The WiFi Warrior

The cafeteria cable dangled from the ceiling like a broken promise, its frayed end just inches from my table. I'd been staring at it for ten minutes—longer than I'd been staring at Maya, which was saying something.

"You're basically a spy at this point," Lucas said, sliding onto the bench across from me. He gestured at my phone. "Third time this week you've 'accidentally' ended up at the table with perfect sightlines to her group."

"Shut up." I checked my phone again. No signal. The cafeteria WiFi was dead, and somehow that felt like a metaphor.

Maya laughed at something Jake said, throwing her head back. The sound carried over the lunchroom noise, bright and sharp. Jake, who played lacrosse and had a jawline that could cut glass. Jake, whose name I'd heard her say three times in one conversation yesterday.

"You should just talk to her," Lucas said, like it was that simple. Like everyone didn't already know their place in the ecosystem. "You're smart. You're funny when you're not being all brooding mysterious guy."

"Yeah, and then what? I become the guy who got rejected by the girl who's obviously into Jake? Hard pass." I spun my phone on the table. "Besides, I have a plan."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Does this plan involve staring at her from increasingly strategic locations until she gets a restraining order?"

"No." I pointed at the cable. "I'm gonna fix the WiFi. Then I'll sit here working on something 'important,' and she'll come over when she can't get signal, because she always forgets to pay her phone bill, and—"

"And you'll finally have a conversation that doesn't involve you watching her from across the room like a surveillance camera." Lucas shook his head. "You're overthinking this. Just be normal."

"Normal's overrated."

The truth was, I didn't know how to be normal around her. Every time she got within five feet, my brain turned to static. Like bad cable reception—all snow and noise, nothing coming through clear.

Maya stood up, and my heart did this stupid stutter thing it always did. She was heading toward the trash cans, which meant she'd pass right by my table. This was it. The moment I'd been planning for, psyching myself up for, since seventh grade.

"Hey," I said as she walked past.

She slowed. "Oh, hey! Marcus, right?"

"Yeah." My voice squeaked. Actually squeaked. "You're in my English class."

"English, yeah, Mr. Harrison's terrible jokes." She smiled, and I forgot how to speak English for a solid three seconds. "You working on something important?"

I looked down at my blank phone screen.

"WiFi troubleshooting," I heard myself say. "It's basically my full-time job now."

Maya laughed. "Well, if you ever get it working, let me know. I've been trying to send my mom a picture of my history project all period." She held up her phone. "No signal."

I stared at her phone, then mine, then the ceiling cable hanging uselessly above us.

"I could," I started, then stopped. My hands were sweating. This was it. The opening I'd been waiting for. All I had to do was not be weird.

"I could take a picture with my phone," I finished lamely. "My data plan still works. And then, I don't know, I could text it to you?"

Maya's face lit up. "Oh my god, would you? That's literally so nice, Jake was supposed to help me but he's been 'so busy' with lacrosse practice." The air quotes were brutal.

I suppressed the urge to high-five myself. Jake's busy. I'm not.

"Yeah," I said. "Glad to help."

"You're actually the best." She handed me her phone. "The project's in my bag, I'll go grab it."

As she walked away, Lucas leaned across the table. "You see that? That's what happens when you stop spying and start talking."

I looked at Maya's phone in my hand, at the ceiling cable that started this whole thing, at Maya coming back with her history project.

"Yeah," I said. "I see it."

Maybe sometimes the connection you're looking for isn't the one that comes through a cable. Sometimes it's the person who's been sitting three tables away, waiting for you to look up from your screen.