Static and Strawberry Soda

The charging cable lay frayed on my bedroom floor, a casualty of too many yanks and midnight panic attacks. Like me and Jasmine since the incident last Friday.

Three days. Seventy-two hours of total radio silence.

My phone died at 11% battery, the screen winking out mid-text that I never got to send. The charging cable was officially toast, and so was I.

"You okay up there?" Mom called from the kitchen.

"Fine," I lied, staring at the ceiling fan. Nothing was fine. The friend group chat had been blowing up without me, probably dissecting what happened at Kayla's party. The social suicide. The humiliation.

I needed air.

The backyard was my sanctuary until *she* showed up. A cat. The most disgustingly orange cat I'd ever seen, with fur the color of a Cheeto and attitude to match. She sat on the fence like she owned the place, watching me with judgment in her yellow eyes.

"What?" I snapped. "You got something to say too?"

The orange cat meowed. Not a cute meow. A complaint.

Against my better judgment, I found myself inside, retrieving the saucer of strawberry soda I'd abandoned earlier. The kind Jasmine and I used to share during our Friday movie marathons, back when things made sense. Back before I said what I said and she did what she did.

The cat lapped it up like she'd been waiting for this moment her whole life.

"You're weird," I told her. "Weird and orange and annoying. Just like someone else I know."

But I didn't mean it. Not really.

My phone chimed from inside. Must've charged enough while I was searching for cables earlier. A text from Jasmine.

*Can we talk?*

The orange cat head-butted my ankle. Purred like a tiny motor.

"Fine," I whispered to the cat, to myself, to the universe. "But I'm making her buy me a new charging cable."