Signal Loss

The coaxial cable lay sprawled across my bedroom floor like a dead snake, its severed end mocking me. Perfect. Just perfect.

"Maya! WiFi's not working again!"

"I know, Mom!"

I shoved my phone in my pocket and grabbed the cable. My ex-best friend Jordan had chewed through it last night—well, not Jordan personally, but his psychotic golden retriever that he'd brought over without asking. The same Jordan who'd decided midway through sophomore year that I was too weird for his newly acquired popular-kid orbit.

Now I had to go to his house. To get a cable. From the guy who'd ghosted me for three months.

The humidity hit me like a physical thing as I stepped outside. My shirt was already sticking to my back. This summer had been brutal, hot and empty and full of water cooler gossip about who was hanging out with who, who'd hooked up with who, who was suddenly too cool for their old friends.

Jordan's house was three blocks away. I walked past it every day but hadn't stepped foot inside since the incident at homecoming—the one where his new friends had made some joke and I'd laughed too loud and Jordan had given me that look, the one that said please don't embarrass me, not in front of them.

His mom answered the door. "Maya! How are you? Jordan's in his room."

Jordan looked up when I knocked, his eyes widening behind his glasses. He was gaming, controller in hand, and for a second it was like eighth grade all over again, us staying up too late playing Mario Kart until his mom yelled at us to go to sleep.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey. Your dog destroyed my internet cable."

"Oh. Sorry."

Silence. The kind that used to be comfortable.

"So..." He set down the controller. "How's your summer?"

"Fine. You know. Boring."

"Yeah. Same."

We stood there. The air between us thick with everything we weren't saying.

"I missed you," I blurted out.

Jordan looked down at his hands. "I missed you too."

"So what happened?"

"I don't know." He sighed. "I guess I just... wanted to fit in. And then I did, and it wasn't even that great."

His dog chose that moment to trot into the room, tail wagging, like she hadn't ruined my life and my internet connection in one fell swoop. I knelt down to pet her and she licked my face, and for some reason that made everything worse.

"Those guys aren't really my friends," Jordan said quietly. "Not like you were."

I looked at him—really looked at him. And I realized I'd been waiting for this apology for months, but the person I'd been waiting for didn't exist anymore. We'd both changed. Maybe that was okay.

"I can't just go back to how things were," I said.

"I know." He nodded. "But maybe we could start over?"

I thought about it. About all the lonely nights, about checking my phone to see if he'd texted, about the way eighth grade felt like a different lifetime.

"Yeah," I said. "I'd like that."

We sat on his floor and played video games for two hours, and when I left, I had a new cable and something else—something I hadn't even known I needed. The beginning of whatever came next.