When the Cable Snaps

The HDMI cable dangled like a dead snake from my monitor, taunting me with its frayed ends. Three weeks into my streaming career and I was already losing it — not that anyone besides my twelve viewers noticed.

"You need to get outside more," Mom had said that morning, sliding a bottle of neon-orange gummy vitamins across my pristine white desk. "These have D3 and B12. For your mood." Because obviously, the solution to my existential crisis was chewable candy shaped like cartoon bears.

I'd grabbed the bottle, muttered "thanks," and immediately shoved them in my desk drawer next to my emergency Sour Patch Kids. The drawer was basically a wellness graveyard.

Now, as my stream crapped out for the third time tonight, I stared at the cable like it had personally betrayed me. My chat was already roasting me.

"mira's internet entered its villain arc"

"not the cable again lmaooo"

"this stream is cursed fr"

I reached for the spare cable I'd stolen from the living room TV — Dad would never notice, he was too busy watching sports on his phone anyway — when my door burst open.

"MIRABELLE!" Standing there was Cassidy, wearing that devastatingly perfect outfit that made her look like she'd just stepped out of a TikTok fashion video. "The group chat is literally blowing up about Jordan's party tonight and you're not replying."

"My stream—" I gestured helplessly at my frozen screen.

"Your stream has twelve people," she said, somehow managing to make that sound both supportive and devastating. "Jordan's party has everyone. Including Tyler."

Tyler. My stomach did that thing where it forgot how to stomach. I'd been low-key crushing on him since seventh grade when he'd let me borrow his math calculator after I forgot mine, and he'd drawn a tiny smiley face on the back in permanent marker.

"I can't go," I said, hating how pathetic I sounded. "I have to fix this cable and finish the stream and—"

"Bear with me," Cassidy interrupted, grabbing my arm. "You're going to the party. The cable can wait. Your viewers will survive."

"But—"

"No buts. You've been hiding in your room since school ended. It's July, Mira. You're supposed to be having fun, not having an existential crisis over HDMI cables and vitamin deficiencies."

She dragged me out of my gaming chair, past my desk with its drawer full of abandoned wellness attempts and its tangle of cables that represented everything I was trying and failing to become.

"Fine," I said. "But I'm bringing the gummy vitamins."

Cassidy laughed. "Whatever. Just put on something that isn't a hoodie from three years ago."

As she raided my closet, I realized something: maybe the cable wasn't the problem. Maybe I was so busy trying to be someone online that I'd forgotten how to be someone offline.

And if those vitamins were supposed to help my mood, tonight was definitely the time to find out if they actually worked.