The Glitch in the Connection

Maya clutched her iPhone 12 like a lifeline, her thumb hovering over Jordan's contact. They'd been lab partners all semester, and somehow in the chaos of finals week, she'd never actually gotten his number. Now, with summer break starting tomorrow, this was her last chance.

"You're doing that thing again," her little brother Leo yelled from the couch, where he was aggressively button-mashing his way through Super Smash Bros. "That staring-at-your-phone-like-it-owes-you-money thing."

Maya rolled her eyes but didn't look up. "Shut up, Leo. I'm having a crisis."

"You're always having a crisis." Leo paused his game. "Last week it was because you ran out of that vitamin D supplement Mom makes you take. The week before that, it was because your hair wouldn't curl right."

"First of all, vitamin D deficiency is a serious medical condition," Maya said, though they both knew she'd been perfectly fine. "And second, this is different. I need to ask Jordan to the summer kickoff party, but I can't just... text him out of nowhere. That's weird, right?"

Leo, being twelve and therefore convinced he knew everything about romance, shrugged. "Just slide into his DMs like a normal person."

"We don't even follow each other!" Maya groaned, burying her face in her hands. "I'm overthinking this. I'm just gonna—"

Her phone screen went black.

"No, no, no, no, NO." Maya frantically pressed the power button. Nothing. The battery had been at 17% last she checked. "Leo, did someone move my charging cable?"

"I needed it for my iPad,"

Leo said innocently. "It's in my room."

Maya stared at her black screen, at Jordan's contact information she'd never saved, at the moment slipping away. And then she started laughing. Because of course. Of course her phone would die now. Of course the universe would conspire with her twelve-year-old brother to prevent her from overthinking herself into oblivion.

"What's so funny?" Leo asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Nothing," Maya said, standing up and grabbing her keys. "I'm just gonna go for a walk. Maybe I'll run into Jordan at the park. Maybe I won't. But I'm done waiting for the perfect moment."

"Wait, you're leaving without your phone?" Leo's jaw dropped. "Who even are you?"

"Someone who's done letting 4% battery control her life," Maya called back, already out the door.

Later that night, Jordan would find Maya sitting alone at the park swing set, and he'd sit beside her, and they'd talk for three hours about everything and nothing. But in that moment, walking phone-free into the golden sunset, Maya finally felt like the main character of her own story.