Three Percent Battery

Maya lay on her bedroom floor, the familiar weight of her iPhone pressed against her face. 3% battery. Again.

"You're literally the worst, Bubbles," she muttered to her goldfish, who swam lazily in his bowl on the nightstand, entirely unbothered by her crisis.

Her charging cable was draped across her pillow like a dead snake—she'd forgotten to plug it in AGAIN. Because she'd been too busy performing her nightly ritual: spy work on Jamie Castillo's Instagram stories.

Not that she'd ever call it stalking. Spy work sounded cooler. More purposeful. Less pathetic.

She'd been at it for three weeks since he'd moved schools. Every night at 11 PM, like clockwork, she'd scroll through his day: blurry gym selfies, aesthetic coffee shots, that one story where he'd mouthed along to some song she didn't recognize. She'd screenshot the good ones and analyze them with her best friend Sam like they were FBI agents decoding enemy intelligence.

"His story went up eight minutes ago," Sam had texted earlier. "He's at that boba place downtown. U should go."

Maya had laughed. As if. The closest she'd gotten to Jamie since October was liking his post from three weeks ago (and then immediately unliking it, then liking it again, then turning her phone off for four hours because WHAT IF HE SAW THE NOTIFICATION TWICE).

Now her thumb hovered over his profile. The 3% battery warning glowed orange. Do or don't. Reach out or don't. She'd been hovering for days.

Bubbles did a little flip, scattering fake aquarium plants.

"Fine," Maya said. "If you're gonna judge me, at least do something useful."

Her thumb slipped. Just a little. Just enough.

Heart — accidentally sent.

TO JAMIE CASTILLO.

MAYA: *heart emoji*

The screen went black. 0%.

Maya stared at her reflection in the dark glass, face hot with the kind of mortification that woke ancestors. She scrambled for her cable, fingers fumbling, jamming it in wrong twice before it clicked. The battery icon pulsed. 1%.

Her phone buzzed back to life.

One notification.

JAMIE CASTILLO: haha thanks?? i was wondering why u kept liking then unliking my stuff 😭

JAMIE CASTILLO: i was actually gonna message u but i didn't wanna seem weird

JAMIE CASTILLO: u at that boba place downtown rn?

Maya sat up, charging cable tangling around her legs, and stared at Bubbles.

"You know what," she said. "You're not completely useless."