Signal Lost

Maya's fingers trembled as they hovered over the cracked screen of her iPhone 11. No service. Again. The bus rattled along the coastal highway, each bump making her stomach do backflips.

"You good?" asked Kai, sliding into the seat beside her. His skateboard clattered against the backpack at his feet.

"My mom's gonna kill me," Maya groaned, shoving her phone into her jacket pocket. "I told her I'd call when we got to Santa Cruz. I'm literally running on zero battery, and there's no signal anyway."

"Chill," Kai said, that annoyingly relaxed grin spreading across his face. "Use my charger. It's in my bag, buried under like three layers of junk."

Maya watched him dig through his backpack, emerging with a tangled mess of a charging cable. The white cord was frayed at the ends, taped together with so much duct tape it looked like a modern art project.

"That's literally about to fall apart," she said, but she took it anyway.

The bus lurched. Outside, the Pacific Ocean stretched out like crushed sapphires under the afternoon sun. Maya thought about her bedroom back home—her mom waiting, probably pacing, definitely overthinking.

"Hey," Kai said softly. "Whatever's going on with you and your mom... you'll figure it out."

Maya's chest tightened. She hadn't told anyone about the fight. About how she'd come out as bi last week, and her mom had just gone quiet. Not mean, not angry—just weirdly silent, like she was processing something she couldn't name.

"She thinks I'm confused," Maya whispered, surprised she was saying this out loud. "She thinks I'm too young to know who I am."

Kai nodded, eyes still on the road ahead. "Parents act weird when we change. It's like they realize we're becoming actual people, separate from them. That's scary for them."

The bus slowed. The driver announced they'd reached the first rest stop—a twenty-minute break.

Maya's phone buzzed. One signal bar appeared, flickering like a dying star. She plugged in Kai's janky cable, and somehow, somehow it worked.

Her mom had texted: *I love you no matter what. I'm sorry I didn't say it right the first time.*

Maya's eyes burned. Three months of quiet, three months of pretending everything was normal, three months of feeling like she was disappearing into herself. And there it was—a text that said everything.

"You okay?" Kai asked.

"Yeah," Maya said, and for the first time in forever, it wasn't a lie. "Yeah, I think I am."