Unspooled

The coaxial **cable** lay coiled on my bedroom floor like a dead snake, its frayed end staring at me. Mom's voice echoed through the house: "Jordan! Did you take your **vitamin** D yet? You know the doctor said you're deficient."

I shoved the cable under my bed with my foot. Another thing I'd promised to fix and hadn't.

Three weeks ago, I'd been the guy with everything figured out. Track captain, 4.2 GPA, girlfriend who actually liked my jokes. Then came the shin splints. Then came the failing calculus grade. Then came Riley dumping me because I was "emotionally unavailable" — whatever that meant when you're seventeen.

Now I was **running** on empty, literally and figuratively. Coach had benched me indefinitely. My future felt like that cable: disconnected, messy, impossible to sort out.

"Jordan?"

I cracked my door open. Mom stood there holding the orange bottle, that look on her face — the one that said she knew something was wrong but wouldn't push. Not yet.

"Take it," she said simply. "We're having breakfast. Your dad made those pancakes you like."

I swallowed the pill without water. It stuck in my throat, chalky and defiant.

At school, I avoided the track team's usual table. Sat with Marcus and his friends instead — kids I'd barely spoken to since freshman year. Marcus was vaping something that smelled like cotton candy behind the gym.

"Want a hit?" he asked. "Takes the edge off."

For a second, I wanted to. Needed to. Anything to stop feeling like I was underwater.

Instead, I thought about the **cable** under my bed. How Dad had shown me to reconnect it when I was twelve, his big hands guiding mine. Strip the wire. Twist the copper. Connect. Some things you could fix.

"Nah," I said. "I'm good."

That afternoon, I pulled the cable from under my bed. Found the wire strippers in Dad's toolbox. Sat on my floor and worked until my fingers ached, stripping and twisting and connecting like he'd shown me.

The TV flickered to life. Static, then snow, then clear picture. Some old rerun I'd watched a million times as a kid.

It wasn't much. But it was something fixed.

Tomorrow, I'd talk to Coach about a rehab plan. Tomorrow, I'd ask Riley if we could at least be friends. Tomorrow, I'd find a tutor for calculus.

Tonight, I just watched TV and took my **vitamin** without being asked, and for the first time in weeks, something felt connected again.