Static & Lightning

The HDMI **cable** dangled from the TV like a dead snake, and honestly? Same. I felt like I'd been walking through life in **zombie** mode all week—tests, practice, college applications buzzing in my head like static I couldn't shut off.

"Someone fix it," Chloe whined from her sprawled position on the couch, scrolling through her phone with practiced boredom. The Friday night hangout at Maya's house had been my idea. Stupid, because Alex was here, and every time he looked at me my palms started sweating so bad I had to wipe them on my jeans like a total weirdo.

Outside, the **lightning** flashed again, painting everyone's faces in ghostly white. The storm had been building all evening, matching the jittery feeling in my chest.

"I got it," Alex said, hopping off the armchair. Our fingers brushed when he reached for the cable at the same time I did. Electric. Literally and figuratively, because the next lightning strike hit way too close and the power died with a dramatic fwump.

Darkness swallowed the room. Then someone's phone flashlight clicked on.

"Well," Alex said, his voice closer than I expected. "Guess we're doing this the old-fashioned way."

"What way?" I asked, my **palm** suddenly interesting against my phone case.

"Talking. Like actual human beings. Not scrolling through TikTok while Netflix plays in the background."

So we did. We sat on the back patio watching the storm, palm fronds silhouetted against the sky like skeletal fingers, and talked about everything—our fear of failing, the pressure to be perfect, how exhausted we all were pretending to have it together. Alex admitted he'd been scared to talk to me for weeks. I told him I'd been scared too.

Sometimes the best moments happen when everything falls apart—when the cable dies, when the lights go out, when the zombie routine breaks and you're forced to actually be alive.

The power didn't come back on for three hours. But something else did.