Signal Lost

Maya stood in the corner of Tyler's basement, clutching her red beanie like a lifeline. The hat was vintage—her mom's from the 90s—and she'd spent forty-five minutes perfecting the messy-just-right look before leaving her house. Now she just wanted to pull it down over her eyes and disappear.

The party was supposed to be legendary. Tyler's parents were out of town, which apparently meant dumping a bag of Doritos on a coffee table and calling it a rager. Someone's older brother had brought a whole papaya, probably trying to look sophisticated. The exotic fruit sat on a paper plate, untouched and judgey, like it was asking: "This is it? Really?"

Maya's best friend Priya was already talking to some junior by the soda table, laughing at something that definitely wasn't funny. That's when it happened—the music cut out mid-chorus, and the room went silent except for people shuffling their feet.

"The cable!" Tyler groaned from across the room. "Somebody knocked loose the—"

Before she could think about it, Maya was already moving. Her dad was an audio engineer; she'd been patching cables since she was twelve. She found the loose connection behind the speaker setup, reseated the aux cable with a satisfying click, and turned up the volume just as the drop hit.

The room erupted. People were dancing, actually dancing, and suddenly Maya wasn't the girl hiding behind her hat anymore. She was the one who saved the party.

"You fixed it!" Tyler shouted over the music. "That cable's been janky all night!"

Maya grinned, pulling off her beanie and letting her frizzy hair do whatever it wanted. "I got you."

Later, when Priya found her, Maya was sitting on the basement steps, sharing the papaya with a guy who turned out to be Tyler's cousin and surprisingly funny. The fruit was sweet and strange, just like high school itself.

"I didn't know you knew about sound equipment," Priya said, impressed.

"There's a lot you don't know about me," Maya replied, and for the first time all night, she believed it.