The Catfish Cable Guy

Maya's fingers flew across her keyboard, Discord illuminated her room like a blue galaxy. Her best friend—well, her ONLY friend—was xX_BearSlayer_Xx, a guy she'd met grinding in an MMORPG at 2 AM three months ago. They'd never video chatted. He'd sent one pic: a guy in a bear costume holding a vitamin water. Sketchy? Maybe. But when you're fifteen and socially anxious at a new school, you take what you can get.

"Your vitamins!" her mom yelled up the stairs. Maya rolled her eyes. Mom was obsessed with immune system boosting ever since COVID.

Her cat, Mochi, jumped on the desk and knocked over her vitamin C gummies. "Bro, really?" Maya sighed, scratching behind his ears. He purred like a diesel engine.

That's when her screen went black. And her WiFi disconnected. And—no, no, NO—her phone had zero bars.

"Cable's out AGAIN," her dad shouted from downstairs. "Some construction crew cut the main line. Could be days."

Days. Without internet. Without HIM.

Maya paced her room. She'd been planning to finally FaceTime BearSlayer tonight. What if he was catfishing? What if he was some forty-year-old dude? What if he was—gasp—a GIRL?

Three days passed. Maya started reading actual books. She talked to her lab partner in chem—a quiet kid named Amir who had surprisingly cool taste in music. She noticed things. Like how Mochi slept in sunbeams. How her vitamin stash looked like candy.

On day four, the cable guy's truck pulled up. Maya practically ran outside with her laptop.

"All fixed," he said twenty minutes later.

Maya's hands shook as she opened Discord. Eleven messages from BearSlayer.

The last one: "Hey, I know we've never video chatted, but I was gonna send this tonight. My real name's Connor. I go to North High. I play soccer. And I think you're cool, even if you are a total noob at healing."

Attached: a selfie. A normal-looking teenage guy in a soccer jersey. No bear costume.

Maya's heart did something weird. She typed: "I'm Maya. I have a cat named Mochi. I'm socially awkward. And I'm at North too."

"No way," Connor replied instantly. "I think I've seen you in the library. You always wear that hoodie with the cat on it."

Maya smiled. Sometimes the universe cuts your cable to force you to connect—really connect—in ways WiFi never could.