The 3% Connection

Maya's **iphone** screen glowed at 3%, the battery icon turning that panicked red color like a warning flare. She was at Tyler's party—her first party since moving to this school—and already she'd spent forty-five minutes pretending to check nonexistent notifications just to look busy.

The living room was packed with people who somehow already knew each other's inside jokes. Maya leaned against the wall beside an outlet, fishing through her backpack for her charging **cable**. It was tangled around a half-smashed granola bar and a pen that leaked blue ink everywhere last semester. Her fingers brushed something else—an **orange** she'd grabbed from her kitchen counter earlier, now slightly warm and soft.

"You're not gonna eat that, are you?"

Maya jumped. A guy stood there, dark hair messy, holding a solo cup with something that looked like flat soda. He nodded at the fruit.

"Probably not," she admitted. "It was for courage."

"Bold strategy." He smiled crookedly. "I'm Leo. Tyler's cousin."

"Maya. New girl."

"I know," Leo said. "You're in my English class. You sit in the back and draw on your hand when you're bored."

Maya's face burned. She'd thought nobody noticed.

Outside, thunder rattled the windowpanes. Then—a flash of **lightning** illuminated everything weirdly bright, freezing the moment in stark clarity. The power flickered and died. The room erupted in groans and someone shouted "NO WIFI" like it was a personal tragedy.

Leo's phone, which he'd been clutching, went dark too. He laughed. "Well, that's our social life ruined."

"We could talk?" Maya suggested. "Like, actually talk?"

He grinned in the half-light from someone's phone flashlight. "Bet I can guess three things about you before the power comes back."

"You're on."

As the storm raged outside, Maya's phone died at exactly 2%, and she didn't even care. Some connections didn't need a charging cable at all.