Three Bars of Hope

Maya's iPhone vibrated for the third time in five minutes. She stared at the screen—*Seen 2:47 PM*—and felt that familiar zombie-like creep up her spine. The walking dead feeling of waiting for someone who was definitely not waiting for you.

"You good?"

Maya jumped. Leo stood there, tilting his beat-up dad hat backward like that made him deep. He held her cat, Mochi, who looked offended by everything.

"Fine," she muttered, shoving her phone deeper into her hoodie pocket. "Just waiting."

"For Jordan to reply?" Leo raised an eyebrow. "Bro, you've been zombie-walking all week. It's giving main character energy but like, the sad kind."

Maya flipped him off. Mochi chose that moment to leap from Leo's arms and bolt straight for the HDMI cable snaking across the floor, chaos in fur form.

They were supposed to meet Jordan tonight. Friday night. The culmination of three weeks of late-night DMs, shared Spotify playlists, and that one time Jordan had liked five of her posts in a row. The kind of electric maybe that makes you believe in grand gestures.

At 7:00 PM, Maya's phone stayed silent.

At 7:15, she watched Jordan's Instagram story unfold: party noise, laughing faces, someone's basement. No invite. No text. Just... nothing.

The zombie feeling crystallized into something sharp and bright. She wasn't waiting anymore.

She grabbed her hat from the hook—the one with the embroidered moon that made her feel like herself—and stuffed her phone into her desk drawer. The cable remained unplugged.

"Let's go," Maya told Leo. "Your house. Your brother's gaming setup. We're playing Mario Kart until I win."

"Bet." Leo grinned, understanding without her saying it. "Mochi's coming too."

Her phone buzzed somewhere behind her, distant and unimportant. Some things deserved to be left on read.