Static Electricity Summer

The coaxial cable lay between us like a dead snake, its copper wire exposed where Tyler's little brother had chewed through it. Typical.

"You said you fixed this," I said, tossing it onto the garage floor. Tyler barely looked up from his phone, thumbs flying.

"Chill, Maya. I'll get another one."

Outside, thunder rattled the garage door. The first lightning streak of the summer storm painted the garage windows purple-white, catching Tyler's profile in that flash-frame way—the sharp jawline, the new haircut, the distant expression he'd been wearing since junior high ended two weeks ago.

We used to be inseparable. Now he was sliding into the popular crowd, leaving me behind like last season's backpack.

A gray cat streaked through the open garage door, shaking rain from its fur. It approached Tyler, rubbing against his leg like it knew something I didn't.

"When'd you get a cat?" I asked, surprised.

"Stray. Started showing up last week." Tyler scratched behind its ears, finally looking at me. "Her name's Bull."

"Bull? That's a terrible name for a cat."

"Yeah, well." A shrug. "She's tough."

Another lightning crack, closer this time. The garage lights flickered. Bull hissed and bolted under the workbench.

"Tyler," I said, before I could chicken out. "Are we... are we good?"

He set down his phone. The silence stretched, heavy and electric, like the air before a storm.

"Yeah, Maya. We're good." But his voice cracked on it, just a little. "It's just—high school's gonna be different. Everyone says—"

"Bullshit," I said, and we both cracked up. The tension snapped like the cable on the floor.

"Yeah," he said, grinning. "Total bull."

We spent the next hour talking about everything—our fears about freshman year, his weird new friends, my grandma getting sick. Real talk, not the surface-level stuff we'd been doing.

When the storm finally passed, Bull emerged from under the workbench and curled up between us. Tyler reached for the broken cable and started twisting the wires back together.

"I'll fix it properly this time," he said. "Promise."

Somehow, I knew he meant more than the cable.