The Cable Guy

Maya's hair refused to cooperate. Again. She stood before her mirror, her natural curls frizzing into a rebellious halo that screamed 'I just rolled out of bed' even though she'd spent forty-five minutes trying to tame it. At fifteen, this felt like a personal betrayal.

"You look great," her mom called from downstairs. "The cable guy's here!"

Maya groaned. Their internet had been dead for two days, which meant no Netflix, no TikTok, and worst of all — no ability to stalk her crush Jake's Instagram stories to see if he'd posted anything new since that party where they'd talked for exactly seven minutes and she'd laughed too loud at his not-funny joke.

Her cat Mochi wound around her ankles, purring like a tiny motor. Maya scooped him up, burying her face in his soft fur. Mochi didn't care if her hair looked like she'd been electrocuted. Mochi thought she was perfect as long as she kept the treats coming.

"Fine," she told Mochi. "We'll go down. But we're making a statement."

She left her hair exactly as it was. Wild. Unapologetic. Her.

The cable guy in their living room was young — maybe early twenties — with a backwards baseball cap and a name tag that said 'Carlos'. He was messing with cables behind the TV while Maya's mom hovered, doing that thing adults do where they act super interested in technical stuff they don't understand.

"Hey," Carlos said, spotting Maya in the doorway. Mochi meowed loudly from her arms. "Cool cat."

"Thanks," Maya said. "His name's Mochi."

"Nice." Carlos connected something with a click. "You guys have a really strong signal coming through. Must be all the teenagers in the neighborhood streaming stuff."

Maya's face heated up. He knew. He literally knew she was one of those kids constantly glued to screens.

"It's back!" her mom announced when the TV flickered to life. "Maya, check your phone!"

Carlos stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans. "All set. Oh, and FYI —" he nodded toward Maya, "I saw someone trying to spy on your connection earlier. Some kid in a backyard two houses down with a laptop. Probably just messing around, but you might want to change your WiFi password."

Wait. Someone had been trying to use their internet? Like, hack them?

"A spy," Maya said, half-joking. "Cool."

Carlos grinned. "Or just a bored neighbor. But yeah, change the password to something with numbers and symbols."

After he left, Maya sat on the couch and changed their WiFi password from 'password123' to 'MochiTheCat2026!!' because Carlos had told her to and also because it felt like time.

She pulled up Jake's Instagram. He'd posted a new story — a picture of the sunset with the caption 'hair looks good on you btw' and Maya's heart literally stopped. He'd seen her? He'd noticed? When?

Oh. The party. He must have meant then.

Her hair looked good?

Maya ran to the mirror again. Same frizzy curls as before. But now they were different. Jake had noticed. Jake had approved.

Mochi meowed from the floor.

"Yeah," Maya told him. "We're gonna be okay."

Her phone buzzed. A text from Jake: 'ur hair looked good at the party. u should wear it like that more often.'

Maya's hands trembled as she typed back: 'haha thanks'

She threw herself onto her bed, Mochi jumping up to curl beside her. Sometimes the things that felt like the end of the world — bad hair days, dead internet, feeling invisible — were actually just the setup for something good.

She'd been spying on Jake's social media for weeks, terrified he didn't see her. Turns out, he'd been watching her too.