The Last Summer of Ethernet

Felix was running late. Again.

His shift at Cable Kingdom started in ten minutes and he was still three blocks away, sweating through his faded orange crewneck—the one with the mysteriously appeared bleach stain that his crush Jenna had definitely noticed yesterday.

"Dude, you're literally sprinting," his best mate Ty messaged. "Chill."

Felix didn't chill. He couldn't. This summer gig installing cable boxes was supposed to be his ticket to saving up for the gaming setup he'd been dreaming about since seventh grade. But somehow, at sixteen, he was still the kid whose family didn't even have WiFi—just some ancient cable internet situation that required him to run an ethernet cord through the hallway like it was 2008.

The embarrassment was real.

He burst through the employee entrance, clocking in with seconds to spare. His supervisor, a twenty-something named Marcus who wore sunglasses indoors, didn't even look up from his phone.

"Felix. Route 7. Mrs. Henderson. Says her cable's been out since Tuesday."

Felix grabbed his toolkit and headed to the company van. This was it—his hundredth install of the summer. His hundredth chance to prove he wasn't just the awkward kid with the orange stain on his favorite shirt. His hundredth step toward whatever came after high school.

The job wasn't terrible. Some customers were chill, others yelled about sports packages they'd never ordered. But Felix was getting good at it—fast, efficient, the guy who didn't need to call for help with tricky setups.

Mrs. Henderson turned out to be this tiny elderly woman who baked him cookies while he worked. Her cable issue turned out to be a loose connection behind her TV—simple fix.

"You're a sweet boy," she said, pressing a warm chocolate chip cookie into his hand. "Your parents must be proud."

Felix almost laughed. His parents were proud, sure, but they were also clueless about how hard it was to be sixteen in a world where everyone else seemed to have it figured out already. Where Jenna probably had flawless WiFi and zero orange stains and definitely didn't have to spend her summer running cable for minimum wage.

But as he walked back to the van, cookie in hand, something shifted. Maybe it was the genuine smile Mrs. Henderson had given him. Or the fact that he'd fixed something real, something tangible.

Or maybe—just maybe—he was starting to realize that everyone was running their own race, with their own loose connections and embarrassing stains and unexpected cookie breaks along the way.

His phone buzzed. A message from Jenna: hey u looked cute today lol

Felix stared at it for a full ten seconds before letting himself hope that maybe, just maybe, he didn't have everything figured out—but that was okay. Nobody did.

The orange stain could stay. He was running his own race now.