Static Signal

The goldfish crunched between my teeth, tiny orange dust settling on my bottom lip. Brent watched me, his eyebrows disappearing under his messy hair.

"Dude, did you just eat pet food?"

"They're crackers, Brent. Goldfish. Like, the snack." I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "You're literally holding a vitamin water bottle. Don't act superior."

We were sitting on his bedroom floor, supposedly studying for AP Chem, but mostly just avoiding talking about later—about Kelsey's party, about whether Jordan would actually show, about the fact that I'd spent forty-five minutes styling my hair before coming over here like it was casual.

"These vitamins are supposed to help with focus," Brent said, rattling the bottle. "My mom got them from that wellness influencer she follows. The one who thinks MSG opens your third eye."

"Your mom's晶 woke." I nudged his ankle with my sock foot. "Speaking of—has Jordan texted back?"

Brent's face did that thing where he tried to look chill and failed catastrophically. "She said maybe. If her dad's working late. Which means probably not, honestly."

The silence stretched. Goldfish crumbs. Vitamin promises. Jordan's maybe.

Then his TV flickered—static tearing through Netflix, the screen going blue before cutting to black. The cable connection, ancient and temperamental, had finally given up.

"Well, that's symbolic," I said.

Brent stared at the dead screen. "My dad's been saying he'll upgrade to streaming for like, six months. But he's married to his cable package. Claims it's about 'supporting local news' or whatever."

"Bro, your dad's just old."

"I know." Brent laughed, unexpectedly loud. "I'm not even mad. Netflix was just a distraction anyway."

He turned toward me, something shifting in his expression—something I hadn't noticed until we weren't pretending to watch TV.

"So," he said. "Kelsey's party. You going?"

"Probably. If Jordan goes."

"Cool." Brent nodded like this was normal information exchange and not basically a confession. "Maybe you should text her instead of waiting for her to decide."

My heart did this embarrassing stutter thing. "Since when are you the relationship expert?"

"Since I've been watching you pine for three months while I sit here eating fake-healthy vitamins and pretending not to notice."

He tossed a goldfish cracker at me. It bounced off my forehead.

"Also," he added, "I'm pretty sure Jordan's waiting for you to text first. Some girls are into that, you know? The making-the-first-move confidence thing."

I stared at him, really seeing him for the first time all afternoon. Brent, with his wellness-influencer vitamins and cable-watching dad and whatever this moment was becoming.

"When did you get so smart?"

"I've always been smart," Brent grinned, popping another vitamin gummy. "You've just been too distracted to notice."

My phone buzzed. A text from Jordan: *you going to kelsey's?*

I looked at Brent. He nodded at my phone.

So I texted back. *yeah. u?*

And just like that, the static cleared.