The Real World Filter

Maya's iphone had been her third arm since seventh grade, an extension of herself that she couldn't function without. So when she dropped it during first period and the screen shattered into a spiderweb of uselessness, she basically became a zombie. Like, literally walking through the halls with zero awareness of her surroundings, missing notifications that weren't even there, phantom buzzing in her pocket. It was tragic.

"You coming to padel practice?" Jordan asked, falling into step beside her. He was on the varsity team, which somehow made him cooler than he had any right to be.

"Can't. No phone, no life." Maya gestured vaguely at her backpack. "My parents are being weird about getting me a replacement. Something about 'teaching responsibility.'"

Jordan laughed. "Bro, that's lowkey perfect. Coach is making us do this no-phone Friday thing anyway. Come with, it'll be chill."

Maya ended up at the padel courts because anything was better than sitting in her room staring at the wall like some phone-deprived creature. The sport was basically tennis but trendier, with walls you could hit off and way more opportunities to look cool doing it. Not that Maya cared about looking cool. Obviously.

The courts were behind the school, next to this overgrown area where the stray cat colony lived. Everyone called them the court cats, but there was really only one that mattered — a calico with half an ear and a serious attitude problem. Maya had named her karma sophomore year, after the cat somehow managed to knock over Jordan's expensive gatorade every single practice.

"Watch this," Jordan said, swinging his racket and hitting the ball against the glass wall. It ricocheted at a weird angle, and Karma the cat practically materialized out of nowhere, batting at it through the fence.

"Lowkey obsessed with her," Maya admitted, sitting on the bench and actually, for the first time all day, not thinking about her broken phone.

"Join the club." Jordan sat next to her. "So, what's the deal with you and... you know?"

"What?"

"You and being impossible to find. Like, ever since homecoming, you've been different. More... present? But also not?"

Maya's stomach did that thing it always did when Jordan noticed her. Which was never, until apparently right now. "I've just been going through stuff. My parents are fighting again, and school is whatever, and I guess I've been using my phone to check out. Become a zombie, you know?"

Jordan nodded like this made perfect sense. "Same, honestly. That's why I started playing padel. Forces me to actually be somewhere." He paused. "Hey, so my friend is having this thing Saturday. No phones allowed, apparently. Super pretentious but might be fun?"

"Is this you asking me out? Or inviting me to a cult?"

"Both?" Jordan grinned, and it was so annoyingly charming that Maya couldn't even be mad about it.

Karma chose that moment to stick her paw through the fence and steal Jordan's water bottle cap.

"I think that's a yes," Jordan said.

"I think the cat has better game than you," Maya replied, but she was smiling. "But yeah. I'm in."

Her phone would be fixed eventually. But maybe, just maybe, she didn't need it to be alive. Maybe she could be more than a zombie scrolling through everyone else's life. Maybe she could actually live her own.