Screen Locked, Heart Open

Maya's thumb hovered over her iPhone screen, the blue light painting her face in the empty locker room. Another notification. Another group chat she'd been excluded from. The running team's group had exploded with emojis and inside jokes while she'd been at her grandmother's funeral.

'Stupid,' she muttered, shoving the phone deep into her backpack. She'd been running from everything lately — from her friends who felt like strangers now, from the girl in the mirror who looked too much like her mom.

Practice started in five minutes. Coach would ask why she'd missed last week's meet. She'd have to explain the funeral again, watch them awkwardly avoid eye contact, hear those terrible whispers: 'That's why she's been so off lately.' Like grief was a inconvenience to their perfect season.

The door squeaked open. Sasha.

Of course Sasha. The friend who'd ghosted her three weeks ago, who'd sat with the popular girls at lunch yesterday, who'd somehow become everything Maya wasn't.

'Hey,' Sasha said, not meeting her eyes. 'You coming?'

Maya grabbed her gym bag. 'Eventually.'

Sasha's phone buzzed. She ignored it.

'My grandma died last month,' Sasha said quietly.

Maya froze. 'What?'

'My grandma. She raised me, you know that. She died last month, and I couldn't... I couldn't talk about it. Every time I tried, I'd just start crying, and I didn't want to be that girl at school who's always crying, so I just... I pushed everyone away. Including you.'

Sasha finally looked at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

'I've been running too,' she said. 'From everything.'

The air between them shifted. Something unspoken cracked open.

'I'm sorry about your grandmother,' Maya said softly.

'I'm sorry about yours,' Sasha replied. 'I didn't know. I should have asked. Instead I just disappeared.'

They stood there in the locker room, two girls carrying weights too heavy for fifteen-year-old shoulders. Maya's iPhone buzzed again from deep in her bag, but neither of them moved to check it.

'Want to walk to practice together?' Sasha asked.

Maya nodded. Something tight in her chest loosened.

They left the phones behind, stepped into the afternoon sun, and started running toward the track — not away from each other anymore, but side by side.