Signal Lost at the Lake

Maya stared at her iPhone, the cracked screen showing "NO SERVICE" again. The cable internet at her uncle's lake house was basically a suggestion, not a promise. She groaned and tossed it onto the bed.

"You coming to the dock?" Jayden called from outside. "Everyone's already down there."

"Be there in a sec!" she yelled back, grabbing her swimsuit from the chair.

Her heart was basically doing gymnastics. This was the summer between freshman and sophomore year, and apparently everything was supposed to be different. New confidence, new social standing, definitely-not-awkward encounters with the cute boy who'd grown six inches since last summer.

She changed into her bikini and started running down the wooded path toward the water, leaves crunching under her sneakers. The air smelled like pine and summer heat.

When she reached the dock, everyone was there – the same friend group she'd grown up with, but suddenly everything felt charged with this new weird energy. Jayden waved from the edge of the dock, treading water. His hair was wet, droplets clinging to his temples.

"Finally! We saved you some papaya," Sierra called from where she sat on the edge, legs dangling in the water. "Mrs. Chen brought like, three whole ones from her garden."

Maya sat beside Sierra, accepting the slice of fruit. It was bright orange and impossibly ripe, seeds spilling out when she bit into it – sweet and weirdly tropical against her tongue.

"So," Sierra said, lowering her voice. "You and Jayden have been texting a lot."

Maya almost choked on her papaya. "What? No. We were just coordinating for the group project."

"Mhm. Sure." Sierra's smirk said she didn't believe a word.

"I'm serious!" Maya felt her face getting hot. "He's just... we're just friends."

"Friends don't accidentally send screenshots of their Spotify playlists at 2 AM," Sierra pointed out, because apparently nothing stayed private in their friend group.

Maya's stomach did that weird fluttery thing it did every time Jayden looked at her a little too long. She stood up, needing movement. "Whatever. I'm going in."

She dove into the lake, cool water enveloping her like a reset button. Swimming toward the raft anchored fifty feet out, she let her mind go quiet. Just the rhythm of her strokes, the way the sun filtered through the water in shifting patterns, the burn in her lungs.

When she reached the raft and pulled herself up, Jayden was already there, sitting on the edge with his feet in the water.

"Hey," he said, and something about his tone made her pulse pick up. "So, I was thinking..."

Her phone was sitting uselessly on a bed back at the house, no service, no cable connection to the outside world. But right here, with papaya still lingering on her tongue and lake water dripping from her hair, Maya felt more connected than she'd ever felt in her life.

"...maybe we could hang out? Just us? Before school starts?"

Maya looked at him – really looked at him – and realized she didn't need service to feel the signal loud and clear.

"I'd like that," she said.

His grin was everything. "Cool. Cool cool cool."

And maybe it was the papaya talking, or summer, or the way the light hit the water at exactly the right angle, but Maya thought sophomore year might actually be different after all.