The Last Message

Maya's thumb hovered over the send button, heart doing gymnastics in her chest. The text to Kai—three weeks of careful wording, overthinking, and screenshot consultations with bestie Jasmine—sat waiting. Her iPhone battery indicator had turned that ominous red, showing 2%.

"No, no, no," she whispered, scrambling off her bed. Where was her charging cable? It had been somewhere on her floor yesterday, probably buried under the avalanche of clothes she'd tried on before deciding on this vintage band tee.

Her golden retriever, Buster, chose that exact moment to trot in, tail going nuclear. In his mouth: her charging cable, now thoroughly chewed on one end.

"Buster! Seriously?!" Maya dropped to her knees, prying the mangled cable from his jaws. The rubber was frayed, wires exposed. Done. Toast. Absolute fail.

Her phone screen flickered. 1%.

The message to Kai wasn't just any message. It was the message. The one where she admitted she'd had a massive crush on him since seventh grade, that she noticed how he always drew spiral galaxies in the margins of his math notes, that she thought his awkwardness was actually kind of perfect.

She'd never said anything like this before. Not directly. Not sober. Not without being lowkey enabled by midnight screenshot texts with friends hyping her up.

The screen went black.

Maya stared at her reflection in the dark glass, panic rising like bile. Was the message gone? Had it sent? Would she ever know? Without her phone, she felt—pathetic as it sounded—naked. Small. How had she existed before this rectangle dictated her entire emotional state?

She buried her face in Buster's soft neck, smelling his distinct dog-and-outside scent. He licked her cheek, completely oblivious to the social catastrophe he'd engineered.

"You're the worst," she muttered, but without heat. Maybe—just maybe—the universe was saving her from herself.

Her phone buzzed in her hand, somehow resurrecting. One new message from Kai:

"Hey, I was just about to text you. Want to hang at the skate park tomorrow? My treat on boba."

Maya stared at the screen, her unsent confession still sitting in her drafts, its secrets safe for now. Some things were better said face to face anyway.

Buster wagged his tail like he'd planned it all along.