The Signal

Maya stared at her reflection, the neon **orange** hair dye dripping onto the bathroom counter like radioactive sludge. Her mom was gonna lose it, but honestly? Maya was done with being the quiet girl who blended into lockers. Senior year was half over and she was still basically invisible.

"You look like a traffic cone," said Leo, leaning against the doorframe with his signature smirk. He'd been her neighbor since kindergarten and somehow still thought he was hilarious.

"Shut up, Leo." She wiped a smudge from her forehead. "It's called expressing myself."

"It's called permanent, Maya."

The next morning, Maya's **cat** Luna decided the orange hair was her new mortal enemy. As Maya frantically searched for her missing **iPhone**, Luna batted it under the bed like it was prey. The screen was cracked anyway—third time this semester. Some genius she was, dropping it while trying to look casual walking past Tyler's locker.

She grabbed her charging **cable** from the tangled mess on her nightstand. Just one bar. If Tyler finally texted back about the party tonight, she needed to actually see it.

But the cable was frayed. Of course. Because the universe had personally decided to wage psychological warfare against Maya Chen.

Her hair caught her reflection in the dark phone screen—wild, bright, completely extra. She started to reach for her old sweatshirt to cover it up, but stopped. Since when did she hide? Since always, that's when.

Maya grabbed her backpack, phone still dead, hair absolutely nuclear, and walked to school without checking her reflection once.

At lunch, Tyler actually sat at her table.

"Your hair's... intense," he said, kinda smiling. "It's cool though."

"Thanks," Maya said, and something weird happened—she actually meant it.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Dead battery, still vibrating with messages she couldn't see yet. But for the first time, Maya didn't care about missing them.

The signal had been there all along. She'd just stopped looking for it.