and she didn't even know his name.

'Thanks,' she managed. 'I'm Maya.'

'Ethan,' he said, and then—because the universe apparently loved plot twists—he added, 'I was gonna ask for your Insta anyway. But I guess that's on pause now?'

Maya felt her cheeks heat up, but not in a panic-attack way. In a possibilities way.

'It'll be back,' she said. For the first time all day, she wasn't thinking about Kai. 'Then I'll give it to you.'

Ethan grinned. 'Deal. But seriously, rice. My brother dropped his in the toilet last month and it worked.'

From the bench, Sophie was practically vibrating with gossip potential. Maya's palms were still sweating, but somehow, that didn't feel like the most important thing anymore.